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.

by Alex Sakalis for BBC Travel – Molise, a small region in south-eastern Italy, is famous for one thing: it doesn’t exist.

Well, technically, it does exist. As one of Italy’s 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’t exist?

“I first came across it on the internet several years ago,” said Enzo Luongo, a journalist and author of the book Il Molise Non Esiste (Molise Doesn’t Exist). “People had started posting the hashtag #ilmolisenonesiste as a joke, making fun of the region’s small size as well as our relative obscurity within Italy.”

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

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

Of course we exist!

The “Molise conspiracy”, 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’t – lo non credo nell’esistenza del Molise (Molisn’t – I don’t believe in the existence of Molise) revels in the conspiracy, selling “Molisn’t” merchandise such as T-shirts and mugs. Mock scientific papers have been published speculating on the region’s 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 from 2015 – dramatically titled IL MOLISE NON ESISTE!! – has more than 1.6 million views, more than five times the 305,000-strong population of Molise itself.

Within a few short years, the region of Molise had gone from obscurity to become, arguably, Italy’s national joke.

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