So true

This is a Lemmy post of a screenshot of a Reddit post of a screenshot of a Reddit post of a screenshot of a Twitter tweet.
Truly an instance of xkcd's Digital Data comic. https://xkcd.com/1683/
- I assumed someone plastered three different reddit things over it as a bit.
- Anyone remember Screen Muncher?
  
  No, do tell 😂.

This one is sad because she was obviously mentally ill and not getting the help she needed, but it's the best example I have of the city I grew up in.
We had "Toonie Lady." She would roam around downtown begging for a Toonie and would get very upset if you gave her anything else, even if it was more.
For the non-Canadians, a Toonie is a $2 coin.
- We had one woman like this everyone called "dime bag Debbie" because she always asked for "ten dollars for chicken"
  Not happy (but still accepting) if you gave her anything other than $10, and a few people I knew apparently tried to buy her raw and cooked chicken, as well as chicken sandwiches from various restaurants and that was also unhappily accepted.
  I think the $10 thing is a coincidence, and people call her "dimebag" because they assume she does drugs. No idea if she does or not though.
- This is amusing to me because we have the "20ct guy" in my city who always claims he only needs 20ct and as soon as he sees any more money he'll steal it from you.

There is a man that wears chainmail armor made out of soda can pop tabs that is famous in both Tucson and Phoenix areas of Arizona. His name is Chicago, and you can catch him on the bus or at random punk and metal shows around AZ, if you are lucky.
- F-ing A! Props to him, it's a very unique look and most people can't seem to work up the courage to do more than follow trends.

My hometown's got the yellow man. Some random dude who's wearing nothing but yellow clothes, riding a yellow bicycle around the place. I wonder what his favourite colour might be...
- Does he by chance have a small, rather curious monkey with him?
  
  I'm afraid I don't know the reference. Care to explain?
- Brooklyn has artist Elizabeth Sweetheart, the Green Lady. I met her in the subway once and told her I'd seen her interview on Youtube, and it brought me joy to know of someone just loving a color so much and expressing it so fantastically. She gave me a hug :) Genuinely lovely human!
  
  That's very wholesome. Thank you for sharing.
- Is it red?
- We have a yellow lady in Montréal.
- Nymphia Wind was just practicing.

Kitten Guy.
Dude was a little strange, but otherwise a good person. He just kept taking in strays, and if he had kittens in need, they went everywhere with him. Most of them ended up at new homes, but he had a few who stuck around. Wasn't unusual for him to be feeding two or three kittens and have two more sitting on his shoulders.
It was an extremely small town, so he stuck out like a sore thumb. They went everywhere with him. Never caused any trouble.
- That's awesome, sounds like a cool dude!
  
  A bit strange... but yeah, if he isn't doing any harm 🤷.
- Aww... I'm glad there are people like him, those kittens were probably doomed otherwise unless there was a local animal shelter and even then finding homes for animals tends to be difficult.

Ass-man of Szeged, in Hungarian 'Szegedi Picsaember'. He wears very-very tight jean shorts. Even during winter.
Here is an article about him: https://444.hu/2013/05/03/holgyeink-es-uraink-a-szegedi-picsaember
- He is pulling it off.
- He gives dean from community energy
- Those are the tightest shorts I’ve ever seen. He does have amazing legs though.

I lived in a small town and there was a guy who'd ride his bike everywhere, with big metal panniers usually filled with soda cans. He'd be out in all weather, with high-visibility gear on, and would travel all miles outside of town with hundreds of cans piled on his bike.
When I asked people about him, they said he had a learning disability and lived with his mom, and would sell the soda cans for a little spending cash. Everybody loved him, especially the town government who paid him a stipend to clean up the town and let him keep anything he found. Since I helped at the local farmer's market I met him quite a few times and he was always cheerful and friendly.
- And people in high places would say he's "useless" far too often. Oh well.
  Glad the municipality at least recognized his efforts, I just mean that in general that doesn't happen. Really shows that town had better priorities than most.
  I hope the guy is still doing okay?
  
  AFAIK he's still doing okay. And the town definitely had its priorities straight. They kept out a Walmart and two chain restaurants because they didn't want to change the character of the town.

