The irrepressible need to “sell” on social networks

That our relationship with digital technology and social network has assumed profiles at times worrying is not a mystery. We delude ourselves to use them, but most of the time we are unknowingly used by them. And in this (almost) ubiquitous dynamic, the voluntary renunciation of the private dimension of our lives, the subject of posts, stories and direct, follows the need to be interesting, almost at any cost. Thus, in our social life the product and the seller very often coincide: it is us.

The latest book by Guia Soncinieloquently titled The economy of the self. Brief history of the new exhibitionisms (Marsilio). Not an essay on influencers – even if the references to those who work with social networks, Chiara Ferragni in the lead, are understandably many – but on the tension that each of us has towards what influencers do as a profession: showcase, as they did (and they do) the butchers, what we want to promote, that needs to be attractive to as large a number of people as possible.

And there is really room for everyone in these “galleries of mirrors of contemporary self-centeredness”, as we read on the back cover: from accountants to lawyers, passing through dentists. In short, there is space for each of us.

We talked about it with the author, also dedicating some attention to those who sell their everyday life (and not only) in a professional way on social networks.

Soncini, she defines Instagram as the “most comfortable shopping center of the contemporary world”: it is really so obvious the passage from a little heart or a story when buying a product?
«No, on the contrary: you go to the shopping center to do tubs and meet friends much more than you go to buy. It is the most visible of the windows, Instagram, but it does not guarantee to be able to monetize for two reasons. The first is that we are on Instagram as we were in the schoolyard, or as my grandmother in the village was sitting on the street gossiping with her friends: whoever looks at my posts wants to know who I’m sleeping with, why I’m so fatter, where I’m going on vacation, like that restaurant I had dinner in yesterday; it doesn’t occur to most people to be curious about my works. I myself would never buy books, records, clothes of people whose stories and posts I look avidly and ballets and holidays ”.

And the second?
“The second reason that argues badly for the trade is that a lot of people we follow on social networks follow them as left-wing voters in the 90s watched the news of Emilio Fede: to hate him. Those who think in terms of popularity by counting followers are based on the principle that there is no bad publicity, which is a true concept but not exhaustive “.

In today’s society, social networks seem unavoidable for those who want to achieve success (at least commercial success); do other ways to obtain it still survive?
«I used to say that the social obligation was nonsense for people who want to feel modern, for fifty-year-olds who open a TikTok because when they do ballets they feel like the same age as their children. Of course you can have cultural value and success with the public without being on social media, I enlighten myself: look at Nanni Moretti, look at Michele Serra. Then Moretti opened an Instagram, Michele Serra remained the last little Indian, and in a while he will start doing Twitch broadcasts and I will have to find a new rhetorical repertoire ».

Social networks seem to be populated by “Dudes Without Qualities” with massive amounts of followers: there is a disconnect between talent and success on social media, it is we who do not see the talents of those who conquer the follow of thousands of people or does chance play a crucial role?
“Chance always plays its part, from the Olympics to the Nobel Prize, let alone if we can believe in the primacy of reality and rationality on social media. But having no (apparent) qualities is a quality. If we decide that social media is a cultural consumption (and I just decided it, so from now on it is law), Fran Lebowitz’s observation regarding books is valid: we no longer look for a door to look out. elsewhere, but a mirror, something that looks like us. We do not want someone who complexes us by being more brilliant, more attractive, more handsome: we want someone who is so-so, making us think that he is perfectly fine if we too are so-so ».