On Friday, August 7 and August 8th a Minneapolis resident decided it was time to build community in a new way. He yearned for a public space that wasn’t the typical nightlife, so he created a new third space, the lime scooter takeover. Advertised primarily on TikTok, local leader, or local ring leader (depending on who you ask) posted a video of where and when to meet up.
To his surprise, minneapolis residents began pouring in, creating flash after flash of green lime logos attached to white scooters. Once the gathering began, so did the videos, one after another garnering more and more attention. The improbable was happening, a minneapolis miracle was breaking, lifting the social fabric of the city.
Comments online were supportive and made claims that the people yearn for a town square and shared spaces. third spaces are becoming increasingly popular as the price of oxygen is rising - lime scooters are not only the new carjackings but also a new space for people to gather and meet. some of the videos are gaining so much traction that they have over 100,000 likes alone.
While reports have generally been positive there are very important people of edina who shared directly with sparkle to give you an idea of these threatening young people making minneapolis so unsafe.
“first there were car jackings, now they ride scooters?! what’s next?! segways?!”
- Wayzata mother with a bob that resembles tina smith shares.
A Wayzata woman sparkle spoke to is still upset about the bike lanes put on hennipen ave.
“bikes and scooters are ruining our city, there is nowhere left to park! they hit Minneapolis, those giant nasty transiteers, I heard they even put them in downtown st paul, they just give the criminals what they want”
Arguably a first of its kind, the tiktok lime scooter trend is spreading. TikTok’s in Seattle and Chicago are popping up advertising what happened in minneapolis, in an attempt to show what each city has to offer in terms of sheer numbers.
Critics, for justified reasons that i won’t get into spoke about lime gatherings as being ex boyfriend activities - if you have an ex, he was likely at this meet up. and they say men are lonely. The scooter meet up building a sense of community amongst the ex you despise is par for the course if you are living in minneapolis. real minneapolis dwellers know that you can run into an ex at literally anything here since the city is just right sized for running to the last person you want to see.