Crackhead Dan.
He started out as "dancing Dan" because of how often you could see him jamming out to something walking down the road, but he didn't like the name. Somehow it changed to crackhead, and I haven't heard his opinion on it.
He looks rather disheveled, leading many to wonder if he's homeless or not. Nobody seems to know. I've never seen him panhandling, dumpster diving, or with anything other than a backpack.
He likes to support the city's high school band though, goes to the football games and always goes to the band concession stand and leaves tips.
You could tell anyone any story about him and they'd just go "yeah that sounds about right"
- You could tell anyone any story about him and they'd just go "yeah that sounds about right"
  Should be added to the meke cause its a quintessential part of this trope lmao.

Pallet guy. Very few know his face, but we all know his tiny car and stack of 10 pallets on top speeding down the interstate.
- Are you a trucker? Or is this a meme? If it's the former, I'm impressed and worried that that's common enough to be recognizable.

Manchester has Boom Box Barry.
You'll see him riding around and people smile and wave at him. He is, as we say up here, a sound lad (no pun intended).
- There are a load. There's the guy with a flashing massive speaker in his wheelchair; there's Jesus tax guy; there's Johnny Cash; there's purple Ackie; and there are deffo a frw more that I can't quite remember at the mo. Barry is the OG though.
  Edit: I can't believe I forgot that guy who dances like Jake the Dog on Piccadilly gardens.
  
  Sounds like a fun town in various ways, lol

Poop-man here in Gothenburg, Sweden.
A dude that has been banned from all music festivals in Sweden and many others in neighbouring countries because he covers himself with shit and bathes in urinals. He has also smeared shit all over the walls in multiple places, including one of the ferries here. I worked at an underground club for a few years around 2005 and he "painted" the walls of one of our toilets one time. He never drinks or does drugs apparently, he's just fucked up. Been well-known since the 90s..
- Scatman... yeah, like it better.
- Dude needs a therapist

St Louis has "keytar guy". He sets up at random intersections in the city and jams out on his keyboard. He's usually sporting a mullet and is shirtless with cutoff jean shorts. He's pretty good and is entertaining as hell.
- We also have/had the Bridge guy. Haven't been around there in awhile, hope he's doing fine

Austin used to have Leslie. He was frequently seen riding around Town Lake on his bike, sporting naught but his hot pants or brightly colored thong. RIP
- What happened to Leslie?
  
  https://atxtoday.6amcity.com/culture/fabulous-history-of-leslie-cochran

Albuquerque had little shorts guy. Walked around Central Ave near the university wearing naught but a tiny, tiny pair of shorts or thong and usually carrying an anti-war/pro-gay sign. Pretty fun fellow to talk to, but was too into drinking urine imho.

Keytar Bear
Dude jams out around Boston on a keytar wearing a bear costume. The music is actually pretty great.
- Neat!

We had the phone guy. He used to walk around town with a red plastic rotary phone, and occasionally tell passersby they had a call.
Then cellphones happened, and he just sort of... vanished.
It's been a long time now, of course, but sometimes I still think of him and worry what it must have been like, being sort of outcompeted off his little self assigned ecological niche of sorts what must have felt like overnight. One day you're the phone guy, next day everyone's walking around with a phone on their ear, and you're stuck with your old unplugged red rotary phone. Tragic.
- Wow, that... that really makes you think. No wonder UFO nuts refuse to admit Roswell was revealed as Project Mogul in the 90s, their belief might be all they have left and if that's somehow obsolete...

The city where I studied, had the Raven Man. He was an older guy with unkempt long hair and a long black coat that was always covered in bird shit and two live ravens tied to his coat with a long string.
- Woah. Spooky. I hope the birds weren't in pain, Ravens are corvids and basically some of the smartest and emotionally relatable birds.

Ahhh the naked roller blading cowboy that plays guitar....
No I'm not kidding. Bonus points if you can name the city
- Portland, OR?
  
  Nah, Portland's guy is the unipiper!
  
  To far south, and a time zone over

We have Superman. Overweight guy that stands on the corner dressed as superman. Was not a problem until he started bothering ladies at Dairy Queen. The dairy queen was on the corner where he stood. He got banned from that lot. But he's still around.
- Well that doesn't sound very super...

