My alter ego is a techno diva living in Amsterdam
Image credit: maviva_ via Instagram
Mavi. We don’t know each other. And yet, I couldn’t feel happier to have stumbled upon your existence. It isn’t a surprise that being an Italian abroad is a category to itself, but I think you encapsulate it in a way that makes me feel represented. And, precisely because I think you’re a gem worth discovering, I am disclosing my fieldnotes, from the Internet, to the Internet. Hopefully that can intrigue others and encourage them to embrace the digital philosophy you so effortlessly preach.
Amsterdam, I have to start with that. The city that has landed on my bucket list since I read Anne Frank and became mesmerised with Van Gogh. It’s an uncanny coincidence for me to see her to be living there, of all places. In the first half of my adolescence it represented a place that could host self-expression, a place where I wasn’t constantly cohabiting with a pervasive cloud of judgement. It was the kind of place where people didn’t surrender to the atmospheric gloom and chose to chromate their existence through the fabric of their social skin, the cultivation of tulips, the steel vehicles racing through the wavy concrete hills. Of course, I had a fervid imagination and Mavi’s tiktoks confirmed that reality can perhaps be much more vanilla than what my younger self glamorised it as. But this is the kind of expectation defeat I needed to realise something much more important.
Mavi is short-sighted and yet she bears an incredibly daring and wise vision on how life should be really lived. I’m not referring to the glamour that may be perceived through her Bali vlogs or her long-distance romance. It’s in the everyday that she inspires me. It’s in the everyday that she reminds everybody to prefer themselves uninhibited. Mavi is incredibly authentic and the audience realises that the vlogs she uploads serve a greater purpose to her than to her audience. Her discipline is enviable. When faced with a hate comment targeting her “pretty privilege”, she responds very elegantly with the following stats:
· 7/8 h at the gym weekly
· 15 km swimming weekly
· 20 km bike every day (clearly a Dam girl)
· 3 hours of walking everyday
This is exactly what I like about her. She’s not afraid to expose the hardship that lives in the shadow of accomplishments. Mavi inspires me on a daily basis to immerse myself in the life flow without worrying of what might happen. She fills up her days, e come una scheggia: non sta mai ferma. She vlogs her routine to stop herself from scrolling on the shiny screen we’re all very much acquainted with and she reminds herself, before anyone else, how precious the happiness of the present, real moments.
Video credit: maviva_ via TikTok
She’s perfectly aware that she lives in a pace that will doom her mood, overly meteoropathic. And yet, you can perceive her genuine enthusiasm in the hyperbolic descriptions that accompany her vlog dialogues. She’s the kind of person that will view nature outside of your window as the Amazonic forest, describe big clouds as absurd and rooms as living canvases. Her sustainable habits as an avid thrifter craft her being, which stands out through the fabric of the coolest, techno rave uniform. Her courage to get a buzzcut, displaying flaming designs, and her constant explosion of energy are the pillars of her univocal message to us (and herself): live for you and start crafting the life that you want for yourself.
Perhaps, the reason why I resonate with Mavi so much is inevitably related to the way I felt, and continue to feel, about my nationality. She perfectly represents that enigmatically superior comfort of being an Italian abroad, nomadically, rather than in the country itself. And, as much as I’m aware that this feeling is generationally consequential, I’ll never get over how liberating it can be, to finally feel yourself somewhere else.
Image credit: maviva_ via Instagram
There’s no better way to encapsulate it: Mavi is pure, casual magic. Her effortless appreciation of the ordinary is what ultimately allows her to express herself beyond it, where reinventing oneself becomes an imperative. She’s recharging for the soul in the way she frames the ordinary into extraordinary. Constantly encouraging an upgrade of our imagination, whether it’s through a fashion, lifestyle or perspective fabric.
