The TikTok boss: editorial on the Italian mafia’s love for social media to document their live online

Establishing direct communication through mass media is the key to business and pleasure for the present gangsters

TT  |  The Editorial Board   |   31.07.22  : If Francis Ford Coppola was making The Godfather in 2022, and not 50 years earlier, it is entirely possible that the following scene, considered to be one of the most memorable in cinematic history, would run in this manner: Michael Corleone, having butchered the Sicilian mobster, Virgil Sollozzo, and his crooked sidekick of a cop would then post a video of the slayings on TikTok. Purists would not have pointed an incredulous — accusatory — finger, accusing Mr Coppola of exaggeration or embellishment. For the director, if he was making his cult film today, would only be doffing his hat at reality. The word on the street is that the Camorra — the Neapolitan mafia — has discovered TikTok and is in no hurry to stop documenting their lives online.

The life of the son of a mobster is ticking just fine in spite of uploading videos of everything that makes up the good life in the mob dictionary: designer clothes, pit bulls and rap music. Of course, blood and gore are never far away. TikTok is proving to be a rather verdant medium to communicate vendetta among gangs whose internecine rivalries are the stuff of legend. Incidentally, the social media bug has bitten quite a few subterranean brotherhoods: the Camorra learnt to shoot — videos in this case — from the Narcos of Mexico. Rome’s infamous gypsy mafia, too, has been tickled pink by TikTok.

There are some illuminating takeaways from the mobsters’ fascination with social media. Criminal cartels are often imagined as orthodox in their ways. Tradition, arcane codes of honour and conservatism have been central to popular culture’s depiction of the life and times of the Corleones. But as the TikTok mafia has shown, organised crime is an evolving species, keeping in step with changes not just in power and economy but also in culture and technology. The most radical of these transformations is centred on the method of communication. In the past, secrecy, even anonymity, served as a chilling message: the Sicilian mafia was notable for its use of codes that would fox the uninitiated. Gangs taking to TikTok probably means that the days of mysterious ciphers are over. Establishing direct communication through mass media is the key to business and pleasure. The need for unambiguity — coming out of the closet, as it were — could also be a strategic decision: the video vignettes serve as a powerful tool for recruitment of the young and impressionable kind.

But the journey from shadow to light can be fraught. The Boss and his minions making their presence felt on social media has not gone undetected among the police fraternity. It remains to be seen whether this ushers in a new cat-and-mouse game among cops and robbers. But an even greater threat for the Camorra could be the loss of enigma. After all, the reason why Michael or Don Corleone endures in the cultural consciousness is their ability to lurk in and strike from the shadows.