- Since the broadcast of the last episode of Koh-Lanta , several candidates have received death threats.
- The production company of the show has decided to press charges alongside these adventurers who face torrents of hatred.
- The effects of confinement could explain this manifestation of violence.
"Shit education!" No honor! No dignity! »If you are a fan of Koh-Lanta, these words resonate in you like no other. They are those of Moundir, candidate for the program in 2009, after his elimination. They are also the ones that the candidates of this season feel in the face of the wave of insults with which they are confronted. Régis, Inès, Alexandra have been the target of hate messages on social networks for several weeks, all because of their way of playing in "The island of heroes". Faced with this situation, ALP, the production company of the show, decided to seize the Public Prosecutor of Paris. "ALP will file a complaint alongside the adventurers in order to sensitize the public prosecutor and speed up the judicial procedure so that all this stops immediately and has consequences for their perpetrators," she said at 20 Minutes .
What really set the powder on fire was the elimination of Sam, the beloved adventurer of a majority of viewers, according to the reactions posted on Twitter after his departure. To limit the fire, the production company even asked Denis Brogniart, then the young man, to call the Internet users to calm down. “Justice is about accepting the decision of my adventure comrades just like I did. […] Let them live their adventure in peace. Be well and stay wise, ”implores the young cabinetmaker.
Sam has a message for you!
He calls for calm and asks to accept, just like him, the rules of the game because #kohLanta is indeed a game, and to respect each adventurer. pic.twitter.com/T4eixDgXaM
"Death threats, rape, murder of children ..."
It is not the first time that candidates have appeared as scapegoats on social networks. Clementine, iconic adventurer of two editions of the game in 2017 and 2018, had been the target of cyberbullying and victim of lynching during her two participations. But this year, "this drift has reached a climax", ensures the production. Régis, one of the candidates who receives the most threats, confides to 20 Minutes that “where we pass a course, it is in the threats of death, rape, the slaughter of children, and in the collateral damage that it causes my family. "
The father of four alarms about the extent of the events which go beyond strictly ad personam . “My wife has not been sleeping for three days. She has received comments on her Facebook account where there are photos with me, and she is being insulted in part on this. People have the approach of seeing who I am but also with whom I interact. On the evening of Sam's elimination, the candidate receives more than 500 comments in less than ten minutes under one of his Instagram posts. Then impossible for him to control anything. In consultation with the other adventurers, he decides to file a complaint.
If this season acts as an exception through its violence, it is in particular because of the growth of these "not very social and angry networks and in these times of nervous immediacy", as Prime Minister Edouard Philippe named them in his speech of deconfinement. Digital tools that did not exist at the time of Moundir's first adventure, who participated three times in the program and who saw “a rise in the power of insults” over the years. According to him, “ Koh-Lanta is the broadcast of plural France. People take certain characters from the adventure and think they belong to them. The reality TV genre pushes vice by exacerbating the identification process. "You live, you sleep, you eat ... Koh-Lanta reflects what is happening in everyday life. There are strong, weak, etc. It represents France, ”analyzes Moundir.
More viewers, so more trolls?
The strategies in Koh-Lanta are as old as the show, since they have always been an integral part of the adventure game. But death threats sent to the candidates are unprecedented. Could the social context of the moment explain the rise in hatred this year? Mathematically speaking, the audiences of "The Isle of Heroes" are significantly higher than last year. While "La Guerre des Chefs" conquered 4.3 million viewers on average in 2019, around 6.5 million people connect to TF1 on Friday evenings since the containment was proclaimed, i.e. more than two million potential additional trolls.
"If we gain viewers via the computer, these audiences can be sent back to themselves in their isolation and their solitude," explains Laurence Allard, sociologist of digital uses. When watching the show in live-tweet, the types of comments will influence how you interpret what you see. "Clearly," we watch TV as we interact on the Internet. "
For its part, the production company partly explains this surge of hatred by “the inexcusable result of a catharsis linked to long confinement. Laurence Allard suggests that some viewers can compare their containment experience to that of Koh-Lanta . "In a way, it is an emblematic program of the situation," she notes. You have to survive in a closed, isolated space, in a sanitary situation. In both cases, we no longer experience life but survival. This could partly explain why the candidates for the program are subject to such threats, without ever excusing it.
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- Death threats
- Television
- Cyber harassment
- Reality show
- Confinement
- TF1
- Koh Lanta