Geolier is right. The division between north and south does not exist

Geolier is right – I never in my life thought I’d write a sentence like that, and yet here we are – as I was saying, the rapper from Secondigliano is right when he says that by now “the north and south are one and the same”. The statement he made at the start of his concert at San Siro would seem to be contradicted by the fact that Geolier was the first singer to perform entirely in Neapolitan on the hallowed ground of the Milanese stadium; yet the comments he made on the sidelines of the event lend weight to his point. “I’ve always relied on myself,” I read he said, and again: “We really know how much we care about a dream”, “The only person who supported me during the tough times was me”, “I’ve always had my family, friends and city by my side”, “Choosing the songs was incredibly difficult”, “I’m privileged to be here”, “I’m happy to pave the way for those who come after me”, “Innovation and change create distance”, “I’m grateful to be experiencing all this”, “When I think about having achieved all this, I get a knot in my stomach”, “I don’t dwell on it and I carry on”, “To young people, I want to say: be happy”.

These are phrases that could, in fact, have been uttered not only by a neomelodic singer from Baranzate, but also by a shop assistant from Orvieto, a physicist from Canicattì, a footballer from Mestrina, a TV presenter from Sulmona, or a retired teacher from Verbania. In short, they fall into the category of purely hackneyed phrases – trite in form and devoid of substantive content – which have become embedded in the national lexicon thanks to television and spread on a massive scale due to social media, culminating in terms such as "mental state", "great spectacle", "extremely important", "my artistic father" and "that's the way it should be". Geolier is right; we must resign ourselves to the fact that the division between north and south does not exist; they are united by the same language, which is no longer Italian, even if it resembles it.