The Ferragnez case proves we have learned nothing about mental health

From the Balocco scandal to the news that their relationship had indeed come to an end, the Ferragnez in Italy generate more interest than elections, wars, pollution, or any other socially relevant calamity. After 5 years, the marriage between Chiara Ferragni and Federico Lucia seems to be officially over, "seems" because for official confirmation - after the news spread by Dagospia first and then by the Corriere della Sera - we await the appearance on Fabio Fazio's show, Sunday, March 3rd. In these days, a media tension that we could rightfully define as "harassment" has besieged the no longer conjugal roof: Fedez, annoyed, declares to the microphones that his priority at the moment are his children and refuses to make statements about his private life, Chiara, moved and vaguely hysterical, bursts out against the correspondent of Pomeriggio 5 - «I just want to go to the therapist». Now, excluding the umpteenth slip with Tommaso Trussardi whom Ferragni claims not to know while he calls her a "little blogger", offended by the denial, it arises spontaneously to wonder: aren't we all perhaps exaggerating?

Fabrizio Corona had prophesied it on February 27th, as a guest on the Gurulandia podcast he declared, rising as always as a gossip oracle: «There's no chance they'll get back together. What will Fedez do? He'll go to Belve by Fagnani. She'll go to Fazio, who obviously won't ask her anything, playing the spiritual father of a journalism that is now dead. She'll show up crying, like the good girl next door, ready to defend herself for marital quarrels». A few days later, in the midst of fervor of a diatribe against Fedez, Marco Travaglio from Muschio Selvaggio compared the wife to an Instagram-era Wanna Marchi, probably sanctioning a point of no return and fueling, rightly or wrongly, the narrative of "when he was in the hospital she was there, why doesn't she do the same?". In this flurry of news, scandals, comments, suppositions, and plots, it is indeed easy to lose focus. For television, the situation is too juicy to simulate composure, the various talk shows thrive on Sunday commentators in an infinite loop of nothing that still gets shares. At the same time, Meta's anti-hate regulation systems show us that the algorithm still has a long way to go to ensure, in the public square, the minimum requirements of civility. In an era where just a sentence is enough to generate a spiral of social hatred so intense as to drive individuals to extreme gestures, if not even to suicide, can we still indulge in the voyeuristic pleasure of watching the titans of pop culture fall with such a resounding crash? They are still two people who simply want to «just go to therapy» and with two children to support who, unlike their parents, have not chosen to live their lives with their phones pointed at them.

In January, Fedez showed on Muschio Selvaggio the face of an alleged hater guilty of having joked about his tumor, only to discover that it did not correspond at all to that of the author of the comment. In the same month, yet another media pillory had led Giovanna Pedretti to take her own life, a restaurateur who had posted a review about her pizzeria in Sant'Angelo Lodigiano. Selvaggia Lucarelli and Lorenzo Biagiarelli had doubted the veracity of that post, according to the two of them, shared artfully by the restaurateur only to advertise herself, starting a spiral of social hatred that had the worst possible outcomes - and now in court the charges for incitement to suicide are being evaluated. If in 1997 Diana Spencer lost her life in a road accident fueled by paparazzi pursuit, today the persecution for Lady Di would have been different in methods but not in intentions, much to the chagrin of woke culture. On social networks, death threats still fly as easily as a like: it's a reality as dystopian as it is established. What is truly astonishing is our collective surrender before hatred and the morbid voyeurism with which we watch others perpetrate it. Whether the Ferragnez divorce is truth or strategy, their media empire is now in flames, so we might as well avoid commenting on its remains as we watch it burn.