Quick Take:
A name change prank on Santa Cruz’s biggest Facebook group by one of its own administrators quickly went awry, fueling long-simmering tensions that the page had grown too political since the 2024 election.
James Vergon awoke on April Fool’s Day with a plan.
As chief administrator of Santa Cruz County’s largest Facebook group “You Know You’re From Santa Cruz When…”, he has often celebrated the day of levity by changing the page’s profile photo from the lighthouse on West Cliff Drive to an image of another city. Hardly a prank, but a light-hearted nudge that always irked a few of the group’s more than 73,000 members.
Yet, when Vergon, a 40-year resident of the county, logged on in the wee hours of the morning last Tuesday, he could not find the page he had been moderating for more than 16 years. Confusion quickly gave way to concern. Then, when he finally found the group, a soft panic set in.
One of the group’s other two administrators had changed the page’s name to “Jan 6 Pardonees Lawn Bowling Club,” which Vergon admitted was, “in itself, hilarious,” except for one thing.
Facebook only allows its groups to change its name once per month. Which means the most popular Facebook group in the county is now stuck with this moniker until May 1, puzzling existing members and imbuing it with a clear political tilt at a time when many members have cringed at the group’s recent evolution into a venue for partisan venting.
“When I realized what happened, I thought, ‘Oh s–t. No. No! No!” Vergon told Lookout. “We’ve lost a lot of members because of it.”
Vergon said since the name change, the group has bled “about 1,000 members” which he acknowledges is a fraction of its total membership. But “1,000 members is still 1,000 members.”
The prank comes at a somewhat tense time for the Facebook group. Since last year’s election, the 18-year-old page, once a place for nostalgic photos of old Santa Cruz and coastal sunsets, has become increasingly populated by political posts, largely complaining about or dunking on the Trump Administration, the Make America Great Again movement, and Elon Musk, which Vergon said has bothered some long-time members. Vergon, who in his role as admin approves every post before it goes live, has previously taken accountability for the page’s political turn, and has tried more recently to guide it back toward its sunnier days of old.
“When Trump came into office, I started voicing my opinions about what was happening, and people started to leave,” Vergon said. “The group is definitely Santa Cruz-related and politics-related now. The Santa Cruz I know is very politically motivated and is upset about what’s happening in the country.”
Vergon was adamant, both in talking to Lookout and in a video he posted to the group on April 1, that he was not the person who changed the group’s name. He also declined to identify who did, arguing that “it’s not important.”
“When I spoke with the admin who did it, he told me what he initially wanted to change the name to, and it was a lot worse,” Vergon said, declining to give any sense of the first draft. “People would be jumping ship a lot more if that happened.”
Only admins have the power to change the page name, and Vergon said he only works with two other admins: Joshua Spencer Logan, who lives in Santa Cruz County full-time, and a person whose Facebook name is Justin Ain’t Here and, according to his profile, is from Santa Cruz but lives in Washington.
Lookout was unable to reach Justin Ain’t Here before publication, but Spencer, whose profile features more than a few comic-book-style memes of Elon Musk being tortured by chimpanzees wearing UC Davis graduate caps, firmly told Lookout he “would never” change the group’s name. When he is not performing magic for high-profile clients (he said he once performed in front of Mark Zuckerberg) Spencer said he works with his wife in marketing. Upon seeing the name change on April Fool’s Day, he thought it was funny, but also sensed a branding issue.
“I sort of thought that this could be a problem, especially if someone starts a Facebook page and takes the [You Know You’re From Santa Cruz When… ] name,” Spencer said.
Spencer’s concern was a prescient one. The “You know you’re from Santa Cruz when…” name belongs now to a group with 773 members. And, the following day, on April 2, a user named Maison Keely started a new “You Know You’re From Santa Cruz When” (no ellipses), in direct response to her own issues with the original community.
“The ‘You Know You’re From Santa Cruz’ page has become mostly politics, I wanted to make a page with strictly no politics allowed,” Keely wrote in her introductory post to the group, which now has nine members. “Whatever your political views are, are unrelated to this group. Any posts about politics will be deleted and you will be blocked, thank you.”
Vergon said the trend of disgruntled members tired of the politics creating their own off-shoot Facebook pages is nothing new. But, he said, they all soon come to the same conclusion.
“These admins learn that it’s hard to keep politics out of Santa Cruz stuff,” Vergon said. “Santa Cruz is a very politically motivated city and that’s how we are.”
