Local Facebook Group Goes Viral

Just one week ago, a Facebook group, meant to expose and poke fun at the nonsensical behavior of some of the Hamptons visitors, had about 800 members. As of Friday afternoon, there are now 11,813.

James Cuomo, a 26-year-old from Springs, said he never quite imagined that D--che Spotter, the closed group he started last summer would catch on quite the way it has, gaining followers from all over.

Last week, in an interview with East Hampton Patch, he said he almost thought about deleting the group over the winter when it failed to attract more than 200 members. After Memorial Day this year, the members steadily grew, but Cuomo never could have guessed the response that followed news reports on July 5.

"Besides the loads of attention, people are stopping me on the street with either positive or negative feedback," Cuomo said. "It's mostly good, but people always have something to say. Let them say it."

Cuomo said he started the page so that he and other locals could have a place to express themselves about the arrogant, self-absorbed summer visitors. Those who dislike the site and the posts they find on it are entitled to their feelings," Cuomo said. "They are allowed to say it, too," he said, adding some of said it to his face. "I just politely say 'I'm sorry you feel that.'"

More concerning for Cuomo, he said, was a Facebook page that popped up soon after the news articles. "East Hampton Idiot Spotter" is what he describes as a copycat. The page actually has more followers — 13,467 "likes" as of Friday.

"I feel stabbed in the back. The guy was a local who started it when it went global," Cuomo said. "I'm kind of upset about it, but really what can I do?"

Since gaining more than 14 times the followers on Facebook, Cuomo is already starting to expand on the idea. His cousin, a graphic designer, designed a logo for the page, and a web designer is putting together a website that he hopes to launch by next week.

"It's going to have a video tube on it," Cuomo said. "So not only can I take a picture, but I'm actually going to interview them and see what they say," he said.

"My friends have always known me to take it one step further so here I am taking it one step further," he said, with a laugh. On Facebook, he said, you get a photograph, but on the website, "you'll really see somebody's initial reaction — the look on their face," when they are called out for parking obnoxiously or cutting a line.

Asked if he is trying to start a business, Cuomo said he isn't quitting his job just yet. He said he isn't trying to join what he referred to as the "commercial cesspool" of the South Fork. "I'm trying to avoid that, but we'll see."