Lineman and bucket-bunny drama has taken over TikTok
(Picture: American Public Power Association/Unsplash)Every few months, a niche community becomes the subject of widespread intrigue and scandal on TikTok.
In June, Mormon MomTok flooded users’ for-you-pages when Utah-based influencer Taylor Frankie Paul revealed that most couples in her friendship group were “soft swingers”.
Last year, TikTok users were enthralled by a feud between two beekeepers – as one called out the other on her way of working – igniting controversy and resulting in numerous news articles.
This time around, the attention of social media users is focused on linemen and their line wives – but, most importantly, the notorious bucket bunnies who threaten their marriages.
But what exactly is this very specific community drama all about?
What are linemen and line wives?
Linemen–or line women–are the people who work on electrical lines, typically fixing them when they get damaged. Meanwhile, line wives are women who are married to linemen.
What’s the bucket-bunny drama about?
The lineman drama has entered the mainstream in the wake of Hurricane Ian’s devastating impact in Florida.
More than a hundred people have been killed, thousands of people have been displaced, while thousands more have been left without power.
This is where the linemen come in.
Linemen have been flocking to Florida to work, with many travelling away from their homes and their wives.
As a result, Tinder users apparently saw an increase in linemen appearing on the app, and videos of their profiles went viral on TikTok.
Then, videos from women claiming to be the wives or girlfriends of these linemen appeared on the video app to call out the so-called “bucket bunnies” — women who “hop from electrical lineman to lineman looking to have sex, often not caring if the men are single or married”, according to Urban Dictionary.
They get their name from the “bucket” attached to the truck that the linemen stand in while fixing the wires.
According to the TikTok drama, the bucket bunnies are making the most of the linemen’s presence in Florida, while the line wives are sticking together to face the threat.
(Standing in solidarity with the line wives are pipeline wives, who have to compete with their own version of the bucket bunny – the “row hoe”.)
But the line wives are hitting back at the bucket bunnies by making it very clear that marrying a lineman is a very specific lifestyle with its own set of responsibilities that come with it. And they’ve made it clear to the bucket bunnies that, frankly, they’re not cut out for it.
Why the wives are blaming the women for chasing their husbands rather than their husbands for being on Tinder in the first place is unclear.
But until the linemen have restored Florida’s power, the drama will inevitably continue. And social-media users are loving every minute of it.
