Re:The rise of fear-based social media like Nextdoor, Citize...
by scruple on Thursday May 09, 2019 @10:03PM
(#19874429)
Nah, but where I live is more or less indiscernible from most of the neighborhoods that I've been around in the Bay Area/SV. I'm in south Orange county. My wife and I live in new development. The demographics down here are different but the people are still new-car obsessed. Our neighborhood is a handful of young couples, a handful of other working folks, and then probably 70% retirees, empty nesters, and foreign money. My hot take is they have more money than they do sense. There's also quite a few folks who don't work because they don't have to work.
So, I have a 2004 Scion xB. It's an "Orange Box." It's really hard to miss this car. Or, so you'd think. My wife uses it as her daily driver for her short commute but it's generally parked right in front of our place. We also have a newer Subaru but it's almost always in the garage because I work full-time remote.
One day, for whatever reason I can't recall, I had the Scion and my wife had the Subaru. I had some errands to run at lunch that day. When I got back home, someone had parked in the spot that the Scion usually occupies, in front of our place, and so I parked two blocks down at an open spot on the street. Someone was home where I had parked, had somehow managed to have never seen this Orange car that'd been parked on the street for the last 600 or so freaking days, and had decided that the car and myself were _clearly_ out of place.
So, maybe 30 minutes go by and I get a text to check out the Facebook group from one of our other neighbors that I'm friends with. This person had posted a picture of my car along with something like, "This person just parked their beater in front of our house and then took off down the street. We're thinking about calling the cops. Does anyone know who it belongs to?" So, I get on there and told them I live 5 houses away from them and question how they've managed to literally never see the bright orange car parked on the street anytime in the past ~2 years. And I said something like, "I like this car, I don't think it's a beater!" They never said anything back.
This is a very quiet, very safe neighborhood, where many, many people are around all throughout the day. There's been a single break-in the entire time that we've lived here that I'm aware of. I had thought about selling that car, too, but thought better of it and we decided to keep it. If people are going to judge me for having that car... Well, fuck 'em. I park my beater in front of their house all of the time now on principle.
So, I have a 2004 Scion xB. It's an "Orange Box." It's really hard to miss this car. Or, so you'd think. My wife uses it as her daily driver for her short commute but it's generally parked right in front of our place. We also have a newer Subaru but it's almost always in the garage because I work full-time remote.
One day, for whatever reason I can't recall, I had the Scion and my wife had the Subaru. I had some errands to run at lunch that day. When I got back home, someone had parked in the spot that the Scion usually occupies, in front of our place, and so I parked two blocks down at an open spot on the street. Someone was home where I had parked, had somehow managed to have never seen this Orange car that'd been parked on the street for the last 600 or so freaking days, and had decided that the car and myself were _clearly_ out of place.
So, maybe 30 minutes go by and I get a text to check out the Facebook group from one of our other neighbors that I'm friends with. This person had posted a picture of my car along with something like, "This person just parked their beater in front of our house and then took off down the street. We're thinking about calling the cops. Does anyone know who it belongs to?" So, I get on there and told them I live 5 houses away from them and question how they've managed to literally never see the bright orange car parked on the street anytime in the past ~2 years. And I said something like, "I like this car, I don't think it's a beater!" They never said anything back.
This is a very quiet, very safe neighborhood, where many, many people are around all throughout the day. There's been a single break-in the entire time that we've lived here that I'm aware of. I had thought about selling that car, too, but thought better of it and we decided to keep it. If people are going to judge me for having that car... Well, fuck 'em. I park my beater in front of their house all of the time now on principle.