Huda, Salah, Rocco and Leonardo: the world of rights saved by children.

This article is published in number 16 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until April 20, 2021

Top left Rocco, right Leonardo. Bottom left Huda and then Salah.

On the evening of August 21 last Huda Lahoual, 17, was returning home from the pizzeria where she worked as a cashier in the summer. The journey was not long: a quarter of an hour by train to Veduggio, his village, and then a ten minute walk. It was not even 9.30 but it was already dark, and not even a soul around.

When a man on a bicycle approached her – ‘What’s your name? Come on, stop and talk »- Huda was holding the phone. After yet another invitation to get away and leave her alone, the girl started filming: 4 minutes of video anyone should watch to really understand what catcalling is – a word that also sounds nice, but indicates nothing more than verbal sexual harassment – and see the violence it hides. At the end of the video, when the man on the bicycle goes away – not before proposing, several times, to go to him to fuck – Huda is breathing hard. She will continue to do so – breathing hard, crying, not wanting to leave the house – in the following days when that testimony, which she posted on Instagram, goes viral. It now has a million views and Instagram and TikTok accounts (@riphuda on both) of this petite and tenacious girl have become one of the increasingly numerous places on the net where many things are discussed: from racism to feminism, from toxic masculinity to LGBTQI + rights; where those who don’t know can ask questions without fear of feeling judged and where those who think they know perhaps should go to get a photograph of today’s kids and the power of social media.
Huda, born in Italy of Moroccan parents, has experienced in her 17, few, many years, many of the things she talks about. “I grew up with this non-Italian face in a small town in Brianza. I was bullied and I hated myself: especially my hair, which I burned with acids and the plate to make it straight. At school they said to me: how disgusting, don’t you wash them? ». One summer afternoon, while at home with her sister, Huda takes the machine and shaves to zero. Live Instagram. “It was one of the most beautiful and important things I’ve ever done. My way to stop suffering. The hair grew back and I really saw it for the first time: it was, it is, beautiful. I understood and told on social media that you can be beautiful even if you are not white, and smooth ». Since, as she says, “if you study one discrimination, you discover others”, and also: “The more you inform yourself, the more things concern you”, started activism with different languages ​​on the two social networks: lighter, even comic, on TikTok, more articulated, and serious, on Instagram. At the end of his posts or videos, Huda always invites his followers (144,000 on TikTok and 60,000 on Instagram) to share their experiences: “Knowing that you are not alone in living certain situations, being told that no, those behaviors are not normal, and they hurt others too, it helps a lot ». Her activism is the son of the opposition in which she grew up: «My family is halfway between the freedom she experienced in Italy and the traditional Arab culture, in which women suffer in silence. I think it’s this idea of ​​having to shut up that makes me talk. My mother is very happy, and also proud, of what I do ».

Also Salah El Ayoubi, 18 years old from Crema (@Salacca on social media) grew up on the same cultural divide as Huda and, like her, created her real and social identity in that space. For his over 77,000 followers on Instagram and 445,000 on TikTok Salacca is «a friend on the phone. It doesn’t matter if we never meet, even virtual relationships are real, ”he explains. In stark contrast to stereotypes, for him, social networks are a positive and safe place: he has no hater; perhaps, he says, because of his always kind way of being. What scares him the most is the outside world, where he finds it harder to be what he is: a gay guy who doesn’t want to hide, but who actually uses make-up as an expression of himself and his creativity. “I’ve been harassed in real life, and when I come home in the evening wearing makeup, I literally die of fear. The Zan Ddl is necessary because people like me are not safe and this makes us different from the others. I don’t deserve to be afraid, I deserve to be free. And if someone hurts me, the hateful and specific mark of what he did must remain forever on his criminal record ».
Salah on Instagram has invented «Let’s talk about it», a column in which, with stories worthy of an information media, he addresses issues such as Islamophobia, ability, whitewashing, revenge porn. «I study the arguments and then try to explain them in a simple way. I also need a lot: I learn from my own content. I like, in my small way, to inform and promote inclusiveness ». This desire for a world a little more open and fairer is something that comes from his afternoons as a child, at home on the sofa. “I watched a lot of TV and never found anyone who looked like me ethnically and sexually. People like me, complex like me, have never existed on Italian TV. If a gay kid can’t find any character to mirror himself in, he’ll think he’s wrong, as I thought. But we are in 2021, things must change ». Salah came out to her mom in 2019, a gesture that changed her life both outside and inside social media. “Many influencers hide their homosexuality for fear of losing followers. For me it was the opposite: since I declared it I have many more ». He said nothing to his father Salah: “We live in the same house, but we have no confidence,” he admits. “I don’t make up in front of him, out of a form of respect. I am myself outside the front door and on my social networks: I hope my freedom can help someone find theirs “.

