It’s easy for the most active Twitter users to already know who number six Fernanda is, who has become the “involuntary” protagonist – but for many even more: the “queen” – of the Harry Styles concert in Campovolo.
But how to explain it to those who haven’t been following one of the most viral trends of the last few days on Elon Musk’s platform?
Let’s start from the beginning, because it all starts with the pop star’s concert and the news circulating online about the thousands of fans who have already camped out days before the event to grab a front row seat.
Let’s go in order: On Saturday, July 22nd, the Harry Styles concert took place in Campovolo. According to the British singer (and actor), 100,000 people traveled from all over Italy (and beyond). The event was one of the most anticipated of the season, so much so that thousands of fans went camping a week earlier to see their idol’s concert up close. Among them – who finished sixth, as her famous moniker suggests – is Fernanda, a fan who came to Italy from Mexico just to see the final leg of Styles’ Love on Tour.
But how did Fernanda become famous? The virality (her name has been trending several times on Twitter over the past few days) came from a report that Tg1 dedicated precisely to the many fans who camped out in Campovolo for days: a frame of the video captures the moment when she is called to roll call (yes, the queuing rules provided for different roll calls at different times of the day, which had to be answered at risk of losing space): “Fernanda number six”.
Fernanda’s face doesn’t appear in the video, but the girl who takes on the role simply says, “Yes, there is.”
The final turning point came on the morning of the concert. The Mexican fan’s Twitter account (Fer On Tour @ferdaviila) tweeted in response to another user, “My ticket is fake, no more Fernanda number six.”
From there, a fanfare of tweets is unleashed commenting on the rumor circulating: “But how can this be wrong?”, “All these hours in line and then she doesn’t even have a ticket”, “Let’s gather a collection and give Fernanda a new ticket.” The story is bizarre: how can a ticket bought on an official resale platform be fake, some wonder? And Fernanda replies: “You just told me that the scanner does not recognize the code.” And again: “Someone sell me a ticket, from any sector please.”
Thousands of tweets (and hypotheses) later, it’s the fan himself who solves the mystery: “Guys I’M IN” (translated: “Guys, I’m in”, editor’s note), including photos with the tour bracelet.
Fernanda first becomes trending on Twitter, where after days of comments on the precarious hygiene conditions of fans queuing under the sun in the Pianura Piadana and on the “paramilitary” rules they impose to maintain order and priority in the queues, users’ attention is focused on the fairy tale with a happy ending of the network’s new darling. So famous that he became one of the protagonists of the evening. “A star is born”, to quote the words of the journalist Emiliano Condò, who is autographing the broadcast of the Tg1 service of Saturday 22nd, which traces Fernanda’s story.
On Instagram, the young fan shared various videos and footage from the concert – she was in one of the very first rows, as evidenced by the material posted on social networks. And then, at the end of the evening, she publishes on Twitter a photo that portrays her late at night in Campovolo, while in the background some fans can be seen returning like her from the concert of her idol: “What a show, I love you, Italy,” Fernanda writes on social media. A recording that has gone so viral that it has even been picked up by the official Live Nation Italy account, which has dubbed it an “icon”.
The next day they asked on Twitter: “How do we manage today without the appeals, the memes about Campovolo and Fernanda number six?” I will miss everything.
A legitimate question, because Campovolo has been dominating trends on the web for the last week and the memes created on the occasion of the event are countless: the Harry Styles concert in Campovolo was renamed “The Hunger Games of Reggio Emilia” and triggered thousands of interactions, comments and shares between fans who were waiting for the show and those who were at home. Something very similar to big music events that bring the community together, like Sanremo or Eurovision.