{"id":5945,"date":"2023-03-28T05:29:41","date_gmt":"2023-03-28T09:29:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/?p=5945"},"modified":"2023-03-28T05:31:58","modified_gmt":"2023-03-28T09:31:58","slug":"the-italian-region-that-doesnt-exist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/28\/the-italian-region-that-doesnt-exist\/","title":{"rendered":"The Italian region that \u2018doesn\u2019t exist\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past few years, the Italian region of Molise has risen from obscurity to become the punchline of a popular meme. Now locals are trying to use it to their advantage.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>

by Alex Sakalis<\/a> for BBC Travel – <\/em><\/strong>Molise, a small region in south-eastern Italy, is famous for one thing: it doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>

Well, technically, it does exist. As one of Italy\u2019s 20 official regions, Molise has a status equal to Tuscany, Lombardy or Piedmont. It holds regional elections and votes in national ones. It borders the regions of Abruzzo, Puglia, Lazio and Campania, all indisputably real places. So why do Italians like to pretend that Molise doesn\u2019t exist?<\/p>

\"\"
Some see the \u201cMolise doesn\u2019t exist\u201d phenomenon as an opportunity to give the region a unique brand (Credit: Renato Corradi\/Moleasy)<\/sup><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>

\u201cI first came across it on the internet several years ago,\u201d said Enzo Luongo, a journalist and author of the book Il Molise Non Esiste\u00a0(Molise Doesn\u2019t Exist). \u201cPeople had started posting the hashtag #ilmolisenonesiste as a joke, making fun of the region\u2019s small size as well as our relative obscurity within Italy.\u201d<\/p>

However, what surprised Luongo was the creativity of the comments that the hashtag inspired, which ranged from the amusing (\u201cI wrote \u2018Molise does not exist\u2019 as my Facebook status. My geography teacher liked it.\u201d) to the downright absurd (\u201cI met a guy from Molise who was doing his Erasmus year in Italy.\u201d). It seemed that the region, hitherto ignored, had suddenly awakened a latent creativity within Italians.<\/p>

However, what surprised Luongo was the creativity of the comments that the hashtag inspired, which ranged from the amusing (\u201cI wrote \u2018Molise does not exist\u2019 as my Facebook status. My geography teacher liked it.\u201d) to the downright absurd (\u201cI met a guy from Molise who was doing his Erasmus year in Italy.\u201d). It seemed that the region, hitherto ignored, had suddenly awakened a latent creativity within Italians.<\/p>

Of course we exist!<\/h2>

The \u201cMolise conspiracy\u201d, as it has come to be known, has gone on to become something of a cultural phenomenon within Italy, spawning books, songs, videos, theatrical monologues, news articles and more. It has been referenced by everyone from comedian Beppe Grillo to former prime minister Matteo Renzi. A popular Facebook page called Molisn\u2019t \u2013 lo non credo nell\u2019esistenza del Molise<\/a> (Molisn\u2019t \u2013 I don\u2019t believe in the existence of Molise) revels in the conspiracy, selling \u201cMolisn\u2019t\u201d merchandise such as T-shirts and mugs. Mock scientific papers have been published speculating on the region\u2019s existence, while internet memes compare Molise to Narnia and portray maps of Italy with a black hole where the region should be. A YouTube video<\/a> from 2015 \u2013 dramatically titled IL MOLISE NON ESISTE!! <\/em>\u2013 has more than 1.6 million views, more than five times the 305,000-strong population of Molise itself.<\/p>

Within a few short years, the region of Molise had gone from obscurity to become, arguably, Italy\u2019s national joke.<\/p>

\"\"
Simone Cretella: \u201cMolise is one of the last authentic places in Italy\u201d (Credit: onairda\/Getty Images)<\/sup><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>
Read more here <\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the past few years, the Italian region of Molise has risen from obscurity to become the punchline of a popular meme. Now locals are trying to use it to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5948,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1242,844,1241],"class_list":{"0":"post-5945","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-italian-travel","9":"tag-molise","10":"tag-region-that-does-not-exit"},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Molise-3.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5945"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5945\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5952,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5945\/revisions\/5952"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/panoramitalia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}