(Observer News)
Yesterday, a video about the "daily life of the French prison kitchen god" also caught fire in China, telling that a French food blogger "TikTolard" is not only skilled, but more shockingly, he is actually a prisoner who is serving a prison sentence, and each video is secretly completed in his own cell!
In response to netizens' doubts, TikTolard explained how he smuggled his mobile phone and bypassed the prison's signal jammer to access the Internet, and as a result, he posted an "artifact" that instantly made Chinese netizens Bengbu stop - Huawei's wireless network card.
Although prisoners are forbidden to use mobile phones in prison, there are still many French prisoners like TikTolard who secretly work as video bloggers in prison, and even a hashtag called "prisondeFrance" has been generated.
TikTolard has actually been popular on overseas short video platforms for a while, according to French media reports, he is in his early 20s, has served 5 years in a single cell in a Paris prison, and his sentence is about to end. During his imprisonment, the loyal audience of this cooking show used a smuggled mobile phone to become a food blogger in prison, teaching cooking secrets to netizens and sharing prison life, which was called "prison kitchen god" by jianghu people.
There are canteens in prison where ingredients can be purchased, whether it's a traditional dish like spaghetti with meat sauce or a dessert like tiramisu, he can perfectly reproduce it, sometimes playing a wave of improvisation. However, the kitchen utensils used to cook in the cell are very limited, and he also has a way, using an induction cooker without an oven and a knife without a kitchen knife.
Every month, TikTolard can post about 10 videos, and the 20-second short video is secretly cooked and filmed every day when the prison warden changes shifts. He currently has more than 350,000 followers on TikTok, and his cooking videos can sometimes be viewed more than 4 million times.
But TikTolard is also well aware that the reason for his popularity is not just because of his cooking skills, but because of his identity — it's strange that a prisoner serving a prison sentence has become a video blogger. "The prison world is a closed world, and ordinary people can't see the days inside, which becomes an attraction."
Indeed, many netizens and media outlets are amazed at TikTolard's ability to record videos in prison and even surf the Internet. In several videos, he explained how he smuggled his phone and bypassed the prison's signal jamper, and one of his Internet artifacts turned out to be a Huawei wireless network card.
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The video is from Weibo netizen @France
According to comprehensive US media VICE and other reports, TikTolard said that he bought a mobile phone in prison through an intermediary for 800 euros (about 5751.36 yuan), usually either using a router to access the Internet, or using a network card bought from the black market, and was recharged and renewed by friends outside the prison.
Usually, he not only records videos, but sometimes interacts with fans live. But TikTolard said he couldn't make money as a video blogger because the ID cards he needed to cash out had been temporarily confiscated by the prison before he was jailed.
It doesn't matter if he can't make money, TikTolard is still happy to be a video blogger, he believes that with the power of the Internet, he can not derail with society and the times, and he has found his hobby in the tasteless prison life that does not know the future direction, and can maintain a positive side every day," Frankly, this healed me. I found the online society to be a super benevolent world and they helped me psychologically. ”
However, no matter how netizens and the media ask questions, he is reluctant to disclose what crime he is imprisoned for. TikTolard said it would expose his identity and be discovered by prison guards. Because during detention, in principle, prisoners are prohibited from using mobile phones.
His last mobile phone was caught by the prison guards during the handover with the intermediary, and finally the mobile phone was gone, and the person was punished with 10 days of disciplinary punishment. Usually recorded videos, TikTolard also wore sunglasses, masks and hats, hid his appearance, did not reveal personal belongings in the cell in the video, and did not disclose any privacy issues in online interviews.
Although prisoners are forbidden to use mobile phones in prison, as TikTolard said that "there are countermeasures under the policy", there are still not a few French prisoners who secretly do video bloggers in prison, and even havehtags like "prisondeFrance" or "prisonlife" have been born on short video platforms.
It is full of videos of prisoners dancing, eating, exchanging ropes with ropes from outside the windows between cells, and perhaps because the public is really curious about life inside the high walls, many of which can easily be played in more than a million, this kind of "wealth code" is really not something that ordinary people can get together.
Some people share the same view as TikTolard, seeing it as a way to kill time, otherwise they often have nothing to do. But at the end of the day, inmates' use of mobile phones is still illegal, and the public is curious, "Don't the prison guards care?" The French prison guards said tiredly and unlovingly: Manage, but sometimes it is really impossible to manage...
According to the French media Franceinfo investigation, this year, la Santé prison in the Montparnasse district of Paris alone confiscated 1200 mobile phones, and it should be known that there are only more than a thousand people in this prison, which is equivalent to one person.
In 2018, the French Ministry of Justice invested 125 million euros to eliminate mobile phones in prisons, and the French Ministry of Justice focused on installing signal jammers. But just look at TikTolard's proficiency in crossing the jammer, it is estimated that this thing is not very useful.
Many prisoners say that in fact, they perform better in prison every day, and when they do not do bad things with mobile phones, prison guards generally turn a blind eye, but according to French information television station BFMTV, Fred, a 54-year-old prison warden who has been working as a prison guard for 8 years, said that prison guards have absolutely zero tolerance when they find that prisoners secretly use mobile phones. They have a procedure to follow, first confiscating the phone, then reporting the information to management, then seeing what information is inside the phone, and finally the prisoners who are caught face disciplinary action.
Fred said that in the Paris prison where he was on duty, prison guards could catch at least 10-15 prisoners a day using mobile phones, and even the latest mobile phones such as the iPhone 13 were common. And now the prisoners are very "smart", they will hide the mobile phone in various hidden places, what refrigerator seams, pry open the TV to hide the mobile phone inside, even dig holes, cut the soles of shoes...
TikTolard has a video about hiding his phone with a network card in chicken
Although he has always stressed that prison guards will not tolerate the use of cell phones by prisoners, Fred also admitted that every night after 7 o'clock, the warden will take the keys to the cell, and if the prison guard wants to check the room, he must call his superiors to report it.
So as long as nothing happens, the guards don't patrol as diligently as they do during the day, often thinking, "Okay, let's check it tomorrow morning," and then the prisoners have the opportunity to use their phones or even livestreams.
If prisoners use mobile phones to access the Internet just to show their daily lives, cook or whatever, the police are worried that with a phone, prisoners may continue to commit crimes, such as trading through mobile phones, directing people outside to commit crimes... Even the continued pressure on the victims.
The prison management department also said that in the future, they will continue to deploy resources to deal with the wider problem of mobile phone use, as for the final effect, it depends on whether these "prison internet celebrities" will break the change...
This article is an exclusive manuscript of the Observer Network and may not be reproduced without authorization.