Who talks about Ferragni.
Today we can't not talk about Ferragni, or the Ferragnez as they say with a portmanteau (or "Macedonian word" if you want to impress the ladies of the salons you frequent). Since in this period I read many second-order logic and category theory books, I decided to use a different approach: to talk about the Ferragnez talking about who talks about them, in order to describe them using their effects, but without talking about them. Second order rocks.
Fedez, Ferragni's husband, in a topological sense the convex part of the couple, where Ferragni is the concave part, is not very useful for a discussion. We're talking about a “rap musician”, that is a singer who doesn't sing, with music that isn't music. A discrete definition of the empty set, but at the end of the empty set you can't talk much.
The female of the two remains, i.e. the topologically concave part of the couple. It is definitely not an empty set (which isn't always good news: ask Cantor what I mean), and we have Russell to thank for not having a definition of "full set". We just say “not empty”.
So, as I anticipated, I won't talk about Ferragni, but about who talks about it. I chose one article in particular, because it strives to define a complementary whole, which is a perfect trick to define something without ever defining it. Define the complement.
The article is this:
https://www.today.it/opinioni/ferragni-capitalismo.html
It is clearly what Elio e le storie tese would call "an article from May 1st", the title of which makes me understand one thing: the lady is keen to let people know that she attended a high school. Those who didn't like college often do it: they identify with the school they liked best. Strange, I liked the Alma Mater.
I don't want to label the lady(in)a in question, so I'll refer to the journalist by saying "the likes of her", because once again second-order logic stretches your dick better than an SUV. In the field of complexes, I mean.
Like all "those like her", Sandra Figliuolo uses high school terms to indicate things. For example, use the word "capitalism" to mean sometimes consumerism, sometimes hedonism, sometimes materialism. Marx, who defined the word, had assigned none of these meanings to it. Never. However, this is how it is done in high school, because it is used for the May 1st song. Of the May Day complex. Bregovitch!
Let's decrypt the "liceese" of Mrs.(in)a.
“Chiara Ferragni is just the horrible mirror of capitalism” tells me one thing: logic has nothing to do with it. Because put like this it seems that the mirror is horrible, while it seems that capitalism is neutral. In high school this phrase works, but outside of high school you don't understand why the mirror image of capitalism is awful. Perhaps Sandra Figliuolo hates mirrors. Or logic.
I quote the article.
The annoying thing is that when we talk about it, all we do is feed the algorithm that generates hot air, likes, comments, idiocy and lots and lots of money. And then the fact that there is no alternative is extremely annoying: either you like her, she's fantastic, beautiful, very intelligent, a great entrepreneur and blah blah blah or then you're just envious because you're ugly, dirty, bad (and poor). It cannot simply be said that Chiara Ferragni has one great merit: to be the mirror and symbol of the empty, individualistic and squalid world in which we live.
I've been working in the IT sector for the past 28 years, and I can guarantee that algorithms don't feed. I know that lately the word algorithm indicates something that the Greeks would have called a "demon", but when you say "if it rains, I'll open an umbrella" you have written an algorithm. How do you feed it? I don't know.
If the lady meant that by talking about it Ferragni becomes richer thanks to an algorithm, I have bad news for her. The concept of "engagement" today mainly concerns controversy and ugliness (hate, racism, etc). To fuel Ferragni's fame, and therefore her influence index, is not talking about it. It's talking bad about it.
And it's engagement that brings money. If you prefer the "algorithm" that brings in money. So, what is NOT an algorithm?
If the article spoke well of Ferragni, it would not enrich her. Instead he will, because it's ugly and argumentative. Nice problem.
Having clarified that the lady has no idea what social network metrics are, at the end of the period I find the usual delivery of Smemoranda's Agenda (for those who weren't there: a kind of high school blog, only that no one read it Maybe that was a good thing.) In short, a tirade on the mirror and on the symbol of an empty, individualistic and squalid world, in which no one understands that Sandra Figluolo is much better than us.
OK'. It doesn't bode well, but it will feed the engagement algorithm.
It cannot be said that Chiara Ferragni is the product – not of cultural revolutions and customs, not of feminism and the struggles of our mothers and grandmothers – but of that rapacious and annihilating capitalism which is based on consumerism (and which washes the conscience with charity). The Frankfurt School, Fromm and Marcuse cannot be bothered to make it clear that freedom, the one represented by Ferragni, is the greatest of prisons, because it provides that every desire and every impulse is channeled exclusively towards objects to buy and possess, which you are what you have and that you determine yourself only by choosing between one brand and another.
