The magic of paper, liminal spaces and musical nostalgia. The first episode of Decoder, an atlas of pop culture

In a world that produces ever more content, where every week there’s a whole universe in which to lose oneself amongst dozens of comics, films, TV series, anime, collectable cards, video games, board games and role-playing games, the risk for enthusiasts is that they’ll fall a little behind. Or, for the uninitiated (or perhaps simply the older ones). This is precisely why Decoder was created – Il Foglio’s new video column hosted by Gianluca De Angelis, designed specifically as a guide to navigate the vast and ever-expanding world of pop culture: a multiverse of diverse languages that today recount the present with a speed, symbolic power and capacity for cross-pollination that are becoming increasingly central.

The idea is simple: every week you’ll find three recommendations here, three points of reference, three perfect entry points – both for those who are already familiar with these worlds but need a little nudge to find their bearings, and for those who are completely new to them and feel a bit left out of a vast universe of conversations that are now hard to avoid. Here you’ll find newly released works, the latest trends, global phenomena worth knowing about, as well as great classics or milestones to discover (or rediscover). In short, if you like, you can also think of it as a little help to stop you sounding like a senile old person when you’re talking to your grandchild who ‘works as a streamer’. 

In its first instalment, Decoder begins with three very different works, which nevertheless share a common thread in their shared focus on mystery and discovery.

For comic book enthusiasts, the recommended read is "Bagatto di Sassoraviolo", the first title in Mercurio Books’ "Quest" series: a comic that explores symbols, magic and the very idea of an inner and visual journey, not least through its artistic elements.

In the world of film and television, the talk is of "Backrooms", the film directed by Kane Parsons and distributed in Italian cinemas by I Wonder Pictures, which brings to the big screen one of the most unsettling concepts to emerge from the internet in recent years: endless corridors, empty rooms, neon lights and the subtle horror of familiar spaces that have suddenly become alien. In short, ‘liminal spaces’ are making their way into the Seventh Art, and are already a global box-office triumph.

Finally, our game recommendation is "Mixtape", a narrative and musical video game that transforms adolescence, friendship and memory into a veritable cassette of interactive memories. It’s a story about the end of school, songs, escapades and the transition from childhood to adulthood, at a time when nostalgia and memories tug at the heartstrings.

Pop culture is no longer merely entertainment; it is a world in its own right, made up of imaginations, nostalgia and collective desires. Decoder is here, therefore, precisely to try to decode the present through its new popular myths. By transforming the desire to truly understand pop culture and viewing it not merely as escapism, but as an extraordinary map that, more than ever, represents the infinite nuances of our times.