Maurizio Costanzo’s social network

I don’t even have a photo of my father’s funeral. Some memories, which resurface every now and then, but I think of him every day, of the life we ​​spent together. That day, however, no one asked me for a selfie and therefore not whether I would have reacted with Maria De Filippi’s composure at the funeral home in the Campidoglio.

It’s hard to judge from the outside. But one cannot fail to notice that that behavior is a by-product, let’s say, of a society founded on likes and followers: if you make narcissism a model to achieve, then these things happen. Now that I think about it, I don’t even have a photo with Maurizio Costanzo: yet I knew him well. Indeed, more: at a certain point he changed my life. If it hadn’t been for him to help me, I wouldn’t be here today to talk to you.

I would do another job. Even if it seems like yesterday, it happened in 2004, almost twenty years ago. In short, I was out of work and since no newspaper seemed to want me, I founded one: Il Romanista. I asked fifty people – fans, of course – to invest a small amount in a new newspaper. Maurizio Costanzo was immediately one of the partners. Except that the departure was a disaster: in four months we burned almost all the money raised. We were one step away from bankruptcy and I proposed to the shareholders an important capital increase: 100,000 euros each. Besides me, only three answered, one was Maurizio Costanzo.

He wasn’t a friend of mine, we didn’t go to dinner or on vacation together; and he never asked me for anything in return. Maybe he liked the paper or maybe he liked me. In any case we avoided bankruptcy, the newspaper took off and my life changed. When Costanzo died I discovered how many people he had helped, how many careers were born or restarted thanks to him. It wasn’t digital, it wasn’t on social media but it was itself a social network, a connector of stories and people. Why did he do it? Because he was what scientists call “a non-zero-sum gamer,” one of those who thinks that if you do someone good, the world will be a little better and eventually you’ll be better off too.