Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past five years (how much are you paying under that rock, and do you have parking?), you’re aware of the absurdity of housing costs in the Bay Area. The truth is that if you’re in the unfortunate position of being a renter seeking housing in this supersaturated market, the cards are stacked against you.
Rather than marching down to San Francisco City Hall with pitchforks in hand or to Mark Zuckerberg’s home in Dolores Heights, the angry masses now congregate around Facebook groups, waiting for missteps by the out-of-touch bourgeoisie as an excuse to raise their fingers to their keyboards in ire.
You’ve probably seen examples of these meme-worthy housing posts, like this one for a studio in Lower Nob Hill for $2,300/month, where the toilet is inside the shower. And in 2014, artist Scott Hampton parodied the rental market when he placed “For Rent” signs on dumpsters and planter boxes off Market Street—a fate that doesn’t seem too far off these days.
A recent example of a listing that went viral was for a 7-by-12-foot “tiny house” with a trailer hookup for $1,000/month in someone’s backyard in South Berkeley. As you might expect, the members of the Bay Area Conscious Community Housing Board, including me, were not thrilled. “It’s called the Bay Area CONSCIOUS Community Housing Board. There is nothing conscious, community-friendly or mindful about this post,” A.P. pointed out.
The first virtual tomato was launched with an expletive. C.S. wrote: “This is how the bay is fucked! A tiny home for 1,000/mo.?! Ugh, gross.” I scrolled through the remaining 200+ comments, which were filled with schadenfreude. The proletariat rage was palpable.
“I’d be willing to bet $1k is over half of their mortgage,” M.P. wrote. “Like, sorry you haven’t made it firmly into the ruling class, J — .”
L.L. offered, “This might be better for Airbnb for folks looking to try a tiny house experience.” To which L.A.S. responded, “Yeah, get the rich people to rent your place. 😗”
Responding to the line in the listing that reads, “Ideally the tiny house occupant will be interested in some sort of connection with those of us in the ‘big house,’” B.G. responded sarcastically, “‘You can live in our doghouse, but you MUST also worship us in the actual house that we live in.’ This should cost someone no more than $250 per month.”
And finally, encapsulating much of the commenters’ feelings, J.L.F. wrote, “I’m sure you’ll find someone desperate enough,” then finished with “but know that you suck!”
There were a lot of jokes about the tiny home looking like an outhouse from people who clearly aren’t familiar with the tiny-house subculture. S.C. wrote, “I just asked my pet raccoon… he says he thinks he can afford it, but he’s looking for something with a little more space 🤣”
The comments quickly segued into critiques of the perceived racial background of the lister.
M.B: “There’s a special place in hell for people like this! Predators of the real estate market! 😢 A white lady, go figure 😢”
A.M.L.: “Sorry, this is like the whitest, most privileged shit I have ever seen. White people will pay to be homeless tho — throw in a ticket to Burning Man while you’re at it.”
S.K.M.: “Any other black folk get triggered by the words ‘big house’ or just me? 😳😂”
I reached out to the poster of this listing, J – , who preferred to remain unnamed, to give her a chance to respond to this intense backlash. She started off by acknowledging her privilege as a homeowner in Berkeley and then explained that there are two sides to every story. “My twenty-year marriage recently ended suddenly. I am a student and now a single mom of a kid with a disability trying to make ends meet so that I can stay in my home.”
“The tiny house does not belong to me. It belongs to a single dad who has built five of them in order to supplement his livelihood as a freelance videographer. He and I split the $1,000 rent.”
The question remains whether shame is an effective and appropriate tool when moderating the behavior of an online community.
In response to those who criticized her for requiring a relationship with the “big house,” she indicated that that part of the listing was based on a previous relationship with a tenant, albeit it contained an unfortunate use of words. “The current tiny house tenant has become such a nice part of our family that she is moving into my college-age daughter’s room, which I also have to rent out since the marriage ended.”
