A picture of various drugs wrapped up in paper. A sidewalk downtown, a third of which is covered with hypodermic needles. A video of blood splattered on the entrance of a building on College Street after a stabbing.
Welcome to Burlington.
The Instagram account @burlington_looks_like_shxt is where you can find these images as well as over 300 other images and videos of various crimes and situations arising from an increase in drug use and unhoused individuals in Burlington. The account has become a significant news source for students and the wider community gaining over 35,000 followers since September of 2023.
“This account caught traction and the only reason it’s still running is because of all the posts people send in, aka Burlington being a shit show,” the owner of the account, who is anonymous, said.
(Courtesy)
Marcel McLaughlin ‘24 just recently saw the account for the first time, but he has faced first-hand encounters with people that might be featured on the account at his job at Pokeworks on Church Street.
“I had one guy come in a couple of summers back and he had showered in our bathroom,” McLaughlin said. “And he had called me a bunch of slurs. And there was no manager present. So I had to deal with it at the age of 15. I’ve kind of adjusted to it though.”
Izzy Mcdonald ‘26 first saw @burlington_looks_like_shxt on Instagram in Fall of 2023. She explains that friends and family who do not attend dtBHS send her posts from the account.
Mcdonald says that “the account is an accurate description of what downtown Burlington looks like”. Her friends from different schools say “imagine going to Burlington”. She responds, “that’s what I deal with every day”.
“It’s just becoming more normal,” Mcdonald said. “What used to be bad, … is kind of normal now. So [people are] letting more slide and … if someone’s [using drugs] at a bus stop, [civilians can not] do anything about it”.
The owner said that the Burlington account was inspired by a similar account started in Seattle called “@seattle.looks.like.shxt”. The Seattle account was created in response to an increase in crime and the creator of the Burlington account hoped to highlight the same issue.
“These people are just wreaking havoc on this small city and it’s the same people day in and day out,” the Instagram account owner said. “How can stealing be fine? How can doing hard drugs openly in public be fine? People from surrounding towns don’t want to go to Burlington anymore and that happened well before this account started.”
Crime in Burlington has risen 444.2% from 2017 to 2023. The account owner said that the police should stop releasing repeat offenders and that they need to “make crime illegal again”.
“Without consequences people become worse and worse and stretch the limits,” the account owner said.
Burlington Police Chief Jon Murad agrees that there is a drug crisis in the city.
“If we can arrest people who are dealing a lot of narcotics, we can oftentimes make neighborhoods and communities safer,” Murad said.
But beyond arresting people for things like selling drugs, the police are limited in their ability to help. That is why they have “innovated” by having inhouse social workers called “community support liaisons” that focus on social services.
“We are struggling to try to address [this] in a way that is both humane, but also effective for our community,” Murad said.
In addition to images of crime scenes, the account shows pictures of makeshift encampments and unsheltered people on the streets. The number of people without shelter has increased from fewer than 50 to more than 200 in less than a year.
Dov Stucker, founder of Burlington City and Lake (BCL) says that there isn’t an easy answer to dealing with this rise of crime and homelessness in Burlington.
“The easiest answer of all is just [to] laugh at something,” Stucker said. “To me, that seems like a cop out.”
Stucker goes on to say that the Instagram account paints “an intensely biased picture.”
“We choose the story we tell,” Stucker said. “[Their Instagram account is] intensely curated for one reductive story of human suffering. But biased in a different way. And that … feels not just exploitative. It feels abusive.”
