New Blog Name and Being Creative Online

Some news for the blog!

I have been thinking for a lot of time to change the name of the blog and I finally came up with a title that wasn’t already taken. At first my blog wasn’t entirely focused on Italy, but since I started to write exclusively about my mother-country and local culture, I thought it was necessary to “rebrand”. So, I say goodbye to The Rover in Leather Jacket, and I’m glad to introduce to you “My dear Italia” – Italy, Italian Culture and Lifestyle recounted by an inside source –

I’m way behind with the schedule, but I plan to catch up soon, especially the part related to the campaign “12 Weeks in Italy” that I finished on Instagram in March (!!), but that I have yet to examine in depth in here.  I plan to post about the things I listed in this previous entry, and to  add new categories such as, for example, “Trekking in Italy”, for those who are looking for itineraries and information about this topic. I personally like to hike and find trails that allow to enjoy both nature and history, so stay tuned if you’re interested in this kind of stuff.

On Being Creative Online

Since I am mentioning changes in this blog, I want to take advantage of this post to add a brief consideration about the Internet and the concept of creativity, which is fuelled by months of observation of the functioning of the web and the struggling of deserving artists and content creators that I had the opportunity to get to know.

We live in the most wonderful era for those working in the arts and/or with creativity. There’s a thing that, until just few decades ago, wasn’t available for a creator: freedom to express and the opportunity to get one’s  work out there without having to kiss somebody’s ass. You want to publish a book? You don’t need a publisher. You want to get your music out there? You don’t need a record label. Making of creative endeavours a job is still very hard, but this isn’t the point. If you want to put your work out there, NOW YOU CAN.

We can express ourselves and discover many interesting, talented and inspiring people, but, despite this great opportunity, both as creators and users, we don’t use the Internet as we should. The top spots of social media and youtube channels, the “recommended” posts and videos, instead of being occupied by people who have valuable content, are the reigns of those putting their ego first and sharing their useless and offensive rants, their fake travels, their dangerous and unsupervised diets (I’ve read the most horrific stories, please be careful and only trust nutritionists) and that gossip or even bully other bloggers and youtubers. If these people are “recommended”, it means that (sadly) they have a significant following, right!?

Concerning the concept of vlog and “real life”, at first I thought that the new approach of sharing the “behind the scenes”, the “normal” life would have allowed us a more “real” depiction of the world and that the Internet would have promoted a plurality of voices. What we obtained was the polar opposite. If before we were all preoccupied to adhere to principles or trends our local society wanted us to follow, now we’ve just globalised our lifestyle.

We could have learned that the world was diverse and get to know new ways of life and learn to appreciate the positive aspects of every different culture, but what we did was to conform everything to a single model: one kind of beauty, one kind of imagery, one standard. Instagram, which should be the realm of photo lovers and creativity, instead of being that, is just the supreme kingdom of copy-paste. I swear, if I see another pic of a girl’s back, reaching her arm behind and holding her fiancé’s hand, I’ll start to scream. Am I exaggerating? Maybe. They say copying is the finest form of flattery, but there’s a limit to everything, I guess. And if there’s the same kind of pic replicated two thousand times, many users probably feel reassured, personally I start to feel my eyes bleeding.

I’m totally aware that I’m lucky, as the people who hang out in here and in my social media are super-creative, inspiring and open to discuss every topic with an open mind. So I really have no reasons to complain. I only complained on Instagram where those interested in my posts could no longer see them, because of the evil algorithm.

Several people, though, reached out and said they were frustrated by the way the Internet was turning and that they felt disheartened. What I say to you guys, and to all of us, is to go on, don’t pay attention to crap content, unite and be generous. And most importantly let’s just be true to ourselves, as pleasing everyone would not be impossible anyway.

Sorry for the rant, but sometimes it’s necessary.