Is Italy Real? An Investigation

Italy

Italy has been on everyone’s lips as of late. Whether it’s the new animated movie Luca or the controversial Amalfi Beach Club proposed for Sydney’s Bondi Beach, it seems like everyone wants a piece of this international fever dream.

This fanciful country full of good food and idyllic beaches and fashion and history and nonnas – it all sounds too bloody good to be true, doesn’t it?

It’s almost become a meme how frequently people drop references to “Italian food” this, or “holiday in Italy” that. Enough!

We’ve decided to determine once and for all if there’s any validity to these rumours of Italy actually existing in real life.

Let’s take a look at the evidence.

Italy
Italy has been attested to in several children’s films.

Famous Italians

Perhaps the most famous Italians to ever be thought into existence, Mario and Luigi, are in fact fictional video game characters created by the Japanese company Nintendo.

There is no evidence that they existed and anyone who tells you otherwise is a shill for Nintendo trying to sell more video games.

It’s a similar story for other supposedly big Italian names. Lady Gaga? Born in NYC. Richard Di Natale? He’s from Melbourne. Cosima De Vito? A Perth girl.

Food

The name chicken parmigiana evokes the Parmigiano-Reggiano dairy cultures (pun intended!!!) of the supposed northern regions of so-called Italy. And yet, it’s actually an iconic Aussie pub dish.

Many people associate pizza with the so-called nation of Italy, yet the eponymous Pizza Hut – possibly the birthplace of the dish as we know it – is in fact from America. Domino’s is also American.

Try to name one supposedly Italian dish that can’t already be ascribed to another culture? You can’t.

Pizza
A supposed Italian staple: none pizza with left beef.

Culture

The pinnacle of Italian culture (aside from Umarell) is supposedly the archetypical ~Italian pinch~. Whoever came up with the idea of Italians apparently thought it would be fun to imagine a group of people are compelled to flail their hands while speaking, for no real reason other than for a bit of pizzazz.

Well it turns out the emoji which we had been referring to as the Italian hand emoji is actually called the pinched fingers emoji. Debunked!

It’s also worth nothing that most of the Roman gods are just renamed ancient Greek gods. That’s not a coincidence, it’s just proof of one made-up culture copying the homework of another very real culture.

Geography

Sorry but do you really expect us to believe that there’s an entire country, supposedly home to the fashion capital of the world Milan, and it’s on a peninsula shaped like a BOOT?!

That’s a telltale if ever there was one. No, there is no country out there shaped like a boot because no such country exists in the first place.

Oh, and that flag: whoever came up with the Italy pride flag, or whatever you want to call it, clearly just appropriated the Christmas colours.

Conclusion

No, Italy is not real, but it’s nice that we have such a beautiful locale to fantasise about.

If anyone tried to convince you otherwise, just politely nod until they’re finished ranting.

After all, why spoil someone’s fun by insisting to them that Italy isn’t real. Did you learn anything from Christmas time?

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