It’s Sonia, she’s from Abruzzo. It’s dangerous. A nickname, but not a number. Virtual, but above all real. He manages a SimosNap channel, a historic Italian chat network (an IRC network). IRC, for the less familiar, an instant messaging protocol. Among the “rooms” are Chat Italy, Friendship, but not only.
It is a journey into a world that is beyond, but which preserves the feelings (in all possible meanings) of a humanity that has changed over time. It tells of its most human, primordial aspects. Vices and virtues of an era in perpetual contradiction. Who seeks refuge, comfort, illusions, nemesis. Where the word takes on a more complex meaning. Sometimes demonized, other rhetorically metaphorical, sometimes incomprehensible, sometimes prophetic. Involution of an evolution that calls for reflection. Linguistically, emotionally, relationally. Textual interaction that becomes social.
And it becomes the map of the world that connects, while disconnecting from what surrounds it. As if it were a mirror. Where you unconsciously collect pieces of yourself and the unknown you. In a society that doesn’t listen. That runs fast. But he wants to know everything. Even if you close your eyes so as not to see. A society that has also become sad. Who doesn’t accept herself, overwhelmed by stereotypes and who sometimes finds comfort in fiction. Who experiences solitude among the multitude. Perhaps passages which, over the years, have also had repercussions on chats.
Chat, or literally “chat”. Sonia, you know this well. Entering chats as a user. A personal experience that had brought her closer. She is the one who accompanies us on this journey. Made of lights and shadows. Of chiaroscuro. Of emotions and sensations that pass through language, in all its variations and nuances. He has the ability to outline colors. Without smudges. Introduces, outlines. Without judging. But giving you his eyes.
“The chat – he explains – gives you the opportunity to talk to people from every region, to get to know those who otherwise you wouldn’t have the chance to meet”. From Sicily to Calabria to Piedmont and Veneto, passing through Puglia and Lombardy, crossing seas, lakes and creeping into the mountains. In one click. Breaking the barrier of borders: a possible mission, but it is among the labyrinths of that form of communication that that border, paradoxically, becomes labile. And, at times, impenetrable. Or maybe just a veil that unconsciously no one wants to tear apart. Because no one wants to talk about it. But they all come back. Indifferently addicted.
The first time in chat for Sonia was 17 years ago, today she is 46 years old and has been managing the channel for 10 years. “I met wonderful people, with whom friendships were born that still last today. People who then become real, who you interact with, who you meet. I’ve been to weddings, baptisms. I’ve also been to Calabria.” Friendships that are “over, friends that I have lost like Gin”, founder together with her. A world within the world, in which every experience can be both virtual and real. “In chat – he explains – I have seen people leave their spouses, relationships form, I have also experienced many disappointments. Chat can give you many things, it is an exchange, cultural too, but over time – he continues – it has changed a lot. As if the IQ had dropped”. Almost an unconscious social thermometer. A monitor that shortens distances, but which – at the same time – seems to keep pace with the times, marking that trace of which we often have little awareness. Involution, needs that change or, perhaps only, contours that take shape to varying degrees.
Sonia’s eyes, however, seem like the eyes of someone who reads beyond the lines. He’s learned over time, but he also seems to have this gift of digging deep. Listen and read. Admonish or even just stay silent. The oxymorons of a communication where the word follows opposite tracks. What is written is in parallel another narrative. A nonsense. Like kaleidoscopic images. Reflections and contrasts. Perhaps traces of an intimacy with which one has always been afraid of living. Or just emblematic of those internal conflicts that take on different guises on the web.
But Sonia, who has traveled from Abruzzo and, in addition to the virtual, has immersed herself in the folds of different contexts (from England to Lombardy and beyond) knows the users, recognizes them. Prevents. Call back. Warn. Grant patience. There is experience, intelligence. Rigor, but also indulgence. And he knows that everything flows in the reel. Trolls who, almost as if they were mythological figures, provoke, but often say much more than appearances would have you believe. Appearance, a key word to have an approach to that world. The choice to position yourself between the surface and the depth. Lights and shadows, which are not always easy to recognise.
Because it is the contradiction of the virtual, where a torch often hides the darkness. And where in the darkness the spark often lights up. But it is to the concept of border that we return. The labile one. Between simple shortcomings and that dust that can hurt or even just cloud your vision and perception.
And there’s a lot of darkness on the web. Because if it is possible to meet a narcissistic manipulator as a simple and common customer in a bar even in the chat rooms, there is an evil that the web does not seem to have the strength to reject. That undergrowth where pedophilia, scammers and blackmailers hide.
“Over the years – she continues – I have dedicated myself to various channels. But there is a field in which it is difficult to proceed. Simos and I have our hands tied by Italian law. It is impossible for us to make reports to the Post Office, because the report can only start from the victim and, therefore, we can only push to report and report all cases”. An Italy that looks to the future, but is old. A breathtaking panorama, where the horizon cannot be seen. Where technology advances, but there are no tools to combat abuse. Where talking about cyber bullying and virtual crimes seems like just an intellectual exercise for conferences. Imbued with Italian hypocrisy.
