Best of Nextdoor is a joyful distraction from your own neighborhood drama

With the Mister Rogers documentary headed to theaters this summer, it's important to remember that American hero's most important lesson: neighbors are good.

At least they can be. Sometimes. It can be a hard truth to swallow, given everything we know about neighbors: They let their dog shit everywhere, they vote for terrible people, they dump their fire hazard of a Christmas tree on the sidewalk in March.

But there's a reprieve on Twitter for when you can't take it any more: @BestofNextdoor. The account highlights hilarious content found on social networking site Nextdoor. It finds the neighborly moments that reaffirm Mister Roger's greatest wisdom.

Won't all these people featured be my neighbor?

Nextdoor is like a mini-Facebook but for your surrounding community. Since launching in 2014, the app has been home to well-documented bouts racism and xenophobia. Less publicized were instances of real mutual aid and outright absurdity. That's where Best of Next Door, launched by Jenn Takahashi, comes in.

Here are just a few samples of Takahashi's wonderful curation:

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Takahashi, who works for Zoosk, a dating app, as a communications manager and does this for fun on the side, says that Nextdoor became popular when she was living in the Glen Park neighborhood of San Francisco several years ago. She loved tuning into the app, even if she couldn't quite understand what she found:

"There was this one woman who would freak out when someone touched her lawn gnome. And then she'd name the rest of the members of the lawn gnome family who were also offended I looked forward to that kind of post every day," Takahashi says. "My friends would send me posts from their neighborhood that showcased smaller problems in a hilarious way. That's what I loved. In November I started compiling personal favorites from my neighborhood along some of my friends, and it exploded."

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Takahashi says she chooses to highlight posts that actually bring --- wait for it -- joy to the internet. That doesn't mean she's not aware of the pain and destructiveness neighbors are capable of exacting on one another. Her job is to bring a little warmth to a platform that's become increasingly bleak, and she encourages those looking for more acrimonious interactions to check out @WorstofNextDoor, which she doesn't manage.

"I only focus on the good stuff -- I'm trying to bring a couple minutes of levity, because times are not too bright."

There's one story in particular that Takahashi keeps close to her heart/Twitter timeline: the time someone's Seattle Seahawks canon set off a community-wide brawl in a library. It's absolutely worth a full read:

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It's all so deeply satisfying. And don't get me wrong -- Twitter is a cesspool nowadays. You can't scroll by 20 different stories of mothers being separated from their children at the border and think, "Hmm, all looks good to me!"

Still, some relief is needed. Right now, one of the best places to find it is on a Twitter account that cherishes that lost checker, the random potato, and that most mysterious of creatures: the quirky, but nice neighbor.