One of my guilty pleasures is a Facebook community group. I love them so much – and derive so much pleasure at the sheer insanity contained within – that I have long broken out of my own community group and started illicitly joining others just to get my fix. I live in Leeds, where I am in multiple groups, but I’ve also joined community groups in Birmingham, Dorset and Aberdeen. I even joined one in Texas after seeing the town on a true crime documentary.
For the uninitiated, a Facebook community group is a closed group on the social media platform that has been set up by the members of a town, city, county – or even a single street. Members post about events and local history, as well as asking questions, providing dubious opinions and shouting at each other about parking. While also furiously typing: “Who is mowing their grass as 9.03am on a Sunday?” Some people watch Game of Thrones; I watch people in Wakefield rowing about bins.
I admit it: I have a problem, but I can’t seem to stop myself. I never say anything, I just silently lurk and bask in the banal madness of suburban living. “Who is letting their dog shit outside my house?”, “Is anyone available to take some stiches out of my neck?”, “Did anyone else hear that bang?”
I know. It’s horribly intrusive of me, but I’m not hurting anyone – and I promise to change all names and identifiable information here. They just make me howl with laughter. “There is a man on Howard Street throwing tins of tomatoes and blocking traffic.” It’s like scrolling through a Victoria Wood sitcom or an Alan Bennett play. If you want to get really meta (pun intended), there are also Facebook groups about Facebook groups, which are full of nosy buggers like me who think the whole thing is hilarious and share the funniest posts – anonymously, of course.
My all-time favourite exchange actually occurred in the group I am supposed to be in a couple of years ago. A very confused gentleman posted the following: “Strange occurrence about an hour ago. I went outside to bring in my laundry from the washing line. Thankfully, it was all still there, but had been comprehensively rearranged and most of my nice old wooden clothes pegs had been swiped and replaced with cheap blue plastic things. If the person responsible reads this, give me back my pegs and leave my laundry alone. Fruit loop!”
To the best of my knowledge, this bizarre crime was never solved; but reading the comments on a post like that can give me the energy I need to make it through the day. Responses ranged from folk quipping that the thief needed to be “taken down a peg or two”, to genuine consideration for the motive – “maybe they needed them for a craft project?” – and, of course, to the more serious members telling everyone off for making light of larceny. “I don’t think this is funny. Do better.”
It’s very easy to find yourself existing within a social media echo chamber once the algorithm clocks what you like, but the Facebook community group forces you out of that. People of all different backgrounds and opinions converge online to share their thoughts on bus timetables, parking problems and youths in hoodies. The content is rarely political – the stakes are considerably smaller than that – but it is the minutiae of day-to-day neighbourhood living, writ large.
Much of the fun of these groups is in the conflict they bring up. “I found four bananas in my garden this morning. Can anyone explain??!” And much of the content is frankly stupid. “Dog thieves are painting symbols on people’s front doors. Stay safe.” But, my time lurking has also taught me that we are united on many points, and that is worth remembering – especially right now, when things feel so politically and socially divided. So, here is what I have learnt.
Everyone wants to be able to park outside their own house and gets grumpy if they can’t. “There has been a van parked outside my house for a week now! Does anyone know who owns it?” This one always causes an argument, because no one owns the road or has a right to park outside their house, and people love pointing that out – but even so, we all like to be able to park outside our homes, anyway. That is universal.
Everyone loves it when the bluebells and daffodils come back into season and start popping up. Facebook groups up and the down the country are swamped with daffodil appreciation posts every spring. This also goes for the first falling leaves in autumn, the first frost and the first robins of winter. We all like to note the changing of the seasons in our community groups and are prepared to share photos in case anyone missed it.
We really are a nation of animal lovers and people love their pets more than they do one another. The panic a missing pet post can elicit often borders on hysteria – with hundreds of comments from people offering to “pray for Mittens”. They emerge in a matter of minutes, along with countless “shared” and “shared from Canada”. The cat is missing in Wigan, but Shelia has shared the post in a community group in Nova Scotia, just in case.
And here is the really big one – amongst all the chaos and rambling conversations that are posted, most people are genuinely good and do care about their communities. They care a lot. People take in lost pets, try to unite strangers with missing wallets, worry about neighbours they haven’t seen in a while and are furious about litter and vandalism. They share historical titbits about who used to live in what house and photos of local landmarks. As well as finding a great deal of lunacy and things to laugh at, there is a lot of love there, too.
I suppose I should remove myself from the groups that I shouldn’t really be in. I can try to wean myself off by replacing them with various interest groups and fan pages, but it won’t be the same. No one will be asking for a local plumber or offering cut-price spray tans out of their garage, there.
Perhaps I love them so much because I’m a historian and you so rarely get to hear the voices of regular people, just living their lives, in the past. Facebook community groups get a lot of stick – but give it 200 years and their contents will be a goldmine for archivists trying to understand how we lived, what was important to us and how we interacted.
Or maybe I’m just a cyber curtain twitcher – and I’m ok with that.