free stuff

Thursday morning, Marsea Nelson woke up to a foreboding text from a friend.

He told her “he didn’t have ‘My Buy Nothing Facebook group got too political’ on his 2023 Bingo card,” she tells ARLnow.

Arguing that a local Facebook group for giving and receiving free stuff had gotten too big to be effective, the page’s volunteer admins have embarked on a process to splinter into smaller, more neighborhood-specific groups. The group currently serves a number of northern Arlington neighborhoods, plus some just outside of Arlington’s borders.

Just as they were about to launch the new groups and archive the legacy one, the group founder, Kayla Owen, stepped in and put a stop to it. She revoked their admin privileges, alleging that they had silenced people who disagreed with the plan while intentionally excluded her from the decision making.

She muted other posts and created a poll: split up or stay together? The admins would be reinstated if a majority wanted to move forward with the breakup.

“I can picture reading this in ARLnow,” said a Dominion Hills participant, who requested anonymity. “I think this is the kind of drama the rest of Arlington should read.”

Buy Nothing is a worldwide movement to help people befriend their neighbors while giving away stuff that cannot be sold or donated to a nonprofit. There are thousands of neighborhood-specific Facebook groups and millions of members, including several groups in Arlington.

“Buy Nothing Arlington (Northwest), VA” was experiencing growing pains. The 3,000-member group had boundaries spanning from north of Route 50, all the way to McLean and then over to I-66 and Glebe Road. Some felt that competing for and picking up free stuff was becoming too difficult and theorized that was why some had stopped participating altogether.

While the admins decided four smaller groups were necessary, Owen’s poll found that 75% of respondents did not want to be divided up this way. Poll results in-hand, she decided “Buy Nothing Arlington (Northwest), VA” will remain and discussions of boundary changes will be shelved for now.

“After reading emotional outpourings from members about their sense of loss, I decided that I had to intervene so the community could determine its future direction,” Owen tells ARLnow.

Nelson says she respects this position but sympathizes with the admins, who worked hard on the smaller groups, called “sprouts.”

“It’s so sad, and so silly, that this community people held so dear got so ugly,” she said. “The majority of people wanted the group to stay together so they’re happy to ignore how this all went down.”

ARLnow reached out to some of the affected admins but did not hear back before deadline. Screenshots ARLnow reviewed indicate admins had supporters who criticised Owen’s maneuver and Owen herself for stepping in even though she left Arlington to move elsewhere in Northern Virginia. (For her part, she says Buy Nothing permits out-of-area admins as a “check” on the system.)

“I’m sure [the admins] are pissed,” the Dominion Hills member said. “They probably feel like there’s been a coup.”

On Facebook, one user said Owen’s tactics will turn off people from responding honestly.

“I think people who are turned off by drama will not respond,” the comment said. “Like others, the first word that came to mind was ‘coup.'”

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