The common sense of TikTok

If you happen to attend any event, whether public or private, large and inclusive or, conversely, terribly exclusive, and you come across a gentleman or lady, young or elderly, accompanied by a film crew, rest assured that they are not hard-hitting journalists making a documentary, nor are they actors shooting a film without a Cartocci van parked outside the building (as you often see in summer). No, in all likelihood, it will be a mayor or a councillor putting together a reel, just like any other content creator.

The story of mayors on social media is nothing new. The latest and most notable example is that of New York’s Mamdani, who perhaps owes his success to his impeccable and imaginative use of Instagram and TikTok: he dives (fully clothed, in his famous SuitSupply suits) into a municipal swimming pool to announce the start of the public bathing season; the freeze on fair rent is announced from inside a freezer compartment, and then there are many other stunts and little ideas that work a treat. But before Mamdani, in Rome there was already Gualtieri (when you had Mamdani, we in Rome were already content creators). 

He has devised a highly original format, in which he unveils every structure – flowerbeds, manhole cover, underpass and overpass, always wearing a yellow hard hat, watering the few saplings that will survive the heatwave – so much so that it has spawned a flurry of memes, with accounts such as ‘Gualtieri pointing at things’, and then the impression done by former Forza Italia MP Simone Baldelli, with the ‘Gualtieri’s building sites’ format. And in Milan, Beppesala – all in one word? He was one of the first to recognise the power of social media, with his catchphrases “Buongiornomilano!” and his rainbow socks. And in Genoa, Silvia Salis is all the rage, but even before that we had Antonio DeCaro in Bari, with “Antonio DeCaro’s girls”, and then Benevento – the Mastellas’ stronghold – and Salerno – the De Lucas’s stronghold – and what about the ‘Duce-esque’ Bandecchi? 

The mayor, mayors and female mayors are familiar figures; we have them on our mobile phones, they pop up with their reels at the most unexpected moments, and the more nostalgic among us might wonder when we went from a generally anonymous figure such as the mayor to media superstars, who often even overshadow politicians of greater national stature. For decades, the mayor was a figure almost akin to a notary, a stepping stone to a political career that was once long-lasting. Of course, there were mayors who became celebrities, or celebrities who became mayors, such as Fiorello La Guardia in New York, or the ‘saintly’ mayor Giorgio La Pira in Florence, who lived in a monastery but spoke with the world’s powerful, or Clint Eastwood, the health-conscious mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea in California (later invoked in Rome in an ‘anti-McDonald’s’ guise). How we went from La Pira to Mamdani, who speaks from the freezer, we’ll never know – and that’s fine.  

This shift, of course, has been a long time coming; in Italy, perhaps as early as the 1990s with the introduction of direct mayoral elections, when the mayor became a celebrity: in Rome, Rutelli zoomed about in his cream-coloured Sh, whilst in Milan, Albertini sported his Dolce & Gabbana boxer shorts. Today, however, it’s a different story, and here, like good boomers, we blame all our woes on the evil of social media. The vertical screen works in the mayor’s favour, transforming him into a performer: he has a whole host of selfie opportunities that are off-limits to national politicians. The Reel brings him closer, personalises him; the mayor ‘takes you with him into his en-suite bathroom’ just like property influencers do – it feels as though he’s speaking directly to you!  ‘He takes you’ to the big event, or to see the little plant, or to fix the pothole, and you’re absolutely chuffed – after all, you’ve paid the licence fee for this programme, between the Tari and the Rai licence fee.  

But whilst we’re all used to the mayor as content creator, there’s one level that remains unexplored: that of the councillors. Acting as key stand-ins for their superiors, councillors are the stars of a fascinating social media programme, which relies on their imagination and creativity. The other evening, for example, I was at a key event in Rome when I spotted the unmistakable figure of Alessandro Onorato, Rome’s Councillor for Tourism, Sport and Major Events. He is also the founder of Progetto Civico Italia: a sort of centrist civic ‘organisation’ of enormous interest. 

