In a world where 20-year-old influencers spend hours choosing the right filter, the hottest star right now is an 84-year-old woman wearing a flour-dusted apron, shouting in Tuscan dialect and preferring card games with her sisters over taking selfies. As for the 2 million people who follow her, they do not interest her at all.
Meet Silvana Bini, better known by the nickname that took over social media: ‘Nonna Silvi.’ Until 18 months ago, she was known only to customers of the family bakery in the Tuscan town of Castelfiorentino. Today she is a global sensation who has been crowned Italy’s content creator of the year. But do not call her an influencer.
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One video filmed by her grandson changed everything. Nonna Silvi
(Photo: from TikTok account @nonnasilviofficial)
‘An influencer, me?’ she said in a recent interview. ‘The only influence I know is influenza (the flu), and I did not even get that this year,’ she added.
The frenzy around Silvi began when her grandson, Gabriele, filmed her pulling scorching hot bread from the oven with her bare hands. Amazed reactions, including jokes asking whether her hands were made of asbestos, sent the clip viral. But it was her personality that won people over, earning her more than 21 million likes across her videos.
Despite the fame, Silvi refuses to change. ‘I stayed the same person,’ she said. ‘I get up in the morning to work, come home at noon to watch my favorite show, “The Bold and the Beautiful,” and at four I go play cards with my sisters.’
And what does she think of the people following her online? ‘To young people today I say: 'learn a profession and put away the phones,’ she said in another interview, hinting they should go learn baking.
She does not even spare her grandson. Almost every time he bothers her with a camera during peak work hours, she yells at him in Tuscan, ‘Vai a lavorare,’ meaning go to work, or ‘Un mi rompere i coglioni,’ roughly meaning stop messing with my head. Her followers have embraced the line as a slogan aimed at what they see as a lazy TikTok generation.
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She was born into the harsh reality of hunger
(Photo: from TikTok account @nonnasilviofficial)
Silvi’s captivating persona is not an act for the camera. It is the product of a hard life. She was born in 1941 amid the hunger of World War II. In interviews, she recalls through tears how her mother would cry because she had only half a kilogram of flour for the entire family.
‘I know hunger very well,’ she said, recalling how as a child she would chase American soldiers asking for ‘cilingomma,’ chewing gum, just so she would have something to chew.
That past helps explain her lack of patience for what she calls 'culinary pretension'. When asked about modern fine-dining restaurants, she does not hold back her criticism. ‘That's for people with a lot of money and very little hunger,’ she said. "They put a bite and a half on a plate and charge 80 euros. With 80 euros, I can live for a whole month", she says.
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She cooked at the Qatari royal palace
(Phjoto: from TikTok account @nonnasilviofficial)
The highlight of the past year came when the emir of Qatar flew her and her grandson first class so she could cook at the royal palace. ‘I was scared. I did not know how to greet them. Should I bow?’ she recalled with humor. But once she entered the kitchen, the distance disappeared. ‘In the end, all the royal chefs followed my orders,’ she said.
Even in the lavish palace, she refused to remove her simple wooden cross necklace. ‘That is one thing I will not give up,’ she made clear.
For anyone looking for the secret of her success, it is not found in an algorithm. It is in the hands that have worked hard for 70 years and in one woman who refuses to apologize for who she is.