Here the ambiguity of natural languages is abused once again. We talk about the struggles of "our" mothers and "our" grandmothers, spreading the struggles of very few women over everyone (including Figliuolo), dividing their inheritance. But are we all heirs? Did Son's grandmother struggle? Was she a feminist? It would even be interesting, more than an article on Ferragni, to learn about the heroic deeds of Figliuolo's grandmother. I swear.
Then comes the senseless pippone (but in high school this thing wets the passerOna to the teacher) on the Frankfurt School, Fromm and Mancuse (he could also include Charlemagne, but the Geneva convention forbids it), which has the same meaning as writing "viva the pussy and who burdigas” on the wall, instead of saying “I'm a heterosexual male and I want it to be known”. Those names have nothing to do with the context, much less with Ferragni and they don't even mix very well with each other, but in an empty and materialistic world, a little branding doesn't hurt. “I have the Mercedes, and you? I only drive Marcuse or Fromm." Foodie!
In practice, Marcuse, Fromm and the Frankfurt School are a status symbol for those like her. She looks like the daughter of those 68-year-olds who one day entered the bookstore saying "I have to get educated quickly, give me the most boring book you have".
Logically, it's a disaster. Distilled nonsense . It starts from the idea that Ferragni represents freedom. Why does it represent freedom and not, say, aromatic hydrocarbons? Because, as it was written on the wall of my high school, "an archetype is better than a stereotype". Whatever it means. But how good it sounds.
However, this freedom hypothetically represented by Ferragni is the largest of prisons, therefore it is not a freedom (either we do metaphysics or we do criticism, Mr.(in)a Figliuolo), and away with the high school pippone who, however, Pahlaniuk in Fight Club has been screwing you for years: “the things you own own you”. Considering the fact that fight club has become the manifesto of MGTOW, I could criticize the journalist's rhetorical choice in many ways.
Let's remember that in high school, Being or Having was the must of the quote. Especially for those who spent all their time wishing for designer pants. I mean, all of high school.
A sad world, without empathy and solidarity, heavy and profoundly unfair, but hidden behind glitter and sequins, and, since it lacks Culture, inevitably also without critical sense. A world where there are crowds that cheer a 35-year-old woman who has the language skills of a 13-year-old girl, who, despite being the head of an empire, is however unable to speak confidently in public for 8 minutes, of formulate sentences that also include some subordinate clauses
I will temporarily omit the abuse of the capital C in "Cultura", typical of those like her, because I see her engaged in a sterile dithyramb (*) against Ferragni's literary abilities.
But…but… Ferragni is not famous for being a writer, or for literary merits.
It is as if I were criticizing the martial arts of Rita Levi Montalcini. He sucked at Muay Thai, (he fought like a hundred year old woman), but maybe (gambling) this is due to the fact that he did something else for a living. Why we should judge the literary qualities of Ferragni, who does not work in the field of literature, in a context like Sanremo, is an absolute mystery.
In his defense not even Mr.(in)a Figliuolo is famous in the world of logic.
To say it all, observing Figliuolo, one would say that she was born in a house where they spoke dialect – guessing it was a southern one – and then learned Italian as a second language. He is certainly fluent in Italian, but he certainly didn't learn it at home: the high school construction of the speech is noticeable. Basically, the class assignment. Italian is his second language, not his first.
Under these conditions, if Ferragni is still at 13, Figliuolo is still at 16, when she learned to master Dante's language. Anyone who loves the well-ordering theorem (which for the record is equivalent to the axiom of choice) will be happy, but we could have done better. For example, continuing to learn Italian at University.
Which lines up – rather than concepts – a series of memes and clichés, wearing the mask of insecurity and fragility to try to dodge the inevitable criticisms of those who don't fall for it. Model for thousands (perhaps millions) of people, capable – always according to algorithms – of dictating fashions and trends, one of the best-known influencers in the world, but frankly badly dressed (by dint of wanting to be original at all costs one often becomes ridiculous ). The drawn nude, gentlemen, says more than a semiotic square.
"Being a woman is not a limit" she said from the Ariston stage the other night (where once again she was able to speak only of herself: she is the product for sale, is that clear?), almost with a surge of revolt, but always paying homage to the dominant thought of the moment. We are in 2023, thinking that this could be a feminist slogan means not having even the vaguest idea of the timeless revolution of Aretha Franklin who sang "Respect" in 1967, for example, or more simply of the navel of Raffaella Carrà or the bras in plain sight of Madonna. It means having the presumption of being able to change history without knowing it at all.
