Hero or Megalomaniac??

There is a woman in my neighborhood who has been on our neighborhood chat forum ( Nextdoor) every day since the pandemic closed things down (Mid March for us). She spends every day, starting at 7:00am going to Target, Walmart, Costco/Sams/BJ's, etc buying all the hard to find items like toilet paper, Lysol, hand sanitizer, etc. She takes pictures of herself doing it and posts it. Then she puts multiple posts on the Nextdoor site listing the products she has and her cash app so people can pay her. Then she goes to the parking lot of a daycare and parks her vehicle waiting for people to come buy stuff off of her. Some have accused her of upcharging but she claims to only charge what she paid. Her posts on Nextdoor are covered in religious verbage like "Blessings", "Many prayers to you", "I;m doing God's work", etc. and thousands of emojis of praying hands. She's taken some products to a couple seniors, but most people buying off her are able bodied folks that can easily buy that stuff themselves. All these products have been available for purchase online. you just have to check. The irony is that everytime someone either questions her as to why she is doing this (plus putting herself and others at risk during stay-at-home orders), or posts their own find of products at a store, or posts other helpful thing like websites......this woman ATTACKS them! She will call them "POS", she will make petty arguements with them, she will even say things like "well it's nice that you found wipes, but what people really need is Lysol and I have that. Everyone call me. I have plenty". It's like she has to upstage or argue in order to prevent someone from stealing her spotlight or something. She sends private messages to people who question her with expletives in it. Then goes back on the site and says "blessings", "prayers for all" etc. In my opinion, if this woman was truly doing this out of charity then #1) She would not be photographing herself doing it and posting multiple times on social platforms #2) She'd be offering these products for FREE to people instead of charging them #3) She would not be spewing "blessings" and "prayers" and other religious things then turning around and cursing and arguing with people. #4) She's even specifically mentioned neighbors by name in her posts calling them out publicly if they P her off....once even going so far as to specifically name well-known real estate agents in the community publicly asking them why they are not donating money to her so she can buy these products, saying she knows they make lots of money and should donate. Oh, and when she started to run out of neighbors to buy from her, she switched to the firehouses...showing up at firehouses taking them water and snacks and asking people to donate to her so she can buy fireman things. Of course including photos she took of herself with the fireman and bottled water.

I truly do not understand what this woman is doing. In my opinion, she's not doing anything of use other than exploiting a public health crisis and trying to get some cheap fame. She also pretends to be religious and charitable, but I've seen her be abusive to anyone who questions her. Of course, there are several people in the neighborhood who heap praise on her and say she's truly an angel for what she's doing. But I think they are being fooled. I also think many are just lazy and would rather use her to get their stuff. What is this woman? Is there a name for this behavior? Cause I certainly would not call her a hero.

I think you got it right about her with everything you said.

I also think you got it right. She sounds kind of scammy. I am surprised the stores allow her to make these purchases. Many in my area are limiting people to one hard to find item per person, though I am not sure if those restrictions are enforced at self check out.

Her contradictions speak out loud.
I don’t buy it.

The whole idea of nextdoor app is positive but it attracts some strange people. I barely ever look on there now. A bit insane. My husband even deleted the app on his phone because it was causing him too much aggravation.

I donated stuff to local clinic but I didn’t make a production out of it! Difficult times always attract some weird people doing things for attention

I see messages from NextDoor come in that are also strange. It was designed to bring people closer together, but I see fighting and people talking about possible criminal activity. Their rules are no self promotion, but I see lots of that, too.

Thanks Divine and TishaBuv. I agree. For people needing recommendations or looking for help moving, etc the Nextdoor app can be useful. But sadly I too often see it being used as a platform to spew anger at others, publicly shame others and weirdos trying to drum up fake praise of themselves for a cheap ego boost. Some of my neighbors have even received threatening private messages on there from nuts who did not agree with them on something. It's a shame that some people can't act like adults and allow the site to work the way it was intended. Divine, your husband has the right idea deleting the app. I'm considering doing the same as my blood pressure can't take it sometimes. I go to bed flushed in the face and my heart pounding.

Hmm sounds like a person who really needs to feel important and needed and relevant. It’s best to distance from someone that can get nasty as described if her need for drama is so intense like that.

I've never heard of magalomaniac.

It's a real thing. It's a mania for great or grandiose performance.

UPDATE!!!!!!!!!!

The woman that I spoke of is now driving around the community looking for homeless people and near homeless people to supply with things. She's asking the neighborhood for money donations, furniture, food, etc donations for these people she seeks out. Now, I know there is nothing wrong with helping people. The thing is she's photographing it all and telling people "I'm putting myself in harms way to help others." Again, if you want to be charitable great, but don't do it looking for public accolades and sending little hints of shame towards people to elicit sympathy.

Whatever rocks her boat. Do you know her? I’d not let it bother me.

There actually is a name for people displaying this very kind of behavior. They are called communal narcissists.

Ugh.

Never heard about that term. Interesting!

@lovethesun, I’m thinking about the syndrome Munchausen by proxy, if a mother dares to risk her own child’s health to get attention and sympathy what an strange person whose ego is also harm to not dare to do with other strangers.

I don’t see parallels here. This person does lots of good stuff for a community but clearly wants attention for it. She strikes me as not a humble person. I don’t see munchhausen by proxy at all

I don’t see it either. Again I expressed myself very bad.
I was trying to put the stress on the fact that someone trying to be at the spotlight to feed their ego is not strange when there are cases such extreme as those people who suffer with Munchausen by proxy.
Thanks for the clarification.

Yeah, that definitely sounds like excessive attention-seeking behavior.

Here on a local social media group there have been people offering (mainly non-perishable) food if someone needs it on a social media group for my community. They are giving it away and just say, send me a message if it will help you and we will coordinate delivery. There are no pictures of the person giving the food away or other attention-seeking attempts, which seems more reasonable to me.

How much is she benefitting the community?

Her approach is off-putting, yes.. but if she's truly dealing with some type of personality disorder, I'd say this is a good way to do it. She's drawing a lot of attention.. both positive and negative. The word is getting out (photos do help, sometimes), and is helping people in the process.

I can understand her need to bite back when people are questioning her motive. She's "trying" to do something positive even though it's to generate a lot of attention for herself.

There's a lot of celebrities that do this too, and are admired for.

I think in this case is the other way around, celebrities use their fame for a cause.

I bet she's doing the same. She's generating a lot of attention towards herself to use towards her local cause.

Nextdoor Help
I googled "is price gouging allowed on nextdoor app" if you are interested in trying to search yourself but it sounds like she is violating a number of rules. The link I shared shows how to report it.