Viral. It is the most popular adjective of our time. If it were not for the dramatic implication of that little being that shocked the world, the Covid, I would say hip. In the age of the Internet, contagion is a success story of Net communication, a certification that we are doing great in the planetary user community.
The latest viral item in recent hours is a video, I must say funny, about the great politicians of the earth. Specifically President Macron, who, upon arrival of the French presidential plane in Vietnam, was slapped in the face by his wife. Or so it seems.
The shot is frontal, the door of the plane opens, and the Elysée leader appears at the beginning of the staircase in a posture already of international diplomacy, but suddenly two hands appear on his face from the side. Then appears Brigitte, his historical companion, older in age, they descend together but she does not take his arm, the malignants have noted, she leans against the steps.
Perhaps an argument that went on too long, to the limit, and she did not realize that the image greedy society was already at work. Official sources first denied it by saying it was a fake, then seeing that it was all true, all true alas, they said it was a buffeting. Of course, a strange buffeting, and it is not as if the lady is not used to the rules of the role, since Macron is in his second term.
However, the video has gone viral, precisely. Someone must have empathized with Brigitte, wanting for years to slap, politically, monsieur le Président…someone must have thought that more than the slap of a wife it looks like that of a mother, given the age difference on which gossip has already been weaving plots upon plots of all kinds for years.
Who knows what the young Macron, admittedly with sideburns already sporting a few strands of white than in the early days of En Marche (a party with his initials), must have been up to on the plane. Politics at a high level makes one old and, it seems, also makes wives angry. But the Network of the whys and the logics and the realities cares little. Just eat up the delusion of an image for a few hours. Soon another one will come…up…en marche (and that’s not an election slogan).
The article The Internet Slap comes from TheNewyorker.
