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> I get the impression that this problem happens a lot less frequently than social media and our personal echo chambers would have us believe. It seems to make

> I get the impression that this problem happens a lot less frequently than social media and our personal echo chambers would have us believe. It seems to make headlines whenever it happens not because it’s happening all the time, but because it’s such a weird thing to happen. A lot of people can no longer tell the difference between headlines for rare events and headlines for things that happen all the time. If they see a headline, they just assume it’s extremely common. Social media has also amplified the idea that men can’t take kids to a park without people assuming they’re child predators. Prior to having kids, I thought taking my kids to the park was going to be a high risk activity and that I’d have to defend myself against paranoid moms who couldn’t understand why a man was at the kids park. Reddit circulated this meme like it was gospel. Then I finally had kids, went to the park, and nothing of the sort has ever happened. My local parks are almost a 50/50 split of moms and dads and everyone has always been friendly.

miriam_catira 4y ago
I know a few women personally who have blatantly told me that they are suspicious of any man they see near their kid's park. They haven't ever mentioned confronting anyone, but they've both said that they watch them.
- Auracle 4y ago
  I was hired for a photoshoot of a teacher at an elementary school. As I was setting up a tripod, a light with a big softbox and the like outside the front of the school I had a resident busybody come up to me and "just make sure" none of the kids outside in the playground would be in the shot. Of course, I could have legally done so as they were outside in a public place...and the earlier part of the shoot was in the teacher's classroom with her students. I had another shoot where I was covering someone's engagement that was near a playground. I had my wife with just to diffuse anybody worrying about a man with a long lens near a playground but clearly not photographing any children - and sure enough, she had to talk to a lady about it. Another time I was going to photograph a high school senior at a playground the next day, so I scoped out my old elementary and middle school playgrounds (no camera equipment on me!). I made it all of 10 feet onto the elementary school playground before I had a woman essentially accuse me of being a creep. There were plenty of moms there. It didn't even seem to occur to her that I could have been a father, or just walking across the space to get to the baseball field or whatever. For the record I'm a decent looking guy and I don't think I put out creep vibes in the least.
BeefWellington 4y ago
Social media is just doing the same thing as traditional media about less important topics. Any singular bad instance gets amplified and there's probably multiple of these happening each day, so it looks like it "always happens" despite most people being actually much more reasonable than that. It only needs to happen two or three times in your area for it to become "just what happens these days".

miriam_catira 4y ago

I know a few women personally who have blatantly told me that they are suspicious of any man they see near their kid's park. They haven't ever mentioned confronting anyone, but they've both said that they watch them.

Auracle 4y ago
I was hired for a photoshoot of a teacher at an elementary school. As I was setting up a tripod, a light with a big softbox and the like outside the front of the school I had a resident busybody come up to me and "just make sure" none of the kids outside in the playground would be in the shot. Of course, I could have legally done so as they were outside in a public place...and the earlier part of the shoot was in the teacher's classroom with her students. I had another shoot where I was covering someone's engagement that was near a playground. I had my wife with just to diffuse anybody worrying about a man with a long lens near a playground but clearly not photographing any children - and sure enough, she had to talk to a lady about it. Another time I was going to photograph a high school senior at a playground the next day, so I scoped out my old elementary and middle school playgrounds (no camera equipment on me!). I made it all of 10 feet onto the elementary school playground before I had a woman essentially accuse me of being a creep. There were plenty of moms there. It didn't even seem to occur to her that I could have been a father, or just walking across the space to get to the baseball field or whatever. For the record I'm a decent looking guy and I don't think I put out creep vibes in the least.

BeefWellington 4y ago

Social media is just doing the same thing as traditional media about less important topics. Any singular bad instance gets amplified and there's probably multiple of these happening each day, so it looks like it "always happens" despite most people being actually much more reasonable than that. It only needs to happen two or three times in your area for it to become "just what happens these days".