In Milan there is Batman: TikTok loves him, but for the city it is not good news

“We’re not in Gotham City,” he said last October Franco Gabrielli, former police chieftalking about Milan. Lo he said (Who) responding together with Mayor Sala to the question of real and perceived security in the Lombardy capital. A few weeks later, the comparison returned, through the mouth of the showgirl Elenoire Casalegno: “Milan is not Gotham City just because we don’t have Batman”. Except that now Milan has it, Batman.

It’s obviously a Fake Batman (faker than the real onein short), he is a Batman of social networks, he is not the only one, he is not the most popular but he is undoubtedly the one who is talked about the most these days: he opened his profile on TikTok last March 15th and since then his few videos have collected over 2.5 million viewsthousands of comments and just under half a million likes (which among other things are growing at a rate of 150 thousand per day).

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by Emanuele Capone

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tiktok: the Batman of Milan in action

From Grissinbon to Batman, insecurity seen with irony

But what does the Milanese Batman do? He takes the subway, takes selfies with passers-by, jokingly goes on patrol with the municipal officers (“they are the ones who work for him and not vice versa”, as someone wrote on social media), causes waste to be collected from the ground and in general watches over the city. With irony, of course.

Equally obviously, his identity is not known: behind the costume, not perfectly canonical but really well done and a cross between Burton’s films and Nolan’s, hides a presumably tall man, even if less tall than how Bruce Wayne is described and depicted in comics.

On the profile of the one who defines himself as the Protector of Gotham and who goes by the name I am Batman (borrowing an iconic phrase from the character), the ability to send messages “for crime reports”, but “no spam”. Who knows, perhaps her arrival might be useful in rekindling attention on the issue of safety in Milan, which women in particular have been talking about for over a year on social media and in which she also fits in in some way Grissinbon’s tragicomic trend. Because sometimes irony is the best and most effective way to address a problem.

@capoema