They live near Nantes, on family land where around fifteen mobile homes are installed. Day after day, Sandy and Loona publish videos on TikTok to show their daily lives with humor, and to make fun of the prejudices that stick to the skin of travelers.
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Thieves, dirty, poorly behaved, dependent on benefits… No matter what the worst clichés circulating about Travelers are, TikTokers Sandy and Loona are determined to make fun of them.
On their account, which has nearly 80,000 followers, they reenact stereotypical skits with humor, to ridicule the prejudices that exist in this community.
In a video, when one is surprised to have seen “men with guns on New Year’s Eve”the other responds with a smile, “yes, to wish a happy new year, we don’t have fireworks, we shoot guns in the air”.
The tone is light, and the message, between self-deprecation and denunciation, passes easily to an increasingly growing audience.
“We are in 2025, no longer in the 60s, when people could steal chickens for food. We are people like the others,” they want to tell us straight away. “We use social networks to get this message across and carry our voice a little.”
A “traveler” voice, as they define themselves, which is little highlighted apart from in sensational television shows, which show, for example, excessive marriages, or in articles which instead tell about conflicts between travelers. and mayors.
Sandy, 36, was raised in a mobile home in the Traveler community, near Nantes. His family has settled down. Loona, 26, came to the community seven years ago, when she became involved with a member of Sandy’s family.
The two Nantes women got along straight away. Now mothers of several children, they live on the same private land, which accommodates their large family (parents, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins, etc.) installed in around fifteen mobile homes.
The young women regularly meet at one or the other’s home to shoot their videos. They have accumulated no less than 2.4 million views on these.
-“It started from the fact that when I arrived, I really discovered life among travelers”, Loona explains. “As it’s a very different way of life, and each one had prejudices about the other, we wanted to make videos about it.”
On the social network, we see Sandy making fun of Loona who gives her empty plate to her dog so that he can lick it, or clean the floor with a sponge. Things that are clearly not done in his new family. “Contrary to what you might think, Travelers are very clean, we clean every day, whereas non-travelers will only do it once a week.” Sandy says.
For her part, Loona is often addressed by Sandy, who speaks quickly and in very specific words about the community, such as “my cousin”, “chourave” (to steal) or “of her dead” (added at the end of ‘a sentence). All this with a certain second degree.
“On networks, humor allows us to reach more people”they admit. But, contrary to what they imply in their sketches, “o“We pay taxes, our children go to school, we work… Travelers are people like everyone else.”
Even if their family model remains rather traditional, the young travelers assure that they have “the same goals in life” than non-travelers. “Having land, for some a house, finally something to leave to our children.”
Sandy, however, has always known her “campsite”, or her mobile home, and does not intend to change that. She lists the positive points to experience like travelers. “Hearing the rain falling on the campsite in the evening when you’re in bed is like a little lullaby, it’s priceless. And then we live outside a lot and summer is very pleasant. We are also family. We are very united, and we are never alone.”
Despite their will “to live like everyone else” while preserving certain differences dear to the community, their identity always seems to be an obstacle to integration.
“Many Travelers are self-employed, because to find paid work, you have to hide your accent, and it’s not easy. If the boss hears that it’s a traveler accent, you’re not going to be caught. Unfortunately, it’s a bit easy to discriminate against Travelers, itIt is not considered a form of racism.“
The clichés that stick to them, they think, limit them in the path they have found themselves. Trained in applying false eyelashes, which they do at home, Sandy and Loona think that their potential clients are afraid to visit them.
“If we give our address, and you go to Google Maps, you see caravans and mobile homes, and that scares people”, they deplore, hoping that in the future, non-travelers “open their eyes more and more to ways of life that are not like theirs.”
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