I looked at other housing groups and found that context was everything. A “converted living room” for $1,400 a month on the Bay Area Rooms and Apartments Group received eight shares and zero hate comments. Likewise, a listing indicating that the “perfect” new roommate would pay $2,050 a month to be one of four living in a perk-filled “sanctuary” in Mill Valley received only one negative comment about the price. That was quickly followed by another comment defending the price, which included a jab at the tiny-home listing. Apparently, the proletariat is not above spending a ridiculous amount of money to be someone’s roommate as long as it comes with a mountaintop location, a hot tub, views of the ocean and a Tesla charger. (What, are they farmers?)
In search of a solution to this online class warfare and consequent trolling, I reached out to Kristin Klein, the founder of Bay Area Realness (BAR) — another Facebook group with left-leaning, budget-conscious members — to get her perspective on viral housing posts.
“Me, Kyleah and Sarah (the other admins) straight up delete bullshit,” she wrote in response to my question about how they deal with viral posts and trolls. “And if we delete a post, I message the person (lister) directly with ‘Hey, I took down your post because it’s just going to incite a negative comment whirlwind, and there’s no real solution.” She said that the community will message her to thank her for keeping the comments aboveboard. “It’s just common decency that unfortunately is not exercised very often on a largely anonymous platform.”
Could a bit of light trolling help lower the rent in the Bay Area?
In the end, I feel compassion for the tiny-home lady. Her experience of being targeted with negative comments was both reflective and symptomatic of the wealth imbalance and feelings of scarcity that are prevalent in the Bay Area right now.
But the question remains whether shame is an effective and appropriate tool when moderating the behavior of an online community — or in this case, a real community that is dealing with real issues whose members happen to find an outlet on social media. One moderator of a local housing group who preferred to remain anonymous wrote, “Housing precarity is terrifying, and terrified people are not always going to be at their best.”
While we all (should) agree that name-calling and DM’ing hateful messages are wrong, could peer pressure in the form of funny one-liners and thoughtful articulations of valid frustrations push landowners / master tenants toward a positive set of behaviors? In other words, could a bit of light trolling help lower the rent in the Bay Area?
A #zinger might not be as emotionally mature as an “I statement,” but it can be an effective (and funny) way for the have-nots to let off a little steam and to knock the haves down a peg if they overstep within a community. (The haves can find comfort in knowing that whatever happens online, they own land IRL.)
Could it change the course of the housing market? Probably not. In the case of the tiny-home lady, the negative press didn’t seem to deter renters. She said she interviewed three interested parties and has since rented it out for the original listing price. Unless there is a larger change in the Bay Area economy or more provisions are put in place for low-income renters and buyers, rents will continue to respond to the free hand of the market. And this housing market goes to 11.
One Band-Aid solution is the creation of groups like Affordable Housing For Ok People: Bay Area Public Group, which has set restrictions for its listings to promote a utopian Bay Area with cheap housing under $1,000 a month for a room. The group also sets strict parameters around the type of language that can be used in order to curtail racist, classist, or homophobic comments and listings. These limitations include an allowance for a “swift correction by any member,” suggesting that a policy of self-policing is encouraged within the community.
In the past 15 years that I have lived in San Francisco, I have done my fair share of low-budget apartment-hunting on Facebook groups. I know first hand how frustrating and often absurd apartment-hunting can be, especially with all the hoops that landlords and potential roommates make you jump through. It can be easy to internalize a bad situation and want to take your frustrations out on those who seem to be profiting from your misery.
So my advice to those who are considering listing an apartment on Facebook but who might be afraid of inciting a comment storm is to read the (chat) room so you don’t give people a reason to hate on you. Ask yourself whether the members of a given Facebook group can afford your unit. Is your price fair, or are you going to come off as a cruel opportunist? If you completely disregard the plight of your community, you may end up needing a moat to protect you from when us plebes storm your castle.
