It is a truth universally acknowledged that pretending to be a victim of a conspiracy brings support. Regardless of whether your name is Berlusconi or now Meloni, the victim-perpetrator is lovable and attracts solidarity, sympathy and votes. The girl Calimero from an old commercial (“Everyone picks on me because I’m short and black”) has inspired many careers, even outside of politics.
There is the well-known television presenter who is seriously convinced that the whole world is conspiring against him, the artist who sees a conspiracy behind every non-adoring look, but also the employee who feels constantly in the sights of the boss, the apartment owner , who…complains about being at the center of a persecution conspiracy ever since the neighbor’s dog peed on his doormat and the student (but especially his parents) who, if he gets a four, is because the professor is angry with him, exactly with him, only with him. Imagining yourself as a victim is comforting: it is to give yourself importance and to delude yourself that others are harming us because they are thinking about us, when usually they do so without thinking about it, out of pure indifference.
And it pays to play the victim: How can you hate someone who feels sorry for themselves? I once asked Maurizio Costanzo what he thought the secret to success was. “Complaining,” he replied. “As soon as someone asks you how you are, never make the mistake of telling them you are happy: they will envy you to death. Tell him about a problem, a bad luck, an illness, even if it is fake, better yet, if it is fake. He will immediately take pity on you and come to your side.
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