7 p.m., Tuesday.
“My brothers, the time has come,” tweets @LePessiclope.
Hear the Pessi call.
“At this time, Gérald Darmanin has 250 responses to his last tweet, where he reveals that he will be the guest the next day, Wednesday, by Jean-Jacques Bourdin on BFM TV.
One minute later, he will have 800 responses, then 3,000 after five minutes and double that after ten minutes… It is nothing to understand: Internet users under a pseudo, with a bald Lionel Messi in profile picture , publish hundreds of messages, each not clearer than the next.
In a coordinated operation, they have just launched a "raid".
These curious trolls come from the Pessi movement.
Before Gérald Darmanin on Tuesday, other personalities at the heart of the news have already been their target: Prime Minister Jean Castex on Sunday evening, sports journalist Pierre Ménès on Monday… The young Mila and the former member of the National Gathering Jean Messiha have even had to temporarily close their account in the face of attacks.
And Marlène Schiappa, Minister Delegate in charge of Citizenship, announced to file a complaint after a similar raid, which also forced her to temporarily block her account.
In the history of the Pessi, it all begins on August 23, 2020: it is on this date that the so-called founder tweet was published.
@ LeMoi51618839 writes “Annoying” there.
Why this word at this time?
We do not know anything.
Beely, in the Drôme, joined the movement in December, "but I was already following it before," he notes.
“Basically we were just a small community to write
Dirty fraud t finito
(sic), or messages of the kind for fun, under the comments of @ ActuFoot_ tweets (
Editor's note: a Twitter account followed by nearly three million people
) with a profile picture of bald Messi ”, explains the one who wants to be called“ RDZ ”, at the head of the @ ActualiteFCv2 account (after the suspension, Tuesday, of the @ActualiteFC_ account).
And RDZ to clarify: “Pessi, it's Messi with a P to recall all the penalties he missed.
"
embarrassing
- onion (@ LeMoi51618839) August 23, 2020
At first, Pessi is therefore only a group of trolls who laugh at the (many) misses of the FC Barcelona striker.
His followers can be recognized on Twitter by their profile photos: photomontages of a Lionel Messi with a shaved head and placed in all imaginable situations.
A schoolboy joke that not everyone will find funny or understand, and which social networks have the secret.
Young people making "funny tweets"
Who are those behind these images of bald Messi?
"For me, Pessi is a young man, he is between 15 and 25 years old," writes Beely, alias @Eaunel, a 17-year-old high school student in first general.
And the young man clarified his idea: “In groups, we also talk a lot about our life projects and the average age must be 17-18 years.
RDZ tells us that he is 16 years old.
He won't tell us more, "preferring to remain anonymous".
"The Pessi in general are small twittos (
Editor's note: Twitter users
) who make funny tweets and support each other by following each other", he says, estimating that the members of Pessi are "between 14 and 20 years old" .
The pessi who do not follow me 😹😹 pic.twitter.com/TlpK9QNi3w
- Beely 🧢 (@Eaunel) March 22, 2021
Gradually, over the mistakes of Lionel Messi, the community grows.
Confined initially to a confidential sphere, to "a delirium" between initiates, Pessi wants to see bigger and gain visibility.
Then comes the idea of raids.
The goal ?
Inundate a social network user with hundreds of messages in a matter of minutes to make sure you don't go unnoticed.
The presenter of TF1 Denis Brogniart or the far-right activist Damien Rieu will suffer their wrath… in general indifference.
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For Pessi, the “glory” will come on Sunday March 14.
The community is attacking Mila, this teenage girl victim of cyberbullying and death threats in January 2020, and since then placed under police protection.
Within seconds, a photo she just posted - a drawing she made in kindergarten - receives hundreds and hundreds of comments.
“I put my phone down and pick it up two minutes later to see the comments,” she told Le Point.
There, I discovered ten odd messages with creepy messages.
I don't understand what's going on […].
I block two or three accounts and refresh the thread;
I then see messages by the hundreds.
"The teenager responds to the attack, but her tweet is then reported en masse by the community and her Twitter account is suspended," by mistake "will defend the platform.
Information is circulating in the media and the planet Pessi is jubilant.
"Barks", "croaks", "hoots" ...
While Mila did receive insults from some, most of the messages sent at that time were not - huddled together with songs from Sexion d'Assaut, an advertisement for the Cicciobello doll or words like "barks "," Croaks "or" hoots ".
"The main instruction of raids is no insults or hate speech," says Beely.
A rule that can be found in "the Declaration of the Rights of Pessi", widely shared on Twitter.
"A Pessi who threatens or insults a person is a Pessi finito and automatically loses his civility of Pessi", it is written in article 3. Where it is also specified: "The Pessi must respect French law".
PESSI DECLARATION OF RIGHTS #Pessi #PessiLivesMatter #raidpourlesouighours pic.twitter.com/L6w9o9RvBI
- Pleurito (@PessiPleurito) March 20, 2021
Since the one against Mila, Pessi has been stepping up political raids.
After first shooting in the crowd "for fun", the Pessi are now targeting their victims.
"With the scale that it took, we decided to
raid
to defend causes", explains RDZ, whose account, followed by 5,000 people before its suspension, promises the news in "real time" on past raids , in progress and to come.
“Sometimes the targets are controversial people,” explains Beely.
The goal is to manage to discredit them with humor.
"
"Nobody controls the Pessi"
On Tuesday, they attacked Gerald Darmanin, the Minister of the Interior, because of the rape accusations against him.
A few days earlier, they had attacked Marlène Schiappa or the Chinese embassy in France, to denounce the situation of the Uyghurs.
Jean Messiha, who had closed his account, now responds to the Pessi who call him out using their own words: “Meows without meowing”, “Remains worthy akhy”… And the former member of the National Rally to call, in another publication, the “patriosphere” to “atomize” them “by reporting them massively”.
To all the #patriosphere who will see this message: I need you!
At 7 p.m. the #pessi will raid my account.
They will pollute my posts with thousands of bullshit messages.
This is an army of anti-national trolls.
Atomize them by reporting them massively!
- Jean MESSIHA (@JeanMessiha) March 22, 2021
"Nobody controls the Pessi, each Pessi is free to do what he wants", explains RDZ.
Who decides the targets?
“We get private messages where we are asked to
raid
certain people,” he continues.
We meet with the CF leaders (
Editor's note: each Pessi can join a team, which we call FC
) and we choose a raid.
The information is then shared on social networks, especially in Twitter conversation groups where they exchange.
At the determined time, everyone then goes there with their messages.
“In general, we set a number of comments to be reached, which is what determines the end of a raid,” explains Beely.
"A raid is won when we manage to put the hashtag of the raid in Twitter trends (
Editor's note: determined in particular according to the number of tweets
) because the media are talking about it", adds RDZ.
With each raid, Pessi recruits new followers.
How many are there in total?
On Twitter, accounts with a photo of bald Messi number in the hundreds.
“I think there are almost 2,000 of us,” Beely said.
RDZ admits, the raid on Mila has allowed the community to grow.
Its objective is much greater: “Our ambitions are to build an even larger community than today to go international raiding.
"
