ROME – Trevi Fountain, machine to throw coins inserted: chaos on the web. A machine for throwing coins into the Trevi Fountain using a credit card was inserted on January 25th, only for an advertising spot and in fact immediately removed.
Thousands commented on the commercial, mistaking it for reality, without even going to check whether the object of debate was actually real.
The food for thought regarding what happened is endless. Starting from the commercial, a machine that throws coins into the crowd at the risk of catching someone on the back of the head and injuring them does not seem to be a great publicity stunt according to the majority of opinions on social media, in fact someone did not fail to compare it to Venus as an influencer in the campaign Open to Wonder.
“There is no such thing as bad publicity,” he would tell us Oscar Wildethe important thing is that we talk about it, at the same time we can agree that the Trevi Fountain already has enough visibility.
But why are coins thrown into the Trevi Fountain?
There are many legends behind this custom. According to some, it has roots that date back to Ancient Rome, in fact it is said that the soldiers of Agrippa’s army in 19 AD. C., returning to the city now exhausted, following the instructions of a girl they quenched their thirst at the Salone spring. According to others, however, the idea came from the German archaeologist Wolfgang Helbigprotagonist of the Roman salons of the nineteenth century, who tried to cure the sadness of the scholars about to leave the city with a good omen gesture: whoever made the launch would return.
Both extremely engaging stories which, however, have little to do with love. In fact, the romantic turning point was reached because it seems that women drank the water from the fountain together with their lovers to seal their love. Wonderful tradition, which supposedly ended when the water was declared non-drinkable in the 1960s.
The symbolism of love of this fountain has, however, been immortalized in scenes that have written the history of cinema. Think, clearly, of bathing in the Fountain of Marcello Mastroianni And Anita Ekberg in The sweet life Of Fellini or the lesser-known comedy The Fountain of Love with Kristen Bell, Danny DeVito And Josh Duhamel.
To date, unlike Fellini’s film as you clearly cannot bathe in public fountains, the water of the Trevi Fountain is drinkable and consequently you can emulate the story that linked lovers with their sweetheart.
If something doesn’t happen, but people talk about it on the Web, did it really not happen?
In this case, unlike many fake news, we cannot say we are faced with a hoax as the installation actually took place and the commercial filmed – which recently went viral with a boom in shares and views – is real . Yet, the warning remains the same, society is becoming more and more social, losing contact with reality. How many Romans are there who, upon opening the news, came down to check it before commenting on it? Even more serious is the fact that many newspapers broadcast the news without verifying the actual presence of the machine.
The coin-throwing machine acted as bait for a clear warning: it seems to be time to loosen the grip that social media has on our lives as virtuality is increasingly taking hold, and altering, reality.
