What the Actual Hell Is Wrong With Facebook Groups?

Today was one of those days I wanted to crawl into a hole and not come out, all because of a pretty basic post I made in my local town’s Mom’s Facebook group page. In the shower this morning, I got really excited about one of those “shower ideas” - wouldn’t it be great if I could bring an intern onboard and teach them about running an Airbnb? I threw together a description and an application in less than 15 minutes, and then I reached out to the Mom’s group looking to see if there were any students interested in doing an internship learning how to run the financials of a short term rental business with me. Now - I’d be kidding myself if I thought this was actually going to save me time. Hell, I would automate it and do it myself in half the time if this was about saving money, but it wasn’t. It was about making connections in the community, and maybe helping a kid out like older professionals had helped me when I was in high school and college.

Here’s the original post, for transparency:

Hey Moms! I am looking for a high school or college intern to help me run the financial side of my AirBnB side hustle. Commitment is 5-10 hours a month, and the student will learn the ins and outs of running an AirBnB business. This is an unpaid opportunity, but in exchange I would would be happy to provide mentoring and coaching when it comes to resume reviews, interviewing prep, picking a major, etc. I have 13 years of experience in Corporate Finance and Strategy and am most recently a tech exec at a major Boston SaaS company. I figured I would open this up to Westford students first to see if there's any interest! Application below.

Here were some of the responses I got:

“I always hesitate when I see people asking for free labor from students.”

“[Mentoring] seems like it isn’t a part of your current role.”

“This sounds a bit like the "free shoveling lessons in my driveway" posts that were circulating during the storm.”

“This isn’t actually legal in Massachusetts” (for what I was offering - it certainly was)

Listen, I wouldn’t exactly say that these folks were being mean or bullying me by any means - in fact, I think for some they were ultimately attempting to be constructive or to help redirect my post into something that came across less one-sided. However, the underlying tone was that I had bad intentions, and even some of my credentials were called into question. This sent me into such a shame spiral that I contemplated taking the post down, shutting the doors to my STRs, and never showing my face in my town again. 

This got me thinking about Facebook town and mother’s groups in general. Have you observed non-collaborative or shaming behavior in a town group you belong to? I’m particularly interested in the mother’s and local town groups - because while they tout themselves as collaborative, community based, supportive, etc., I don’t actually think that’s happening the majority of the time. Unless you’re posting looking for a benign recommendation for someone to babysit your goldfish, nearly every post appears to become controversial and combative in nature, particularly if it has to do with COVID or anything academic related. I even saw a mom pretty much attacked over mistaking a coyote for a wolf, and a gentleman warning about nasty road conditions after a storm (“Well I was out there, and the roads were FINE!!” was the asinine response he got) 

When did we become so argumentative and defiant? Why are we wasting our energy constantly pointing out that people are wrong - for things that just don’t matter or are not worth the energy to comment on, point out, correct, etc? Of course this brings me to a much broader and more philosophical question, the “why” behind social media. Is social media good for society? It felt like I was so quickly put down and dismissed despite my intentions. I ultimately was able to reposition and clarify my intentions, but the burn had already happened. My example is non consequential, but psychologists are warning us about how social media is spiraling into a tool to be used to divide and radicalize us which leads me to question my part in the whole thing. 

I have been jumping into social media, my new website, and blogging as a means to connect, promote my side hustle more, and create and build something new and interesting to me. I suppose that means I need to accept the haters and the dark side of social media as well. The more you put yourself out there, the more rejection you may be subjected to. Lately I’ve really been working on facing rejection and the fear of failure because I think it’s held me back tremendously from doing what I ultimately would love to do - run my own business and be my own boss.

So what did I do? I breathed. I leaned into it. I let the awkwardness and embarrassment rush all over me until I had control over it. I texted my best friends and supporters, Leigh and Heidi, and let them be my hypewomen to remind me why I’m doing this. I relished in my wonderful husband, Jake, getting angry and protective on my behalf. I listened to some angry Taylor Swift songs. I didn’t take the post down, even though my mouse hovered over the trash button for a full 45 minutes. And yes, this takes a lot of work.

You know what? I made a few connections out of the whole thing. A few women messaged me separately, got me in touch with some other great groups and organizations. All was not lost. I’m still here. But you can be sure that I’ll be more careful about those Facebook groups.