The merits of the beam

When I was little, in a small street of the village where I lived, there was a long and thick wooden beam resting on two massive logs. This crude artifact leaning against a wall and in the shade of the same, served as a bench for the old men and women of the village who spent hours in the summer, sitting up there to take the fresh air and to badmouth the fellow villagers, cutting some very nice collars, rattling off rich and tasty gossip that grew as they passed from voice to voice. We kids called it Radio Trave, the voice of the beam, which better than any other media at the time in the square spread the news of the day (breaking news, an exotic term that definitely fills the mouth more).

La trave was a social media ante litteram, a place where you could get the facts of others but also (if you wanted to) put your own in the square and share them with the rest of the participants. You could be sure that in a short time your confessions would spread throughout the district. About the work that Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and all the plethora of social networks do today; do not get me wrong, there is no judgment in what I am saying; I also use these means, although by my nature rather prone to confidentiality. I simply recognize that beam a kind of intellectual copyright, that's all. My old folks were already "posting" everything on that piece of wood, and now they collected "likes", now criticisms, just like today, only times have gone a little further. The large wooden semi-finished product was six meters or so long, therefore, between those sitting, standing or playing bowls in the small street where it was placed, the audience could not exceed a certain number of people. Today social networks do not limit the number, and characters with a large number of followers (followers, admirers, fans) can become "influencers", people who with their behavior, their example, their irony and their advice have the possibility to influence the judgment and discernment of real masses (who follow them, God only knows why…).

Television, for its part, is trying to make the most of the new media channels, relying on the old adage attributed to Julius Caesar "if you can't beat them, join them". This is how many "new" faces of music (some also present at the recent Sanremo Festival) have passed from social networks to television, and this is how the casting of many programs (Sanremo in primis) is done, precisely on the basis of the "sequel ”That every artist can bring“ as a dowry ”to the audience. If you have an important claque you can ask and in many cases get a place in the program, in the festival, but also in the party or junta list, and so on.

Music, preparation, competence, talent play a role very relatively (even if getting followers is certainly not easy). On all this the beam had a great value. Over time he always exposed the false, the boastful, the incapable, the arrogant, while the current media often make them their anchor-man (or woman). It is the freedom we enjoy, but let's not forget that the next form of dictatorship could be persuasion. The beam didn't have all this power.

Mauro Tabasso
NP april 2021