Durangoans are vocal about the town’s issues, something one can surmise with a look at social media sites that provide them a platform.
While the Durango area has active users on Twitter, Instagram and other social media sites, its Facebook groups drive digital dialogue.
And what may seem like a trivial podium for venting soapboxers in fact holds significant power.
Just in the past two months, for example, social media effectively dismantled an old local restaurant slogan and helped identify within an hour five friends in a photograph taken in the 1980s. Many location-specific Facebook groups also serve as a playing field for debate about Durango’s most polarizing issues, such as homelessness, transportation problems and animal control.
“I would not say that our members engage in ‘Internet wars’ with each other, but a few of them surely know how to get a rise out of another member when they want to,” said Kimberly Jellison, who founded one of the newest Durango-centric Facebook pages, Durango Says What?, about 10 months ago. The closed group allows its 808 members to “get whatever you desire to say off your chest.”
“There are a few members that clearly have differing opinions,” Jellison said. “We have members from all walks of life and from all over the county.”
Durango On-line Garage Sale has over 18,000 members. While the page’s primary purpose is for buying and listing items for sale, it has a discussion forum where homelessness and hunting, page administrator Robert Dowd said, are always guaranteed topics of contention.
“I will say probably almost all, if not all, of the members are nice people, but there are certain subjects and comments that inflame people’s emotions, especially the homeless,” Dowd said. “Of course that brings up a huge argument with the group.”
Because of his past career policing cybercrime and hackers for Federal Pre-trial Services in L.A., Dowd has overseen the page for the past three years at the request of the group’s founder.
He estimated the page has about 9,000 items posted, but only about 3,000 are active. Local business posts, handmade items, solicitations, firearms, drug and alcohol sales, and pet listings are all prohibited on Durango On-line Garage Sale.
Bans on pet listings are in place to prevent breeding and flipping the animals for profit.
Administrators police the local groups by removing inflammatory or inappropriate comments, blocking posts from fraudulent Facebook accounts and screening requests to join. Dowd said he approves only about one-third of the requests. With most Durango social media pages, administrators are adamant that members are local residents. But only in rare cases are approved members banned.
“Unless someone is being harassed, the members pretty much have free reign,” Jellison said. “That is the purpose of (Durango Says What?): to use your First Amendment rights.”
With its thousands of members, Durango On-line Garage Sale has far more aggressors, according to Dowd. When he censors inappropriate content, he gets the occasional threat over Facebook. Confrontation from the safety of a computer chair certainly emboldens users, Dowd said.
“The Internet and being anonymous seems to take all roadblocks down,” he said. “I have friends who are members of the page, and if I don’t see it, they tag me to the posting and I look at it. If it’s valid, I leave it up and just take the nasty comment down and say, ‘Play nice.’ The best way to put it, I’m an observer on the playground.”
Small-town Durango does not afford social media users the luxury of anonymity if conversations become heated, but that also means help is easy to find.
“If anyone on our site needed anything, they would have help two minutes after posting,” Jellison said.
Dowd said most lost animals posted to Durango On-line Garage Sale are found. And last month, a local woman discovered tucked away in a used book a photo of five young men posing in front of Grays Peak in the 1980s. Within an hour after posting the photo to Durango On-line Garage Sale, a name was attached to each man.
Some Durango-focused Facebook groups are dedicated entirely to looking back. “If you are from Durango, CO, remember when...?” was founded in 2011 for locals to reminisce, often with old photographs, about Old Durango.
“We have large, heated discussions about Durango then and Durango now,” said page administrator Michele Rhodes. Rhodes also maintains “Durango High School (Colorado) Where are they/you NOW!?!” which was started seven years ago. Through this group, graduating classes from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s are able to reconnect, and keep track of classmates who have died through the page’s “memorial wall.”
“The Internet has made the world so much smaller that you’re finding people that generally you would never have talked to again in your life,” Rhodes said. “I haven’t lived in Durango in 30 years. It’s cool. I’ve been able to reconnect with people, keep up with what’s here, and see some things change that are sentimental to us who are older.
“We’re reconnecting, and it’s making it a really small world.”
jpace@durangoherald.com
Homelessness hottest topic for Durango Says What?
Nearing its one-year anniversary, the conversation of the year for Durango Says What? involves a homeless man known as “Bronco the Bagger,” according to group founder Kimberly Jellison.
“‘Bronco the Bagger’ is the gentleman who stands at the bottom of Farmington Hill with a sign that says, ‘Will work for food,’” she said. “Many members have offered him jobs, only to be told that he makes more money standing on the corner begging, and is not interested in getting a job.”
Jellison said the man has been spotted leaving his post at the end of the day and getting into a “brand new car.” Some group members say they have been insulted when they give food to transients who discard the donations.
A “Bronco the Bagger” thread started on Nov. 27 has been ongoing for the past month and garnered more than 60 comments about homelessness issues in Durango.
“I think that our group is essential to people in the community,” Jellison said. “It gives everyone a chance to voice their opinions, ask questions, get referrals or just plain socialize for those of us who do not hang out in town.”
jpace@durangoherald.com
