Break out the pitchforks and fire up the flaming torches! Twitter’s Angry Brigade is mobilising against the Tour de France selfie and their latest target is a young woman with the Twitter handle @zodoyle who yesterday morning posted this:
Nearly died talking #TDFselfie pic.twitter.com/xect1YjZIP
— zoe (@zodoyle) July 6, 2014
The idea that she could just have been perhaps exaggerating a smidgeon about “nearly dying”, or that the optics of mobile phone cameras often give a very misleading view, doesn’t seem to have occurred to the Angry Brigade, who responded by calling Zoe “idiotic and completely selfish”, “Stupido” and “moron”.
Demonstrating that the Angry Brigade can be just as dumb as those they complain about one commented: “too bad she didn't vet [sic] clipped by a rider.” That wouldn’t have caused exactly the kind of pile-up you’re worried about, now would it?
This morning Zoe replied to her critics:
Getting so much abuse for taking tdfselfie hahaha!! I wasn't even in the way LEAVE ME ALONE YOU BULLIES
— zoe (@zodoyle) July 7, 2014
Since the riders behind her don't seem unduly alarmed or to be taking evasive action, we see no reason not to believe her, but doubtless this will just make the Angry Brigade even more cross.
You might be wondering how this whole #TDFselfie craze got started. A scroll back through the top tweets for the hashtag reveals this horrifying image:
1er selfie du 101ème Tour, envoie le tien avec #TDFselfie / 1st selfie of @letour make your own one with #TDFselfie pic.twitter.com/6wQzmj8LDR
— Le Tour de France (@letour) July 2, 2014
Yes, that’s Welcome to Yorkshire’s Gary Verity and Tour de France head honch Christian Prudhomme kicking off the craze in Leeds just a few days ago. They’re probably pretty well defended against the pitchforks and flaming torches of social media, though. Far easier to pick on someone you’ve never met from behind your keyboard.
11 thoughts on “Cycling’s Twitter Angry Brigade mobilises against #TDFselfie craze”
This article seems rather
This article seems rather churlish. Prudhomme and Verity weren’t getting in the way of any riders or causing any danger. The majority of people would take the #TDFselfie idea in the spirit it was intended, but you will always get some people who can’t help acting like fuckwits.
As we’ve just seen about 10 minutes ago, put a camera in the hands of some people and their brain seems to turn to mush.
I was going to give her a
I was going to give her a nice reply, about the timing and how it looks like the Garmin rider is blowing her hair.
But I looked at her profile and it is all cars, clothes and Justin Bieber…..I’m not a hater, but she looks like a spoilt brat =))
Meh. A grown man using the
Meh. A grown man using the word “s***ie” in public.
The bloke who Lopez nearly
The bloke who Lopez nearly hit was not taking a selfie, as far as I could see, just a common or garden picture of the bunch. Amateur photographers are actually marginally less of a problem than they once were, since they are mostly looking at screens (which allows some peripheral vision of moving objects around you) rather than fixedly through viewfinders – and often through a lens that distorts distances and speeds of moving objects. The bloke in question was also a victim of a common crowd control problem on straight roads, where spectators tend to echelon into the road in order to look past the person “upstream” of them, and then step back at the last moment leaving the slow, dimwitted, distracted or wide-angle lensed a metre or two out in the road on their own. I’ve seen that happen in every country I’ve ever watched a bike race – it’s certainly not a peculiarly British phenomenon.
Despite the hype, there did not seem to be an abnormal number of crashes for the opening days of the Tour. The main issue seems to have been purely one of numbers: Alpe d’Huez-sized crowds turning out on 4th-cat climbs, reducing the width of already narrow roads in places where a compact 200-rider bunch is likely to roll through together, leading to the back of the field grinding to a halt. The only way to deal with that is to restrict access in some way. The massive crowds in urban areas appeared to be no problem at all for the race.
I’m a bitter b*stard who
I’m a bitter b*stard who looks down on those who only come out for the best days of a sport or activity. Whether it’s sunbathers coming into the fields where I walk my dog so I have to put it on a lead, where were they on those rainy winter days? Or some teenage girl getting a selfie of the tour so she can show how interesting she is, blocking my view of action.
Luckily most of the crowds at the top of Holme moss were cyclists and there was a really good atmosphere beforehand, I imagine most who drove there had to park at the bottom of the hill and couldn’t be bothered to walk to the top.
cub wrote:Luckily most of the
Yep, definitely. Ride up to the summit, have a little sprint for the KOM between your group and ride back down to find a decent spot. Also, anybody who was seen to be struggling up the climb got a lot of encouragement from everybody. Great banter too.
Are we going to see some
Are we going to see some selfies from inside the peloton next?
Just don’t get it….
“Oh,
Just don’t get it….
“Oh, the world’s largest bike race is coming past – I’d best turn around and face the other way!”
… and these people must have stood there for hours, in order to take a photo – of themselves.
Hey, Guys,
I travelled a long
Hey, Guys,
I travelled a long way today and waited hours at the roadside hours to watch the TdF come past.
And then, I turned my back on them as they came past, so I never actually saw them.
How cool is that eh?
No mention of that publicity
No mention of that publicity seeking husband and wife team and his ginger brother who actually stopped the race to have their photo taken? 😀
MercuryOne wrote:No mention
Bloody Foreigners….
😉