Rights and freedoms are the issues on which Rocco Toniolo heats up more, in life and also on social media. Twenty-six years old, with a degree in Economics, avid traveler as long as he could, arrives on TikTok and Instagram (@roccotnl) shortly before the pandemic, and in this strange year it becomes very popular, especially by the twenties. After high school, at the crossroads where he is called to decide between dreams (acting) or a “serious” job, he chooses the latter, but on social networks he recovers his years of theater and comic skills to talk about what interests him. “I started by making a video about Jesus – one who knows something of a follower – who lands on TikTok, but in addition to making people laugh, I am interested in discussing the minorities of our country, in one of which I recognize myself, as a homosexual. These are not easy issues to deal with because ours is a heteronormative society and most people, when they talk about certain things, don’t even know what the right words to use are: I realized that homophobic things can also be said without being homophobic. At the first serious video I was shaking with fear, then the messages from the followers encouraged me. My favorites are those of those who tell me that, thanks to me, they have understood something new ». Rocco lives in a small town in the Veneto of four thousand inhabitants, but he studied in Germany and also in India: traveling has taught him that no one is different if you want to know him. “It is extraordinary, however, how the most difficult experiences I have lived by taking the bus in the morning to go to school in Padua”. Calculating the average age of the influencers, he is one of the most “elderly” – “I think that’s why my followers ask me for advice on anything: from the choice of university to that of clothes” – with the most transversal audience – ” I also received the compliments of a catechism teacher and a nun, they both follow me “- and respectful: they make few heavy attacks and in any case, he says,” behind a screen negative things do not affect me. The beautiful ones, on the other hand, arrive ».

Real life is sometimes a gym that trains hatred that moves on social media. “If you’ve already tried it, it always hurts a little less,” he says Leonardo Sanctuaries, 19 years old, nom de guerre @leonardosantuarii on TikTok (almost 600 thousand followers), @leoosantuari on Instagram (124 thousand). Leonardo, who studies at the hotel institute of Levico Terme (Tn), he is a transgender boy, but he began to move on social media before making his path public: “In the beginning,” he says, “I was just one like many.” He would like to continue being one, like many others, but he realizes that, from the moment he began to speak and witness his transition, he has become a point of reference, and many follow him for that alone. «I made videos to explain my story and, when I open the ‘ask me a question’ space, almost everyone asks me about the transition. I don’t mind answering, also because I see that there is a lot of ignorance and prejudices around ». Every now and then waves of hatred come upon him: «You were born female, accepted», «You will never be a real man», are among the nicest things they write to him. “They think I’m going to the corner to cry, but I’m not. I often publish insults by covering up the name of whoever gives them to me, and I use them to explain“. A patience and fortitude that in life beyond the screen is not always enough. “Some time ago I was doing an internship in a hotel. I hadn’t said anything about the transition, it doesn’t always seem relevant to me. But they must have looked for me, and found me, on social media. So a couple of people who worked with me started asking me more and more aggressive questions, they even asked me to drop my pants. I didn’t, but that evening I didn’t go back to the room because I was sharing it with one of them: I was afraid. Fortunately, the day after the region turned red, the internship was suspended. No, I didn’t say anything to the owner, he’s a good person ». Leonardo lives in a silent and perennial state of alert, with an echo sounder on that records possible submerged obstacles in everyday things. “If someone tells me let’s go to a party, I never go there. I’m afraid someone might figure out who I am, beat me, hurt me. If this bill passed I am not saying that these risks would no longer exist, but if something happened, someone would pay“. If he hadn’t spoken publicly about the transition, his life would be more peaceful, but he has never regretted doing it. But now he would like to go further, even with social media, and throw himself on Twitch, the platform where you play online and watch them play. “My mom, who is my whole family, does the cleaning, we don’t have a lot of money. I would like to try to make money with games and be able to enjoy life and Giada, my girlfriend. So far every thought and every energy have been for the path, now I would like them to be for me ».

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