Mixed signals: Nextdoor villains and the holiday you've never heard of

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Support for WBUR comes from the Quiet Tension Podcast. Katie Ulander missed an Olympic medal by four hundredths of a second. Dr. Sharon Churbin asks the five-time Olympian what that does to a person. Listen closely wherever you get your podcasts.

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Amory Sivertson (1:18)

Amory.

Ben Brock Johnson (1:19)

Benny B. Johnson.

Amory Sivertson (1:20)

We've got a special treat today, a producer led episode.

Ben Brock Johnson (1:25)

Orchestra's out of the pit.

Amory Sivertson (1:26)

The sailors are steering the ship.

Ben Brock Johnson (1:30)

Love a producer takeover.

Amory Sivertson (1:32)

Yeah. So get ready for that. But first, we are working on an episode that we want to get your help with.

Ben Brock Johnson (1:38)

We want to do some international travel, some memetic international travel.

Amory Sivertson (1:44)

Yeah. I was sending a song around that I found on Reddit the other day. It's a German song that was like, I'm sick of my boss. All I want is bass.

That got us thinking, we'd love to know more about memes outside of the American meme bubble.

Ben Brock Johnson (2:06)

Yeah. We need your help for this, obviously.

Do you have a favorite meme from a country or a culture outside of the US?

We know you guys are cosmopolitan with your memes, and some of you are just listening outside of the US. You're in Japan, you're in Ireland, you're in New Zealand, the Netherlands. We know you're out there, so what do you got?

Amory Sivertson (2:26)

Please send your favorite international memes and why you love them to endlessthread at wbur.org.

Ben Brock Johnson (2:34)

And in the meantime, we're going to hand it off to producers Grace Tatter and Frannie Monahan. Here's the show.

SPEAKER_3 (2:41)

WBUR Podcasts, Boston.

Grace Tatter (2:51)

Frannie Monahan, fellow producer of Endless Thread.

Frannie Monahan (2:55)

Grace Tatter, fellow producer of Endless Thread.

Grace Tatter (2:59)

Today is another producer takeover.

Frannie Monahan (3:02)

I'm so excited to do one of these.

Grace Tatter (3:03)

Yes.

So Frannie, I have a story for you that's about a woman named Amy Brown. She recently wrote an essay for the Oakland Review of Books.

Frannie Monahan (3:17)

Okay.

Grace Tatter (3:17)

About a time that she sent some mixed signals. And her essay starts like this.

Amy Brown (3:25)

In April, 2026, my husband and I bought our first home in El Cerrito, California.

By the end of June, I'd become public enemy number one on the local Nextdoor. This is my story.

Frannie Monahan (3:37)

Oh, my God. Yes. It sounds like the intro of True Crime podcast.

Grace Tatter (3:45)

Okay. So, Frannie, before we get into the crime of it all, are you familiar with Nextdoor?

Frannie Monahan (3:52)

Oh, yes. I am a recent homeowner myself, and I love Nextdoor. I don't ever post on Nextdoor. I'm a big Nextdoor lurker, though.

Grace Tatter (4:01)

Same. I am also a lurker.

But for people who don't know, Nextdoor is a hyperlocal social media platform, and you have to verify that you actually live in the neighborhood that you're joining. You have to use your real name, and it's a place where you can share recommendations and local news. It can also be a forum to discuss local politics, which is where Amy's troubles began.

Amy Brown (4:27)

When we moved to El Cerrito and I joined the El Cerrito Nextdoor, I realized that El Cerrito was in the middle of kind of like an ongoing political battle, which I sort of stepped right into the middle of.

Grace Tatter (4:39)

El Cerrito is a small town in the Bay area right across from San Francisco. Amy is a writer with a background in social media, which we will come back to, and she never expected to be able to afford a house in El Cerrito.