A blue puppet with red hair is troubled by abandoned real estate lots, gentrification and the current state of Asheville’s Carrier Park, among other things. And it loves posting its feelings about these topics online.
That’s the premise of Asheville Proper, an Instagram and Tik Tok page that has racked up hundreds of thousands of views over the last few months. The page stars Little Ginger, the puppet, who shares cheeky, weird and sometimes philosophical observations on everything from potholes and property taxes to the Asheville City Council election.
One video that helped launch Little Ginger’s celebrity is his outrage over the real estate practices of Ingle’s Supermarket, the Asheville-owned grocery chain. In one of the puppet’s most popular videos, he stands in front of the old K-Mart building on Patton Avenue, suited up in his signature black pinstripe vest and red tie.
“This is a crappy, abandoned building. Gross, right?” Ginger said in the video. “Why is this here instead of an ice cream shop or a skating rink? I’ll tell you why, because of corporate greed!” he alleged.
This week, Little Ginger joined me at the BPR studios to discuss his growing cache among locals, as well as the sometimes troubling realities of being a famous puppet. As his profile has risen, he told me that he’s grown a little more concerned about getting in trouble for his hot takes, especially the ones regarding Ingle’s. Occasionally, he leans on ChatGPT to proof his scripts.
“For example, I might ask, ‘Hey, here's a script that I'm going to do for a local supermarket chain that has a lot of abandoned properties around town.’ If I say this, ’Could they sue me?’ And then the AI will help,” he said.
So far, he hasn’t been subject to any lawsuits. “I'm fabric, not a human, so kind of immune,” he quipped.
But being made of fabric isn’t all fun and games. The puppet said he can’t go anywhere without his lint roller. And he has other physical problems, too.
“Every now and then my eye will fall off. Either the whole eyeball or just this part,” he said, gesturing towards his pupil. “And so, we have a hot glue gun at all times on standby.”
The man behind the puppet, David Mizne, shares a lot in common with his alter ego. They’ve both got red hair, for instance. And they’ve both got a penchant for mindfulness practices like breathwork and emotional regulation. In between grumpy videos about real estate and bureaucratic gridlock, Ginger also posts videos about how viewers can tame their nervous system, advising them to “wait ten seconds before responding” to things that make them upset.
Mizne acquired the puppet 12 years ago, when he was living in the Bay Area and working at a tech startup. A friend unexpectedly sent him the puppet in the mail after Mizne had participated in an impromptu puppet show with them.
“This box comes and I opened it and there he was,” Mizne recalled. “He was modeled after me. I'm like a big Ginger… and I put him on and he looked at me and I looked at him and I just you know made this voice and that's what happened and then he came to life in my hand.”
It wasn’t long before Mizne began to bring the puppet to work.
“It was that kind of California vibe in Silicon Valley. We did breathwork classes in the morning on some calls and there was just an opportunity to bring your best self to work. And so my best self was a puppeteer,” he said. “And so, I would bring it. And the company grew from like eight to like hundreds of people and then, it might be your first day, and all of a sudden you come to a meeting and there's a puppet talking about the financials.”
In 2019, Mizne moved to Asheville and largely transitioned out of the tech industry. While he loves living in Asheville, after a few years, he said he started to see some of the cracks showing beneath the surface of his new home.
“You come to Asheville, it's beautiful. Like, you see the mountains, you notice that there's a big tourist economy. There's biking and hiking,” he said. “And then you peel back the curtain. I'm like, why are there so many pot holes on my street?”
Mizne sees his account, Asheville Proper, as a way to playfully bring about more civic dialogue, especially for the growing number of people who use social media as their main news source.
“I think that that's the beauty of social media. You can find a problem, put it out there. And if people are interested and are commenting and there seems to be fervor around it, politicians take note,” he said. “Legitimate media takes note and you know, I think that's really valuable.”
And, he added, puppets have a special effect on people.
“He has like four facial expressions,” Mizne said. “And so, there's less cognitive load when people watch a video with a puppet. And they're cute. And he's innocent. With him, I'm actually just trying to bring joy. That's the primary thing.”
His videos also seem to be pretty effective at stirring the pot, especially with matters of local development. His posts have generated hundreds of comments from concerned citizens, who would also like to see idle sites like Carrier Park and the old K-Mart become something more valuable. One user, Rebecca Ash, requested that Little Ginger meet her for a meeting.
“I’ve been working on a business plan for an indoor roller rink for the past three years to go into the SteinMart,” she wrote, referring to another lot owned by Ingles. “We need your help to break through.”
