C2024, for you I want to commit to being a more resolved human. Or at least digitally more casual, capable of writing with two thumbs together or of managing with one hand and a Moscow Mule in the other (oh well, a centrifuge of antioxidants). Appear like everyone else. But exercising my boomer control to save time and space.
Move number 1, the simplest. I’ll stop signing myself on text messages. It took me forever to capitulate, because in my work the signature is the signature and putting your name on it is automatic, but I understand it’s useless. I will no longer use the final point (too peremptory) e I promise to never use all capital letters (considered aggressive). She will be slim and very sweet.
Move number 2, the most controversial. I’ll also delete the emojis. Not that I don’t like them, in fact I like them a lot. But I would have to choose the right ones, I would have too much fun (there are really adorable characters or animals) and I would waste a lot of time.
Danda Santini, director of iO Donna (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert).
So, rather than always using the same images just a click away (little face with pelvis, little flower and thumbs up), with the danger that, in the rush, the unicorn with snowballs on its head will come out instead – horrendous – which I found myself, I don’t know why, as a priority, I will abstain. Being repetitive is boring, explaining that I didn’t want to be funny to that unwatchable self-imposed unicorn can be embarrassing. I will only allow myself, and only on WhatsApp, a few exclamation points so as not to seem cold, suggestive ellipses and the quirk of cartoony vowels (aiutooo). Stop.
Illustration by Cinzia Zenocchini
Move no. 3, the most insidious. I will give in to the desire to take photos (or shoot videos) only if I am in a position to boast what is journalistically considered an exclusive. That is, only if, at that time and in that place, I am the only one with that image.
So I will abstain from videos of parades, concerts, events, and so on from photos of set tables, famous monuments, exotic sunsets. When the instinctive gesture of looking for the cell phone, picking it up and framing it arises in everyone, I will freeze, like Ulysses in front of the sirens: this is where my strength of spirit will show itself.
As compensation, no more weekends deleting gigs of banal images to free up space (for new trivial images). Furthermore, at the risk of being pedantic: I will insist on blocking useless emails by unsubscribing immediately, deleting apps that I don’t use, banning unwanted calls.
In exchange for so much goodwill, just one request to the digital world, whatever that means: Don’t ask me again if I’m a robot. Don’t make me do CAPTCHA anymore. I’m tired of deciphering distorted letters and identifying poles in the squares to accredit myself as Sapiens and not ChatGPT, also because I can’t see very well anymore. In these times of 2024, shouldn’t this now be a sufficient signal for me to be recognized as an imperfect, very imperfect, or rather agee, human?
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