I received the following email: “You are the one I want to know well. Ciao. My nominative is Marina, 30 years me. I saw you profile and decided to produce to you. How you are doing? I have a marvelous state of mind. I am looking for an individual for serious relation, what type of link that you are searching? I am very interested to know you, but believe it be better if you and me corrispond by email. If you are stimulated to do the comprehension with me, here my email address: abhojiku@nokiamail.com. Or me email your email address I will write you circular. One cannot start I hope without the attention and the epistle you write me. I would be very please to collect your opinion. I wait the hour your missive in the mail. Your Marina.”
The photo attached shows a creature worthy of Miss Universe, ready to be invited to an elegant dinner by a prime minister, so the question is why a young girl as attractive as Marina is reduced to looking for a “serious” relationship on the Internet. Maybe the photo has been taken from some online site and hidden behind Marina is a character who might interest Roberto Saviano, though who knows? Yet since there are plenty of gullible people around, I’m leaving her address in the message so that anyone who wishes can hasten into an affectionate correspondence with her. Needless to say, I accept no responsibility for the consequences. Judging by the number of people watching teleshopping or horoscope channels and the many voters in the previous elections, Marina can hope for a great many virtual followers.
As for the virtual world, it is widely known, since the news has spread across the Internet, that one of my false Twitter accounts recently announced the death of Dan Brown, while my own death was announced on another. Although all organs of information have established that this was a hoax, I see that some people then assumed that, since everyone knows I’m a notorious prankster, I had sent a “false” message from a “real” address. In short, the gods are ready to amaze all those who wish to lose themselves on the Web, and I hope there’s someone out there who will get in touch with Marina and start up a beautiful friendship.
Teachers who want to show young people how not to trust the Internet can find websites that expose online hoaxes. Fortunately, as well as hosting bogus sites, the Internet has ways of unmasking them. All you need to know is how to navigate properly.
But Web idolatry has its victims. Take the news that appeared last week. In Rome, a boy straddled over the parapet of his bedroom window on the ninth floor of an apartment block with a knife to his stomach threatens to kill himself. Family, police, fire brigade, inflatable mattress stretched out on the ground below. No one can persuade him to climb down. Until the boy shouts out that he wants to appear on a reality show, and wants to be taken there in a limousine. The police remember there’s a limousine parked nearby, used the previous day for a publicity shoot. They have it brought there, and the boy gets down.
Moral of the story: the only “real” thing that can dissuade someone from suicide is the promise of virtual reality. It’s easy to say the boy was disturbed, but this is no comfort to us, since it’s reasonable to imagine that all those who believe in reality shows (or who reply to Marina, or who seriously believe those sites that suggest the attack on the Twin Towers was carried out by Bush and by the Jews) would easily pass a psychiatric test. Therefore, apart from exceptional cases, the problem of the virtual world doesn’t relate to the sick but to the sane.
2013