Rushing back to school after grabbing lunch from the Habit Burger Grill, senior Dylan Ong parked his car as fast as he could. As he opened the door, hands full and hurrying to class, his passenger quickly snapped a picture of his sloppy parking and sent it to an anonymous Instagram account @mv_badparking, a page dedicated to exposing poor parking jobs in the MVHS lot.

“I felt betrayed,” Ong said. “I spent all this time bringing [my friend] back from lunch, and he pays me back by taking a picture of my car and posting me on @mv_badparking.”

Since 2021, many students like Ong have had their parking jobs posted on the Instagram account. The account owner, who wished to remain anonymous, started the account to make bad parking at MVHS something that people can laugh about, deriving inspiration from a TikTok trend of school-wide parking accounts.

Along with a photo of the parking job, the @mv_badparking account owner comes up with humorous captions to accompany the image, such as an embarrassing sentence or two about the driver, like creating the nickname “Ferb” by saying “Ferb running over lines” or “runaway Ferb.”

Ong finds the account very funny and feels it provides an entertaining way to engage the MVHS community. Senior Jai Gupta shares this sentiment, as he believes that the account is something special for seniors.

“[The account] is a fun tradition that the senior class has where people are publicly shamed,” Gupta said. “It’s all [in] good fun and it makes the school more interesting.” 

Although Gupta believes that the account is meant to be light-hearted, he feels like he was treated differently after the post. Gupta recalls his friends making comments on the post mentioning him, but he didn’t think too much of it saying that it was “a good laugh.”

“I felt like people were surprised to see me there,” Gupta said. “Because people normally [see] me as a good driver.” 

On the other hand, Ong believes that being posted on the account didn’t impact him, as his reputation remained the same. Having already been posted three times on @mv_badparking, Ong doesn’t think that being posted again will affect him.

“Honestly, I didn’t care too much,” Ong said. “The rest of my friend group has been posted there as well, so it’s not a big deal.” 

Others, like senior Maya Mizrahi, don’t agree with their post on the account, saying that some of the submissions are too critical and that she was “mostly inside the lines.” Mizrahi wishes to not be posted again, so she now checks to see if she parks correctly in the student parking lot every morning. 

The account, which now receives four to five submissions each week, has seen an increase in engagement. The account began with posts only receiving around 20 likes per post, but now its posts regularly get over 100 likes. This account has also led to a rise in other schoolwide accounts in a similar vein such as @montavistacaughtsleeping or @mvredflags. 

“I’m proud of the account’s growth and seeing people in class laugh about the captions or their friend getting posted,” the account owner said. “[It] makes me glad that I started the account.”