On the "semiotic square" it seems to shoot at the Red Cross. However, since I've just invented "sterile dithyrambo" and dedicated it to the clitoris, we can think that "semiotic square" is dedicated to the dick. A bullshit, in short.
The importance, in the discourse that you want to make, of Ferragni's clothing escapes me. I admit she is an entrepreneur in the fashion world, but she wasn't there in this capacity. She was there as a communicator, since TV doesn't understand the concept of "influencer".
Was it a criticism of television communication?
I must say that a critique of television communication, especially in an abyss broadcast like Sanremo, recalls the scene in which we criticize the furnishings of Auschwitz. Everyone agrees that a sofa was really needed, but that wasn't the problem of Auschwitz!
I'm interested, since I was there in the 80s, to observe the mythology of the Figliuolo. I well remember that we young people of the period were referred to as "the disengagement" if not as "the reflux", because unlike the seventy-year-olds we didn't give a damn about Katanga and Palestine.
Instead, I learn about our political commitment, which consisted in our relationship with Madonna's bra.
Having been run over by Madonna's bra (a civilized stop, I'd say) I find today that we were really busy. As it turns out, Madonna's bra was a game changer. Come on.
Now enough with drugs, and let's face it as it should be said: in those years nobody smoked Madonna's bra, because Moana Pozzi was talked about by Pippo Baudo and Cicciolina in parliament. The American amateur, said as it should be said, only fourteen-year-olds with puffed shoulder pads and backcombed hair got away with. I liked Doro Pesch, Siouxie Sioux, and Wendy O. Williams: Madonna's bra was, at best, a bad imitation. The “spagheti bolognese” I see in restaurants here.
In a society where freedom is measured by bank accounts and the number of followers, Chiara Ferragni is actually free. Much less are all those women who are perhaps even fascinated by her (and buy products with her horrible brand to try to look like her), but who are born and grow up in degraded neighborhoods, who become pregnant at 14 because in this "free" country ” sex education in compulsory school is a taboo, which they cannot study because they have to bring bread home, spending themselves washing the stairs or rinsing the dishes in order to have the traits of a sixty-year-old at 35 (and 3 or 4 pregnancies). Or having studied, being very well prepared, but having to practice very delicate professions (from doctor to lawyer, from journalist to architect) with wages that do not reach one thousand euros a month.
Here we are in the field of clichés. It has the cardinality of the continuum, but it really is not clear where the statements come from. It's raining axioms. If society measured freedom from bank accounts, almost everyone would be considered prisoners, given that the distribution of wealth in Italy is very bad. The number of followers has never been proposed as an index of freedom, at most it is an index of importance, unless it is said so in dialect, where Mrs.(in)a Figliuolo lives.
I doubt it in degraded neighborhoods (which ones? ) considering the costs. A woman who does cleaning after dropping out of school at 14 and having four children can't afford them, at most she buys imitations. (but you can't even afford four kids, for that matter) These figures of speech are a bit like the 73-year-old lady who struggles to use any kind of technology. Yesterday I was talking about it with my 76-year-old mother in a video on Telegram. A great convenience if you live in a foreign country.
Thus we have the topos: the 73-year-old old woman, the cleaning mammal who wears designer clothes, and to get the consent of the luckiest ones, she also puts in the less mammalian and more studious young people who earn little: a hymn against capitalism .
By the way: write a very pompous and cacophonous article describing how much capitalism disgusts you, saying that being is better than having, and that freedom is not measured by the bank account, and THEN end by complaining that you make little money as a journalist.
There wasn't even the shadow of the most vulgar feminism in Signora Ferragni's monologue, there wasn't an ounce of freedom in the rudimentary thoughts she tried to express. And what's worse: the emotions weren't true either. Just a very long (and unbearable) spot to sell, sell, sell. Monetize, and it is actually very good at this. But I dream of a world in which Being and not Having counts, in which people are free because they all have access to the tools to learn, know, know and therefore think and choose, performing slightly more demanding actions than a like like trained monkeys. In which monologues make them people who have something to say and who can change reality with the power of words. For the better.
