Moms on Manhattan’s Upper East Side are embroiled in a Facebook feud over the mayoral election of Zohran Mamdani.
The private cyber scuffle spilled out into the pages of left-leaning New York magazine, which published a gossipy hit piece detailing how warring factions were battling it out on two private chat groups: Moms of the Upper East Side and UES Mommas.
Barely were the ballots counted before hundreds of residents in the ritzy neighborhood — who voted for Andrew Cuomo by a 24-point margin — posted panicked messages saying they were frightened and fleeing, fearing the Democratic Socialist’s radical policies would turn the Big Apple into “1930s Germany.”
“With all my love for NYC I can’t believe 50%+ of the city voted for this joker,” one mortified mother moaned on the Moms of the Upper East Side page, known as MUES, which has more than 35,000 members and is usually reserved for advice about nannies, strollers and schools.
“Wondering who’s actually leaving? To where, Florida?” they then asked.
More than 300 locals responded, per the article, claiming they were considering moving to New Jersey or Florida following Mamdani’s win.
Meanwhile, others on the pages proclaimed that the incoming mayor’s proposal for free buses would result in riders being raped and murdered.
However, users on both Facebook pages fought back, accusing their neighbors of being overwrought and Islamophobic.
“It IS racist to just be mad that your new mayor is a Muslim,” one member maintained.
Meanwhile, one mom named April, who is a member of MUES, told New York magazine that the complainers were all talk and actually had no plans to leave Manhattan.
“No, you’re not [moving],” she stated. “Just relax.”
The feuding between the two factions recently reached a fever pitch, with the MUES group admins forced to instill a new rule for users.
“You may not attack or threaten other members while anonymous (or ever),” they implored.
Other more apolitical users urged calm, with one calling for all members to “get a collective grip.” --->READ MORE HERE
After the New York City mayoral race was called for Zohran Mamdani the night of November 4, the mothers of the Upper East Side began to panic. “Shocked,” one Facebook user wrote anonymously in the Moms of the Upper East Side (MUES) group, which has 35,000 members. “With all my love for NYC I can’t believe 50% +- of the city voted for this joker. Wondering who’s actually leaving? To where, Florida?” Residents of the neighborhood synonymous with Gilded Age mansions and tony private schools had voted for Andrew Cuomo, a staunch supporter of Israel who campaigned on a tough-on-crime agenda, by a 24-point margin. The more-than-300 comments responding to that anonymous post are full of mothers looking for property in New Jersey or Florida, predicting that Mamdani’s promise to make buses free will lead criminals to rape and kill innocent passengers, and airing their worries that New York City is on its way to becoming 1930s Germany.A vocal minority of the group’s members jumped in to debate these reactions and point out the Islamaphobic subtext of the anti-Mamdani mania —“It IS racist to just be mad that your new mayor is a Muslim” — which only led to further fighting in the comments. As more combative threads cropped up over the next 24 hours, some users pleaded for each other to “get a collective grip.” Others posted that they were quitting the group they’d come to for swapping advice on strollers and nannies. “Not fleeing the city,” one wrote. “Fleeing this group. Bye MUES.” A secondary fight broke out over the many members posting incendiary comments anonymously, which forced the moderators to create an “Anonymous Posting Rules” section over the weekend that read, “You may not attack or threaten other members while anonymous (or ever.)”
Facebook mom groups are notorious hotbeds of drama; a dueling group called UES Mommas has made headlines for explosive infighting over the pro-Palestine and Black Lives Matter movements. But one MUES member told me that she thought Mamdani’s election has caused the most heated division in that group. (When I first asked to join, one of its administrators told me she was too overwhelmed by managing “the thousands of posts/comments coming through” to approve new members.)
Robin Reiter, a single mother with a 13-year-old son, didn’t hesitate to jump into the mix in response to a commenter who told angry members to “get your panties out of a crunch and just relax.” “We are literally terrified that a mayor who won’t condemn Hamas and won’t condemn the phrase ‘Globalize the Intifada’ is now running the city with the second largest Jewish population in the world,” the 49-year-old wrote. (In July, Mamdani said he will not use that phrase, and he has called the October 7 attacks a “horrific war crime.”) Reiter, who has appeared on Fox News as a parent concerned about migrant shelters and her son’s screen time, seems to relish in a catty back-and-forth, especially with those MUES members who spew anonymous opinions. “I think people rage bait a lot in that group,” she says. “You can’t come at me or expect me to have any kind of respect for your point of view when you can’t even identify who you are.”
Reiter says she’s now considering a move to Hoboken, New Jersey, as a result of Mamdani’s win. “It feels very immoral to me at this moment to pay tax dollars to a city that just elected someone who would love to see my people murdered,” she told me. “We’re all looking for an out, because I can’t jeopardize the safety of my son.” She’s not the only one looking to flee: There are 360 comments on a post titled, “Where to now?” where members shared real-estate-agent contacts and bragged about their second homes in red states. One recommended Realtor was Elise Macleod, who moved her family from the Upper East Side to Boca Raton during the pandemic. She told me she had a “surge of inquiries” from New York–based families looking for property in Florida since Mamdani’s win. --->READ MORE HERE
No comments:
Post a Comment