Just like him: ever-present, a real looker, with a rebellious quiff and a booming voice like Giuseppe Conte’s. There he was, dressed all in blue – suit and shirt – looking incredibly smart, on the steps of the Gallery of Modern Art; then I lost sight of him, swallowed up by the crowd. A few hours later, I headed home and my phone rang out with that booming voice.  “I’ll take you with me to the Fendi fashion show,” and off it goes, set to the music of Blondie’s “Heart Of Glass”, complete with slow-motion shots and other highly sophisticated effects – a reel of the Fendi show, narrated by the councillor himself. And there, fuelled by the power of Instagram, I’m sucked into Onorati’s media schedule. A few weeks ago, it was him again, this time dressed casually, wearing bracelets, a light-coloured, perforated short-sleeved polo shirt, looking appropriately excited, with his quiff blowing in the splendid setting of Tor Vergata: “I’m taking you to Ultimo’s concert”; and with an agitated yet confident stride, he “takes us” right up to the front of the stage, thanking the emergency services – “the fire brigade and every single security officer” – but above all announcing: “Fabrizio Moro has just started singing. He’ll be the one to open this historic event”, a bit like Cecchetto at the Festivalbar of our childhood”. And even better: “We’re here amongst the 250,000 hearts beating for Ultimo’s concert!” 

 

The young man is brimming with talent – and, after all, he is the councillor for major events, not small or medium-sized ones – but to the analogue boomer in us, it seems somewhat unusual that the councillor is now also a well-known reporter, a director and a producer, with his own programme in the style of “Nonsolomoda”, the famous 1980s lifestyle show. It’s not that he isn’t good: he’s too good. And a moralist might say: ‘You, Onorato the producer, step aside; let me see Onorato the councillor, and the concert, but above all, get the people home (those poor souls who ended up trapped in the splendid surroundings of Tor Vergata! ‘But you don’t interrupt an emotion,’ the Honourable Director would say), and here we certainly don’t want to get into ethics, preferring instead to focus on aesthetics. Every councillor has their own style, after all. I’m mesmerised by Onorato – by his booming voice, his quiff, and even the way he cuts through the air with his hands to emphasise his words. I would be interested in seeing (if it exists) an analysis of Onorato’s communication and posture by another of today’s leading figures, the communication expert Patrick Facciolo – the man who appears on Chiambretti’s programme and analyses the physical communication of celebrities. For example, Facciolo claims that when Vannacci appears on Lilli Gruber’s programme, he exhibits ‘clavicular breathing’ – which has nothing to do with those strange ‘Clavicular’ American characters – but this type of breathing is said to be a sign of severe stress and fear. According to Facciolo, the mayor of Genoa, Salis, makes ‘manipulative’ gestures; that is, she clings to the lectern, thereby revealing insecurity, and instead does not make those ‘batonic’ gestures – that is, the correct ones, with the hand cutting downwards from above (in short, Onorato is very ‘batonic’, as we’ve seen).  

Also present at the Fendi fashion show was Milan’s Councillor for Culture, Tommaso Sacchi, who is also quite a socialite and active on Instagram, though perhaps he doesn’t make many ‘baton-like’ gestures – I should study him more closely.  I didn’t, however, spot my favourite, the legendary Sabrina Alfonsi, Rome’s Councillor for Green Spaces and Agriculture. Aged 55, with a degree in anthropology, over time she has managed to transform herself into a sort of municipal Licia Colò. On her “channel”, here she is tackling the issue of green spaces – perhaps also to counter the many controversies surrounding the indiscriminate felling of the capital’s centuries-old trees – she’s really going for it with the greenery. She’s inaugurating more flowerbeds than even Giulia Maria Crespi could have managed in three hundred years; by comparison, Gualtieri is a rather lacklustre inaugurator. In a reel, Alfonsi is seen tending to the "white floribundas" – "those roses that produce many flowers on a single stem" – whilst inaugurating the 84th edition of the Premio Roma, "an annual event that transforms our Municipal Rose Garden into a meeting place for the culture of greenery, horticultural research and civic participation". Interviewed in a sketch – a variation on the ‘Fagnane beasts’ – she is asked: ‘Councillor, what plant do you feel like?’ Her reply: ‘A Roman mimosa.’ Whilst laying a paving slab, she declares: ‘This might look like peperino, but it’s actually a photocatalytic paving slab! We’re talking about interlocking blocks made of titanium dioxide!’ (Here we’re halfway between Quark and the teleshopping programmes of Protagonisti del Novecento). She reaches the climax in a sophisticated meta-reel. “We’ve planted a hundred lime trees on Viale Europa; let’s go and have a look” (the eternal variation on “I’ll take you to the en-suite bathroom”). And she takes us to a flowerbed where “growth stimulants have been applied” (perhaps like the infamous green paints reported in Rome, used on flowerbeds to make them look healthier than they actually are). But just when you think you’ve reached the narrative climax, the councillor-director-protagonist exclaims: “Let’s switch over to the UmbriaFlor nursery. Good evening. Here is the director of Umbriaflor.” The director of Umbriaflor, connected via the councillor’s mobile phone, in a mise en abyme that not even Gianni Boncompagni, nor Gianni Minoli’s vintage ‘Mixer’, nor even Kubrick at his most inspired would have conceived, explains the whole business of the growth stimulants to us. It is worth noting that Alfonsi keeps her hands quite open, a bit like a starfish, I would say, in a gesture that I am not sure could be described as ‘batonic’.

