A Duggar Neighbor Posts His Thoughts on Reddit

If you don’t know about Reddit’s AMA series, it stands for “Ask Me Anything” and is essentially a real-time interview with a celebrity or interesting person. (My all-time favorite was this one with a New York City subway conductor. In other news, I am so fucking afraid of mole people.) This week, Reddit did an AMA with someone who lives near the Duggar family in Arkansas – offline, a moderator verified his name and identifying details before letting him field reader questions. Here are a few of the highlights:

• “I wouldn’t necessarily say that they are brainwashed, but I feel as if they trained like dogs.”
• “Most of the community doesn’t really make a big deal about their massive family, but of course there is a lot of people from surrounding towns questioning why they did it and such. Everyone on the street likes them for the most part. They’re house isn’t the prettiest thing (Looks like a small office building) but they keep their lawn nice and their gravel drive-way tidy.  Before the show aired, people here definitely knew of “The Duggars” but only a select few knew them personally, my grandma being one of them. They’re really involved in their church so many of their relations are made there. They don’t brag and flaunt their success about being a large family and they go out in public around here like to the grocery store and stuff like its not big deal. No one who actually lives in our small town really freaks out if they see a Duggar, but of course you’ll see the occasional Facebook upload or Twitpic of a visitor snapping a quick picture with a caption such as the following: “OH MY GOSH JUST SAW THE DUGGARZZZZ <3;;;”
• “The boys are rambunctious and wild it seems since I see them play outside all the time and hear them scream when I pass.”
• “When they visit the captiol (Little Rock) they join a large group of people in an event called The March of Life. It’s a pro-life, anti abortion rally where Michelle and Jim Bob speak every year as well as my youth group at church. That is where they face a large group of protestors, screaming and having a “not so peaceful” assembly.”
• “Some people even said that Michelle deserved the miscarriage to teach her a lesson, but that seems a but drastic to me.”
• “[Josh, the oldest son] opened another location [of his used car lot] on the east side of town. His cars are…well, no good. Mooching off of the show for advertising purposes? Completely.”
• “Their house just has a simple front porch slab. No landscaping that’s noticeable. I’ll post more pictures tonight if you’re interested. The land is semi-hilly with a little valley slope in front of the compound along with some trees. They have some small farm equipment and their garage slabs are littered with vehicles. Almost all of the houses on the streets have small gardens and landscaping but not theirs. Like I said before, the place is sort of an eye sore.”
• “I wouldn’t “hit that up.” Maybe just Jinger.”

This confirms some of the things I’ve always suspected on the show: that Josh’s car lot is totally bullshit and either a plant for the show or it’s run by someone else to make it look like Josh doesn’t just live off of TV money, that the younger boys are out of control, that the house is really unattractive compared to other ones in the area, etc. The guy doing the AMA seems pretty nice and fair, but I was secretly hoping that it was a neighbor who hated them and wanted to talk smack. Still, it’s nice to know that their neighbors seem largely unimpressed by the Duggars’ celebrity.