With Nextdoor, all you have to do is sign up, log in, and start profiling everyone in your block. Are there teenagers in hoodies walking down your street? Please lock the door. The black guy standing on the corner with a backpack? Please call the police.
Just last week, someone in the Hamptons posted a video of a teenage girl’s entrance on Nextdoor and wrote, “Does anyone know this young woman?” Yes, her mother said. She said, “She’s selling cookies to raise money for her high school field trip. Shame on you. … Not everyone is a thief or a bad person.”
You’ll never know with Nextdoor. The hilarious podcast “I’ve Had It” recently posted this: “I’ve seen suspicious people many times,” someone posted. “A white man in his mid-50s…drives a luxury car but doesn’t appear to be going to work….I don’t know how this person can afford to do this…Thus, I’m calling him his I.R.S. I have reported this to…Please be careful!”
And it’s not just Nextdoor. Aspiring vigilantes can also gather in neighborhood groups on Facebook or WhatsApp and start a whisper movement. Want to take America’s temperature? Lurk in some of them and see how mean and judgmental we can be.
Nextdoor users are criticizing the minuscule size of some of the Halloween candy handed out in the “famous town of Rancho Cucamonga.” A vegan couple complains that the smell of their neighbor’s barbecue comes into their “meat-free zone.” (Is there a range without kale?)
One time, a homeowner was alarmed when someone spilled baked beans on his mailbox and asked, “Is this gang work?”
Yes, the terrifying Van Camp Viper.
Sometimes I try to swim against the madness. A woman who lives near me said, “A man stopped his car, rolled down his window, and took pictures of my house. I think he’s probably a burglar. I’m going to call the police.” I answered: “Or… maybe he just liked your house?” Or is he in real estate? Or does he like your rhododendrons? ” She told me to stick my butt out.
Oh, no, there is no end-of-life on Nextdoor. It’s just a bump in the road. The other day, someone posted about the “slow-moving vehicle that follows the school bus every morning.” That’s alarming! It turns out he was a newspaper delivery man.
It’s not all terrible. Nextdoor is great for reporting a lost pet, finding a good plumber, and alerting you about Jehovah’s Witnesses who ring your doorbell and ruin your nap. But it was getting out of hand. Paul Blart’s chance to play a mall cop brings out the worst in people, and that worst can make a completely innocent person feel persecuted, unwelcome, and angry. .
And all too often, those are people of color. In Rancho Santa Fe, California, a Nextdoor firestorm began in 2020 over a Black Lives Matter protest that some high school students were planning to attend. However, some nearby residents interpret the “protests” as planned “riots.” One person wrote: “If anyone gets unruly or violent, I will assist the police with pepper spray and stun guns. Looters need to be taught a lesson.” Soon, the Target store had all its windows boarded up. A few years ago in Oakland, a man posted a photo of a “suspicious” black man on a doorbell, and someone commented, “Looks like he can do anything.”
This is where this madness stops being funny. With encouragement from their neighbors, people are much more likely to call 911, call the police, or “take action.” Trayvon Martin, the kid who owned Skittles, was killed by the neighborhood watch captain in an act like this. In a country where there are more guns than people, you can get shot if you take the wrong driveway. Snoop sites can be petri dishes for paranoia, and paranoia can become panic.
“Nextdoor taught me that my neighbors are bad people,” one former subscriber said online. “Actually, I shouldn’t have known that.” It’s not the fault of the people running Nextdoor. They have all sorts of precautions like being kind, not being racist, not overreacting. But its very existence facilitates just that. It’s like running a roadside bar and telling people not to drink and drive.
According to Nextdoor, it is used in 315,000 locations in 11 countries around the world. in one third of US households. After tracking it down, I learned one thing. The person you should fear most on your block is not the guy in the hoodie, but the guy with the keyboard.