Even before Elon Musk ruined Twitter – chasing the likes of NPR away – it was hostile and hateful. Not always, but often. Spending an inordinate amount of time on it, as I did, was bad for the soul.
A well-meaning friend suggested I change things up; that maybe I would be less grumpy about my online social-networking activities if I spent time on a different platform. Had I heard of an app called Nextdoor? A hyper-local network of neighbourhoods where you can get babysitter and plumber recommendations, promote garage sales, and get tips about new shops and restaurants? Well, this sounded like an antidote to all that Twitter nastiness. A meeting place! Where neighbours connect! Its official podcast is called Where Kindness Lives.
If you have spent any time on Nextdoor, you probably know that it’s more like a place where kindness goes to die. To be mobbed by un-self-aware, self-righteous, self-important snitches who will send out an all-points-bulletin about anyone they think looks remotely suspicious; share doorbell-camera photos of pranking teenagers; complain about people who are homeless invading the neighbourhood; despise untended lawns and back-alley clutter; and who will really let you have it if you let your cat outdoors.
“What’s on your mind, neighbour?” asks the status update bar (which I hear in the voice of Ned Flanders every single time).
A heck of a lot, apparently. Hyper-local? More like hyper-hysterical.
In my neighbourhood, coyote alerts abound, which as a cat owner I personally appreciate. But if a cat mom has taken to the app with a plea for any word on Fluffy, uncharacteristically missing now for days, this is not the time to berate her in all-caps-plus-angry-face-emojis for letting Fluffy out in the first place.
I was down with a sinus infection recently and spent way too much time doom-roaming Nextdoor. While there was plenty of banal and even heartwarming stuff, I also witnessed an elongated, high-pitched brawl over the rate housecleaners should be paid. Sixty dollars an hour, posited the original poster, almost as if they were looking for a fight. Oh, and they got one. A fight that devolved into accusations of racism and more.
Someone else posted a security-camera photo of a young person who had ding-dong-ditched their house, and before you could say nicky-nicky-nine doors, the pile-on was on. People rightly chastised the poster for publicly sharing photos of youth engaged in a harmless prank. Another disagreed and suggested they post that photo far and wide; alllll over town. Harmless? Please. Not according to another neighbour, who posted photos and video of a prankster who had banged on their door so hard the glass broke. Just let them come to my place, another mused. Then they’ll see what’s what.
A helpful landlord let their neighbours know that their one-bedroom, one-bathroom laneway house would soon be available – useful information, especially with rentals so hard to find right now. They are asking $1900 a month (welcome to Vancouver). I’m not sure if they found a tenant, but they did find themselves shamed and blamed. One person claimed inflation was a farce being used to gouge people for everything from rent to food. “Bloodsuckers!”
This place is a battleground posing as a playground. And I think it says something about the way we have become; the way we operate these days as a society. What was conceived as an attempt at helpful, even meaningful connection, has devolved into a network of tattletales and petty bickering. Or worse.
The app has been even more problematic elsewhere, particularly in some U.S. neighbourhoods, where racial profiling in posts about suspicious characters roaming the streets has become a serious issue – to the point where Nextdoor asked users to please stop. That was in 2016. As the Black Lives Matter movement gathered steam in 2020, U.S. Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez called on Nextdoor (via Twitter) to publicly deal with its “Karen problem.” In the midst of those BLM protests, some Nextdoor users posted demeaning hashtags like “All Lives Matter” and “#BeachLivesMatter.”
Nextdoor is trying to fix – or, at least, counter – the problem. On its blog, you’ll find announcements about the Nextdoor Kind Foundation’s local business grant recipients (which include a trio of mothers who want to open a coffee shop, and a mom-and-pop transport business hoping to expand into dump trucks). There is a post sharing three ways to spread kindness on Random Acts of Kindness Day (February 17, did you miss it?), and one about the power of Black resilience in the neighbourhood.
It’s not the app. It’s the people who use it. The posts are coming from inside the neighbourhood.
What I imagined would be a helpful, civic-minded meeting place for an exchange of local tips and tricks is frequently not even a safe or civil place for an exchange of ideas. What’s worse, this toxic behaviour is leaking out from our keyboards and into the real world.