Here comes the moment of the final bangs, which characterize the end of every fireworks show. It is not clear whether it is good or bad that there is (or not) "vulgar" feminism: before leaving Italy, I used the word "vulgar" as a derogatory term. Has the meaning changed in the meantime? I ask: is it a good thing or a bad thing that there hasn't been the vulgarest feminism? At a rough guess it's a good thing.
"There wasn't an ounce of freedom in the thoughts he tried to express." Oh God, it's not that Figliuolo shines with an elegant thought structure (unless she's an admirer of Le Corbusier), but the bullshit about macaroni comes when she says that, obviously, "not even the emotions were true". He writes it seriously.
It makes me wonder what will happen when Figliuolo discovers that Sylvester Stallone was never a soldier or a boxer, that the dragons of Game of Thrones do not exist, that porn actresses act, or that Sanremo is a broadcast television with writers and screenplay. NOTHING is authentic. It's all built. By definition, by contract and by convenience. Were we talking about a Reality TV, I could still understand it: in that case we all want “true” emotions. But it's San Remo. A construction for national-popular families: "true" emotions kill the national-popular family like so many vampires exposed to the sun. IT IS OBVIOUS that the emotions of Sanremo are fake.
He disputes that Ferragni would be "a very long commercial to sell, sell, sell", as if Sanremo weren't a television broadcast aimed at audiences, to advertise and sell, sell, sell. I repeat: either you criticize or you do metaphysics.
As for the story that only those who can change the world with words make monologues, I would like to remind you that the monologue trend on TV was launched by Adriano Celentano. Maybe that's why today's world is so Yuppi Du.
She dreams of a world of verbs, (To be, to have, to eat, to walk) where everyone has access to the tools to learn. And he writes it on the internet. The network accessible to all where, if desired, all human knowledge can be found. I have bad news for you: EVERYONE has access to knowledge today. I can remotely enroll in a Japanese course, and learn it. (my daughter does, but ok, it's like with the feminist grandmother).
The problem (that those like Figliuolo don't understand) is that, even if they have the possibility, not everyone WANT TO DO IT.
Don't tell me that today there are branches of knowledge that are inaccessible to those who know how to use the internet as a cognitive tool. Everyone, everyone, everyone has access to tools to know. Coursera courses are FREE. I traveled 40 km by train to go to a university library to find out what a "scrambler" was, in the 80s.
They all have cognitive tools, ma'am: it's called the “Internet”. If they don't want to use them, it's because they DON'T WANT TO. And at this point the problem of freedom arises: if people prefer Sanremo between looking at Ferragni's non-boobs and spending time on Coursera, it's part of their freedom.
By taking away freedom, we could force everyone to spend their evenings on Coursera.
Can not be said? And I say it without any envy: behind the selfies and make-up there is absolute nothingness and it doesn't even take much to unmask it. It is enough to have that ability to think and reason against which characters like Ferragni invest every second of their existence and every energy in order to better govern masses of imbeciles.
What "cannot be said"? If there is one characteristic of today's social media world, it is that even the most horrendous, petty, execrable and execrated things can be said. By now there are ministers dressed as SS and people praising genocide. What "cannot be said"?
This discourse is called "revolution as a hobby", or rather this absurd and anachronistic attitude of those who "transgress" of those who "do what is forbidden", 'say what cannot be said', forgetting that in order to transgress it takes rules, and then forgetting that in this century RULES DON'T EXIST ANYMORE (and it's becoming rare to even find someone who remembers them).
In general, this article is the equivalent of "if you like pussy pull the line" that was in the toilets of boys, in high school. The writer meant "I'm a heterosexual male, and I want there to be no doubts about that."
Likewise, what does this high school article mean? It means
“I'm better than you, I'm better than everyone, because I know how to think better than you, I prefer To Be than To Have, or To Grind rather than Mill, (in short,” because I have the power of verbs”) because I have it with capitalism, which I identify with other entities that would never have crossed Marx's mind, and because I don't want freedom to be measured against the bank account , but journalists only earn a thousand euros a month."
Do you want some advice, Mrs. Figliuolo?
You draw a line too. It is synthetic, apotropaic, ithyphallic (cit.), propaedeutic, Aristotelian, and especially it doesn't happen in the newspapers.
What does this tell us about Ferragni?
She's the hottest "primina" (13-year-old first year high school student) in school, she has a very cool boyfriend Chad who sings rap, but the older girls snub her.
Nothing serious.
(*) I dedicate the creation of "sterile dithyrambo" to the clitoris, my source of inspiration.