A “regulatory void in which it is not easy to take clear positions. Just like the abuses that travel on the web. I closed two channels – he adds – minors were circulating inside and the risks are increasingly higher, but there are virtual places where the rules are circumvented”. The risks in front of which there is the impotence of those who cannot take countermeasures. So, what remains is caution and attention. Sensitivity and awareness, like the one “that Simos does on the blog, but it’s not easy, because often in the chats there are married people, those who prefer to hide their identity and don’t expose themselves, many professionals”. Remember an investigation carried out years ago by a Swiss TV station, pedophiles were unmasked. A stone, not the solution nor the way out. In short, the impossibility of conveying complaints remains the crux, at least as much as the users’ awareness of the need to measure their freedom. “There are pedophiles who register without having any problems, this explains the situation”.
To try to put a stop to chat, there are moderators, that small army of volunteers who try to mediate between users. Not always perfect, often themselves victims of those hidden desires that the virtual world fuels. But that’s the point. Varied user base. “Frustrated, dissatisfied people, bored people, women who seek attention and use sex to get it, men who exploit those weaknesses, minors who often look for easy ways to improve their situation or just escapes or whims”. Like pieces of a puzzle that don’t fit together, but intersect. And they mix, breaking the silence along those streets where the sounds of the voice overlap with desires, fears, jealousies, the desire for redemption, fantasies, gossip. A new life suspended between the known one and the hoped-for one. Because there is also hope. A sort of illusion. But also a lot of loneliness, fragility sometimes looking for a caress, but often declining in that dark part that can hurt. Faces masked by respectability that hide desires that in real life they fuel in silence. “You often find people who come to provoke, foment.” A showcase in which to perform or through which to project one’s demons onto others. For some, an outlet. And there are those who think they will find love. Who doesn’t find the answers in the couple. Who the thrill of that sexting that someone thinks they can cancel by pressing the off button. A dive into the depths of betrayal that becomes incorporeal. Where eroticism transforms into simple instinct. Turn on and off.
And still there are those who are looking for a friend. Who can overcome the discomfort of a life that does not belong to them. And who is not even aware of that discomfort.
But there are also those who are looking for meetings, those who do not pay attention to their age, those who do not have the ability to discern good from evil, those who in the age of deviance can become a danger.
Between real, surreal, lies, omissions and the continuous search for oneself.
What’s the secret? Sonia listens, compares and decides. Where so many men fall into the dark web of chat, she has learned to keep the bar straight. And it is she who describes that world made of wickedness, fragility, emotions, but also of souls that still have something to give, of profitable exchanges, of enriching knowledge, of the simple search for a window of superficiality. And there is a thread that often binds. They have different names and forms: loneliness, sadness, desperation, manipulation, light-heartedness, curiosity. The search for a life that doesn’t exist. Of overcoming dissatisfaction. The construction of a parallel reality fueled by perversions and addiction, among the great evils of the web in which we often witness an almost obsessive disconnect from the real world. And so for that primordial need to receive attention and fulfill oneself.
“Time expands within chats and emotions amplify and addiction is a problem.” The risks of giving out private information. The risks of those who wrap the tentacles of their dark side around that information and of complexes that have never been overcome and that bounce off the other.
Sonia reads clearly. But the answer lies in empathy. Select, but recognize. Intuits and processes. Because he knows well what that world hides. He runs it. A 46 year old woman who believes in respecting the rules, even where they seem to have gotten lost between one connection and another.
There is a pyramid and Sonia at the top knows that decisions must be made. With responsibility. A bit like in life. To remember that that virtual filter tells many stories of everyday life. Many shadows, but also the light of a comparison that can represent a moment of growth. One piece of advice he gives to users is: “Never trust, never provide personal data. First you need to learn to read the chat, try to understand who you are in front of. Interact in public and then in private.”
A way to make a connection, a meeting. A journey that calls for responsibility. Of those who are only users, but also of the country that must assume the responsibility of regulating a reality that has now become more real than everyday life. Because even if there are many shadows, there is something that the connection makes unique and refers to the most intimate meaning of the word. Tie, braid. Dialogue which is communication, confrontation and growth. It’s crossing and bringing distant worlds closer together. But as in everyday life, awareness is needed. You need to take a photograph without filters. Possible? To each his own.
Meanwhile, the certainty remains that everything is a choice. Dangerous is there to remind you of it. Who is dangerous? “She’s Sonia, empathetic and rational. Also dull and touchy.” A real person. Because there is truth between the lines typed on a PC and from a telephone. We need to learn to recognize it. Maybe learning to be more real. Remembering that beyond the screen there is a person. Going back to being human even without contact. To reconnect the threads of a connection that could be the future. Without opaque horizons. Because this is the reality. A surreal world that has now entered real life. Which the country must deal with. Because Alice went through the looking glass to travel through Wonderland. Behind a screen, however, travel can hide pitfalls.