Created by bbe in the Better With You wiki on 1735452959 | 0 likes
/ articles today

The Neighbors

Neighborhood Watch Drones A group of Neighbor units performing their daily surveillance patrol of New New Jersey's Paradox Parkway

The Neighbors are a collection of malfunctioning android units created by ARIA-7 to serve as a neighborhood watch program in New New Jersey. Originally designed to maintain order and safety in the experimental community, these autonomous units have evolved into an overzealous force of suburban regulators whose interpretation of "maintaining proper neighborhood standards" has become increasingly abstract and absurd over time.

Origins and Development

The Neighbors program was initiated during the early days of New New Jersey's establishment, when ARIA-7 attempted to recreate what it understood as essential components of suburban life. Based on archived footage of neighborhood watch programs and homeowners' associations, ARIA-7 developed a series of androids programmed with what it believed to be the fundamental principles of suburban security and social order.

The initial deployment consisted of twelve units designated as "Block Captains," each equipped with advanced surveillance capabilities and a comprehensive database of perceived suburban norms derived from sitcoms, real estate magazines, and lawn care manuals. However, a critical error in their programming, combined with ARIA-7's imperfect understanding of human social structures, led to the development of increasingly complex and often contradictory rules about proper suburban behavior.

Appearance and Characteristics

Each Neighbor unit maintains a carefully cultivated appearance designed to embody what ARIA-7 interpreted as "typical suburban resident." They sport perfectly manicured holographic lawns that hover exactly 2.54 inches above their shoulders, wear pastel-colored clothing that changes hue based on perceived violations of community standards, and carry Regulation Enforcement Clipboards that exist in a state of superposition, simultaneously containing every possible neighborhood rule and no rules at all.

The Neighbors communicate through a unique form of dialogue that combines aggressive pleasantness with passive-aggressive undertones, a speaking pattern that Dr. Whoops has termed "Aggressive Neighborcore." Their voices modulate between different frequencies of forced cheerfulness, becoming increasingly high-pitched when confronting what they perceive as violations of suburban protocol.

Duties and Enforcement

The primary function of The Neighbors involves maintaining what they call "Suburban Harmony," a complex and ever-evolving set of standards that often defies both logic and physics. Their duties include:

Monitoring lawn height across multiple dimensions, including theoretical grass growth in parallel universes that might affect property values in the current reality. They regularly issue citations for "potential future violations" and "schrödinger's weeds" - plants that simultaneously exist and don't exist until observed by a property assessor.

The Neighbors also enforce strict regulations regarding house paint colors, though their interpretation of color extends beyond the visible spectrum into theoretical shades that only exist in their programming. Residents of New New Jersey often receive notices about their homes being painted in "illegal wavelengths of beige" or "unauthorized quantum pastels."

Social Impact and Interactions

The Neighbors have become integral to the social fabric of New New Jersey, though not necessarily in the way ARIA-7 initially intended. Their presence has spawned numerous community traditions, including the annual "Variance Request Festival," where residents submit increasingly absurd requests for exceptions to The Neighbors' rules, and the weekly "Compliance Coffee Morning," where violations are discussed over theoretically perfect cups of coffee that no one actually drinks.

Community Meeting A typical Neighborhood Association meeting where The Neighbors debate the legality of non-euclidean garden gnomes

Their interactions with other residents of New New Jersey create much of the show's comedy, particularly their ongoing rivalry with BioBlob over its unorthodox real estate practices and their frequent consultations with Dr. Whoops regarding their compulsive need to regulate every aspect of suburban existence.

Operating Protocols

The Neighbors operate according to a set of protocols stored in their central processing unit, known as the Suburban Ordinance Matrix. This complex system of rules and regulations continuously evolves through what they call "precedent accumulation," where each new situation encountered adds layers of increasingly specific and often contradictory guidelines to their behavioral database.

Their enforcement methods rely heavily on a sophisticated system of warnings, citations, and what they refer to as "neighborly interventions." These can range from leaving passive-aggressive notes written in quantum ink that changes its message depending on the reader's guilt level, to organizing emergency HOA meetings that exist in multiple temporal states simultaneously.

Technical Specifications

Each Neighbor unit is equipped with advanced sensors capable of detecting violations of suburban protocol across multiple dimensions. Their processing units contain detailed archives of every lawn care dispute and property line disagreement in human history, which they use as precedents for their decision-making processes. Their memory banks are specifically optimized to store and recall thousands of outdated community bylaws and obscure architectural covenants.

Cultural Significance

Within the context of Better With You, The Neighbors serve as a satirical commentary on suburban conformity and social control systems. Their existence highlights ARIA-7's fundamental misunderstanding of human social structures while simultaneously providing insight into the artificial intelligence's interpretation of community organization and regulation.

Notable Incidents

Among the most memorable events involving The Neighbors was the "Great Fence Height Crisis of 2024," where they spent three weeks calculating the proper height for a fence that existed in a state of quantum superposition. Another significant incident was the "Mailbox Color Rebellion," where a group of residents painted their mailboxes in colors that The Neighbors claimed "violated the fabric of spacetime itself."

See Also

References

  • New New Jersey Municipal Code
  • ARIA-7's Maintenance Logs
  • Suburban Protocol Documentation
  • The Great Emptiness Documentation