We would have liked to go and meet him. See him start his day with a crossfit session before he goes diving into the cold waters of the English Channel to fish by hand for scallops. But the Covid-19 made it impossible. So it was by phone that we heard from our national Tomy. If you don’t know the guy, it’s because you don’t have the internet or you spent the end of the year on the moon last year. Because the fisherman from Saint-Malo caused a real tidal wave on the Web just before Christmas.
They fish for scallops by hand off the coast of Saint-Malo: meeting Tomy and his fellow divers who defend sustainable fishing.
The full report of@ 1:15 p.m. ▶ ️ https://t.co/kg5QLsITR1 pic.twitter.com/HUBVQJq4QR
– France 2 (@ France2tv) December 23, 2020
At the bend of a report from France 2 devoted to sustainable fishing, the young man of 29 years with the advantageous plastic appeared shirtless at 8 am and by 8 degrees, quietly explaining his profession in front of the camera. It did not take less to panic Twitter, Tomy becoming in a few hours the star of social networks. “We were just getting out of the water after fishing and one of my divers showed me the extract on his phone,” he says. We then discovered the incredible number of comments, it was madness! “
Fake profiles and hacked accounts
At the time, the buzz surprised him a little. “I didn’t quite understand why people were so inflamed,” he says. But hey, that didn’t bother me either. »His wife a little more considering the number of declarations of love or marriage proposals received by her darling. “She was a little freaked out at first but she quickly saw that I was keeping my head on my shoulders,” he says. And anyway, she wasn’t too worried. “
If this sudden notoriety was good for business, bringing him “credibility, visibility and new customers all over France”, Tomy still experienced the other side of the coin. “I had the right to fake profiles on social networks, I was also hacked my accounts,” said Tomy, who also had to manage a few contenders a little insistent. “Mainly men and one in particular who flooded me with messages on my phone, on my professional and personal mailboxes and on my Instagram and Facebook accounts,” says Tomy.
He hopes for better weather to go fishing
After a month, the madness still faded to his greatest happiness. “I’m happy to have lived this but also happy that everything is over,” he concedes. However, it was difficult for Tomy to become anonymous again. “It happens of course that fishermen or restaurateurs recognize me and tell me about this video,” says the young man. But we move on very quickly in the discussion and fortunately. “
More than his notoriety, it is the weather at the moment that worries him. In the middle of the shell season, Tomy and his team of divers find themselves forced into unemployment. “With the bad weather, the water is too dirty and it has been going on for a week already”, he impatiently. Fortunately, the weather is looking better for the next few days. After fishing, Tomy can therefore get shirtless to carry his crates of shells. And all this far from the cameras.