My hometown had the "Old Runner Guy", some dude who was at least in his 70's would run the same route every. single. day. Rain, shine, snow, hail he'd be runnin. Hell, it'd be -20F out and he'll still be on his route.
- One Punch Man
- I have some friends in a city with a guy that ~~dresses~~ dressed as Superman and ran around town praying for folks. I saw him once while visiting. He had great energy. He even got a mural!

I either live in the right part of the world, or the wrong part, because I've never seen this stuff.
- IDK, we have a few legends like that around here, I presumed every place has at least one.

My town has a disabled guy that trained his dogs to pull his wheelchair

Probably related to a prohibitively expensive health system in some way.
- Not quite, some just refuse to get treatment... or were diagnosed later in life, when you can't really force anyone to go to a psychiatrist, esepcially if he/she does no harm.
  
  That and humans in general are all crazy in some way. "Normal" is a standard we can try to achieve, but it's neither realistic nor ideal. At some point a person is sane enough that you have to say "why criticize someone for being themselves?" instead of questioning or distrusting it.

We had Summer Santa. He looked like santa, but wore a Hawaiian button up shirt(open, with nothing underneath it) and short shorts. He always bought a ton of mountain dew from walmart.
- https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=Australian+Santa

Toronto had Zanta, a guy who wore red boxers, black boots and a Santa hat and did pushups on top of mailboxes and flexing while shoutting at passersby. If you knew him it was a fun spectacle but for most people he was aggressive and basically a creep.
He was mentally ill for sure, and had a pretty long sad story.
Any Zanta experts please speak up if you'd like to add more context. Pretty sure someone wrote a book or comic about the guy.
- What about the singing guy?

Helsinki has the laserskater.
Considered a local superhero.

carrot man in melbourne, australia
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/nov/12/melbourne-fitzroy-carrot-man
- And Baba Desi the Belgrave wizard.

In Lyon France there was the spider woman.
Edit: video https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FNoRQQqWKVg
- Her knees appear to have been installed backwards.
  
  Sadly, this is literally the case; it's a genetic deformity she and other people have had from birth.
- I have questions.
- Wait, how??
  
  Yeah, this was close to my reaction when I saw her for the first time, my friends with me were just: "What !? You never saw the spider woman ?"
- Wonder how many dogs the poor woman has to pepper spray in a week

My town had Waving Save. He lived across the street from me when I was in high school.
He would walk the 5 miles to town every day most of the year. He would wave enthusiastically at every passing vehicle.
He was very pleasant but odd.

We had Human Lego Man—a guy had a Lego Man costume and would just walk around waving at people.
We also have a roller blader with fairy wings who cruises up and down the Main Street, apparently flying. It was great when she had a baby, because she’d do the whole thing while pushing a pram.

We have a couple of them. Bonsai Lady is my favorite. She just randomly shows in different parking lots and sets up a stand to sell her bonsai trees.
We also have the Denton Spider-Man who is a good dude who just wants to entertain kids.
We don't talk about the conspiracy theory asshole who just takes up good parking spots to spread lies he wrote all over his car.

We call ours "the artist". Older gentleman who walks around downtown always dressed completely in white linen. Sometimes he goes in somewhere for a nonalcoholic drink. Mostly he just people watches.
- Is he an Ancient Greek time traveller or something? I swear, that would make for a kickass movie. "You all know the guy. Or girl. That one person in your town, or one of those people if it's a city, in the impossible urban legend. They're weird, possibly nice, possibly just creepy, probably mentally damaged." montage of the other examples "This is ours. We called him the artist. Pretty mild, he just sat in coffee shops and watched people walk by. One day, though, our perception of him would change. Not just in this town, but in this timeline. This... is what happens When Worlds Divide."

The Milverine, and his Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milverine

I live in Augsburg, Germany. We have „the king“. He just declared himself king of Augsburg about 30 years ago and everyone just went with it. He spends his days walking through the city looking after the wellbeing of his people. Here’s a video-portrait by the local newspaper for his 70th birthday (in German)
- Certainly a better king than most!

Nervously looks for my city’s “guy” to see if anyone I know or could run into is on Lemmy

Ours was a woman, an older prostitute and meth head everyone called "Teddy Bear." You'd see her walking everywhere in town.

