Ragazzacci 2.0 o del cattivo gusto online. Note semiotiche su viralità alternative ed etichetta

Understanding virality as a communicative model means investigating not only the characteristics of the texts that are described as “viral”, but also the movement they effect within the websphere and on the normative components which regulate the itineraries of spreadability. The text which explodes suddenly in terms of diffusion is viral, yet its diffusion complies with a precise logic, a precise etiquette of virality. The objective of this paper is therefore to formulate a semiotics of the etiquette which starts from the offline world and then spills into online reality. Having established this methodological base, which will prove itself useful in supplying the competences for treating etiquette as a pre–semiosic device capable of soothing certain areas of the semiosphere and arousing others, we will then concentrate on sociosemiotic phenomena of departure from etiquette as forms of counter–virality which are particularly significant in the definition of Web culture: from the Facebook pages dedicated to programmatic political incorrectness to historic sites like chan. Finally, the Deep Web will be examined with the instruments of semiotics in an attempt to identify its deep, structural viral predisposition, which differs substantially from the common conception of virality, and to define an analytical model which can capture its various nuances, from the Torrent universe to Deep Web sites such as the famous Silk Road (now fallen into disuse).