2023-09-29 06:00:13
A bedbug. JEWEL SAMAD / AFP
Among the undeniable stars of this media comeback, between Laurent Ruquier and Marie Portolano, an unexpected creature has crept in at this level of notoriety: the bedbug. On September 19, a certain Dana Del Rey published on X (formerly Twitter) two photos taken in car 6 of her TGV, at Paris-Est station. On the blue and white velvet of an armchair, we can see a small beast with a dark shell. “Could these be bedbugs on your trains @SNCFVoyageurs @SNCFConnect ????? »asks the horrified customer, whose tweet was seen 4.6 million times in two days.
While Internet users, self-proclaimed entomologists, struggle to find out whether or not it is the aforementioned species, Dana Del Rey finds herself indicted. For some, it does not provide enough scientific proof of what it says: “I was loaded, I had my kitten with me, she defends herself. I saw this on the “family” seat. They were everywhere, some of them moving! Also on the carpet. I took this photo quickly before running and changing cars for fear of catching one. This is why my photo is blurry! You didn’t want me to take them and breed them too???? » Go ahead, do some profiling in the middle of an alien invasion!
Read the survey: Article reserved for our subscribers The persistent anxiety of bedbug victims: “It is the insect that most destabilizes human beings”
Faced with the excitement, the SNCF was forced to issue a denial, explaining that it had had no confirmed presence of bedbugs in its TGVs in recent months. On September 22, again: a certain NaNa Afi posts a slightly blurry video on her X account which, she says, was filmed on a Ouigo train. We can see an insect busy running on the blue and pink velvet of an armchair. With the bedbug, it’s a bit like with the Roswell creature: shaky images, like “a little stolen”, constituting a body of almost irrefutable evidence, but still refutable.
This does not mean that there are currently no bedbug infestations, but that we end up projecting their menacing specter onto the smallest creature we come across that vaguely resembles them. In recent months, the bedbug, a tiny being, has taken up so much space in our minds that it has become “Pucezilla”, a terrifying monster which expresses our unregulated relationship with nature, with disasters that we do not want. see. Swarming on mattresses as well as in the imagination, the bedbug has fallen like a curse on contemporary forms of leisure: we report it in cinemas, Airbnb rentals or even second-hand clothes which nevertheless gave us a very cool vintage look.
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