My city has a bunch: The spoon lady, miniature horse guy, topless fat lady, the guy that rides his Harley around pulling a trailer with a pig in it, Johnny sax, blunt man, and guitar hero are all the ones I can think of off the top of my head. I live in a weird city.
- You sure no one's dropped some uranium in the vascinity or something?

My favorite in my city is shirtless rollerblading guitar guy. Exactly as advertised.
- @TheMightyCanuck , is this the same guy?! It has to be.
  
  Edmonton Alberta Canada, I doubt there are more than one Canadian shirtless rollerblading guitar guys out there. Though it would be kinda amazing if there were
- shrogu... can't think of anything else ATM.

Lol, we had this guy in my hometown, except he didn't wear a robe, he wore cowboy clothes with LEDs sewn into them. He was lit up like a Christmas tree.

Ohio apparently has 2-3 separate "crazy bike ladies." The one in dayton would generally roam around and yell obscenities at traffic. Apparently there's one in the canton/Akron area as well as Columbus.

Some years ago, we had Thong Cape Scooter Man. The name tells you exactly what you need to know.
- lol, so Exactly What It Says On The Tin is common where you live then, I'm guessing?
- Further back we had Scanner Dan and Cosmo di Madison.

We had a dude *that daily would go walk with a pet duck. *that looked like Jezus *that was known for shooting in his living room *that never bathed *that was coocoo and always walked zround smoking a big cigar.
5 dudes one village.
- Most definitely an interesting place to live.

Schreeuw Jezus (screaming/shouting Jesus) in Eindhoven, The Nederlands. Some guy shouting about Bible stuff and Jesus.
- Sounds like my man "Sneesus" at Dundas Square. "BbBEEEEELEEIVE IN THE LORD" everyday, same corner. Scaring the crap out of anyone who doesn't know the intersection but otherwise never approaches or even gives a glance.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI9B7qWXV9Q
- I was once sat at a pub by a canal on a pretty perfect summer afternoon. It was glorious weather, so all the outside tables were packed. Someone appeared opposite the pub, on the other side of the canal with an amplifier on wheels and a microphone. They set up and started speaking... But there was just a touch of wind, and they were on the other side of the canal... So other than the fact that they were probably talking about Jesus we couldn't make out what they were saying at all. An awkward sermon for all involved.

We have a guy who rides really slowly around on a bike in bizarre, seasonally inappropriate outfits. Like, a leopard print loincloth, crop top, and something resembling a turban in February.

The town I grew up in has lots of things named after the that guy of yesteryear, I think, but I can't think of any from when I was growing up there.
But San Francisco used to be almost entirely made up of that guys.
We have the world famous Bushman (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Famous_Bushman) who dresses up like a bush and jumps out at tourists.
We had the Brown Twins (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian_and_Vivian_Brown) who were just fabulous older women you'd see out and about.
We have 12 Galaxies sign man (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Chu)
The Castro naked men which became the Castro men who wear cock socks sometimes.
And all sorts of others that aren't popping in mind right this moment.

My town had Cedric aka "Ceddars" who was just a typical slightly crazy homeless man, but allegedly he was actually rich and people claimed that sometimes when he was done begging a Bentley would pull up to take him home.

My town has the Q-Anon Shaman...
- Sauce?
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Chansley
  About another 1.6 million people can also claim to live in the same town as the Q-Anon Shaman since he's from Phoenix and you'd see him fairly frequently if you drive by the government buildings downtown before he was thrown in jail for his participation in Jan 6.

Horseback Jesus was a sub on reddit that never saw much traffic. I think there's more activity in this post than there ever was there. Fuck You Bob was the well known character in Kent Ohio. He would flip off school buses and mutter "fuck you" when you passed him on the sidewalk. Legend has it he ate an entire sheet of acid to avoid getting busted

Red letter media has mentioned Milwaukee Wolverine during one of their Neil Breen videos.

Clapham Common, South London, a person in their 60s who would wear only a tiny thong, a grass skirt, and ride their bicycle around in all weathers.
- If you remove the oligarchs, bankers, and tech bros, London is about 50% these people.

Sockhead, independently wealthy homeless by choice attempted murderer with 1 giant blonde dreadlock in a sock on top of his head.

RIP Sailor Dan of Saskatoon

My town had "the cat guy" when I was growing up. A guy who would ride around town with his cat in a carrier strapped to the back of his bike. Everyone knew who he was.