 

In short, as you can see, there’s something for everyone. Whilst Onorato could be part of a boy band, Alfonsi looks a bit like a hippy singer, à la Joan Baez, with her ethnic necklaces, kaftans and headband. It must also be said that councillors, like mayors, improve with time in front of the camera. And do be kind to them: whenever you see a councillor making a Reel, bear in mind that that councillor is fighting their own battle – against the iPhone, against looking ridiculous, against this world which has now become one big Mamdani gag. However, Onorato has a generational advantage, much like another digitally native councillor, the sensation of the moment: Lorenzo Pacini, the ‘baby Mamdani’, a thirty-year-old from Milan who is positioning himself as a rising star of the far-left. With 80,000 followers, currently the councillor for Parks and Street Furniture in the first municipal district of the Lombard capital, he is standing in the local party primaries. At the moment, he’s active with ‘neighbourhood watermelon parties’, a reference also to the watermelon symbolising support for the Palestinian cause. Pacini is the mayor – or aspiring mayor – who appeals to the sort of people who are in the know. Handsome, with a soft ‘r’, always elegant, whether in a smart suit or a matching set, he seems – by some strange twist of fate – to be the son of ‘Parods’ – the brother of Cristina and Benedetta Parodi, who mock the ‘radical chic’ crowd from the right on social media. Pacini proclaims simple and effective slogans, such as “with the people, for the people”; he is a brilliant communicator, having launched his own candidacy from a bocce court, and is equally at ease on “old-school” television: “Resistance now and forever,” he proclaims as a guest on La Zanzara, where he gets worked up, particularly against the fascists: “We’ve already sent you packing with our guns, and we’ll do it again.”’ When Enrico Letta posted a photo of the most recent presidents – excluding Trump (i.e. Obama, Biden, Clinton and Bush Jr.) – to mark the 250th anniversary of the American Declaration of Independence, speaking of ‘the America we love’, Pacini snapped: ‘What the fuck are you on about! We’re not a colony!’ 

Part Clark Gable of Bovisa, part Taricone of Area C, he makes ladies and gentlemen sigh in the shadow of the Duomo. His forte is driving the billionaires out of Milan: the figure, the totem that unites all the Mamdanis and sub-Mamdanis of the world. “Billionaires don’t bring wealth,” he proclaims, wearing one of those T-shirts with contrasting embroidered lettering – red on a white background – “It’s not envy, it’s class struggle.” “Billionaires are the bloody problem,” he says, like a dubbed American actor. His programme is “The Milan Revolution”,  and the very well-designed logo (we are, after all, in Milan) is the classic ‘biscione’—once the symbol of the Visconti family, then of Berlusconi, Alfa Romeo, Inter and so many other Milanese institutions—but here ‘el bisson’, which was originally depicted with a child in its mouth (perhaps a Saracen of the time), is munching on a portly gentleman with a moustache and top hat: in short, yet another billionaire. One of his most iconic appearances is when, in the rain, and in front of Cattelan’s raised middle finger directed at the Stock Exchange, he rallies everyone to “tax the 1 per cent”, and then he, too, gives a big middle finger right back at them, the billionaires (in the comments below the post, the one commenting enthusiastically – as you’ll have realised – is Patrick Facciolo; ‘what a glorious move’, says the expert. When it comes to baton-style gestures, no one can beat him).