The residents of Richmond, Virginia clearly have a good sense of humor (and music taste). As the city introduces a new bike lane street sweeper, it engaged residents in a March Madness-style bracket to decide on a name for the machine, ultimately landing on MF BROOM, a play on the late hip-hop artist MF DOOM.
Community organization Venture Richmond handled the naming, crowdsourcing ideas from the city and organizing polls on Twitter. Besides MF BROOM, other potential names for the street sweeper included Kate Brush, Meryl Sweep, Dirt Reynolds, Bike Dyson, LeBroom James, and The Grim Sweeper — the latter of which made it all the way to the final round of voting before losing 59%-41% to MF BROOM.
“The people have spoken!” Venture Richmond tweeted. “We crowdsourced name ideas, you voted, and the name of the new @DPW_RichmondVAbike lane sweeper is… MF BROOM.” According to Venture Richmond, the city of Richmond will even host a naming ceremony for the street sweeper, with details to be announced soon. “Until then, enjoy your clean bike lanes!”
MF DOOM passed away in 2020. Since then, the British-American masked rapper has received honors in the form of street names, Atmosphere songs, Thom Yorke remixes, and more.
The people have spoken! We crowdsourced name ideas, you voted, and the name of the new @DPW_RichmondVA bike lane sweeper is… ?
? MF BROOM ?
The @CityRichmondVA will host a naming ceremony—details coming soon. Until then, enjoy your clean bike lanes! #RVASweep16 pic.twitter.com/fYcEpVwZVC— Venture Richmond (@VentureRVA) August 5, 2022
The Grim Sweeper vs. MF BROOM
— Venture Richmond (@VentureRVA) August 3, 2022