As tourists followed the smell of fried pizza, posed by white and blue murals of Diego Maradona on streets lined with dangling laundry, and marveled at the decadent beauty of Naples, an 18-year-old boy and 26-year-old twin sisters were killed as the makeshift fireworks factory where they worked blew up. Their burned, mutilated bodies were found among the explosives and the cans of detergent they also bottled for a living in a house amid olive trees and orange groves near the ancient Roman citadel Herculaneum, outside Naples. The deaths in November of the three young Neapolitans, who took the risky jobs for about 25 euros, or $26, a day because they could not find better ones, highlighted how, despite Naples’s recent hype and tourism boom, it remains a merciless city for many of its own young people. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “Naples is like a tomb,” said Adamo Dumbia, 38, after he shoveled dirt on the grave of Samuel Tafciu, his stepdaughter’s fiancé, who died in the blast. “It’s pretty from the outside, but you don’t want to see what is inside.” Image Since the pandemic, Naples has become an Instagram sensation. Tourism has surged, especially among foreigners. Many of them were introduced to the city through the novels of Elena Ferrante. Hollywood actors have stopped there. The model Emily Ratajkowski posed for photos with a Napoli soccer jersey. Countless Instagram posts showcase older Neapolitans with leathery tans, tattooed chests, heavy makeup and crucifixes under the summer’s scorching sun. Charli XCX sang about such images in the song “Everything is Romantic.” It all has contributed to building a seductive image of Naples that has attracted flocks of millennials. But if Naples’s gaudy decadence is hot on social media, the city is also experiencing a much more unromantic, enduring and crude degradation that is engulfing the youth from its poorer quarters.