Influencer Spanian tours the hoods of NT’s Palmerston

A big-time influencer decided he needed to see “the hood” in Palmerston for himself. Read his verdict here.

Palmerston’s so-called “hood” culture has featured in a viral video which has attracted more than 150,000 views in a single night.

Sydney-based influencer Anthony Lees, better known as Spanian, has been documenting his walking tours of notorious “ghetto” areas in Australia and abroad.

On Christmas Day, Spanian uploaded his Top End experience in a 40 minute documentary titled ‘Inside Palmerston’s most dangerous housing areas – in the hood’.

Spanian said he hoped to learn more of Palmerston’s “violent assault rate”.

“There’s three specific bad areas of Palmerston and the shopkeepers around there reckon they’re getting bashed all the time, there’s gang fights in the streets,” he says in the video.

“Just a (month) ago there was like a big brawl with 10 people in the main part of the street, a 13-year-old kid got stabbed, they’re just going off there in general.”

Spanian toured Palmerston to learn more of the Top End’s "hood" scene.

Chaperoned by local rapper Riley Page, also known as RileyP, Spanian walked the streets of Palmerston for a couple of hours.

“You know what I noticed here? Every single house has a high fence,” Spanian said.

“That’s a unique thing, every single house has a high fence you need to climb over, (and) usually neighbourhoods aren’t like that you know what I mean.”

Mr Page, 27, spent multiple years in and out of Don Dale Youth Detention Centre as a youth worker, and explained the area’s crime scene to the Sydneysider.

“No one wants money, everyone is just doing crime just for the love of it you know, it’s f—ked up, it’s hectic.”

Passing a rowdy group in the suburb of Gray, one man’s condition caught Spanian’s attention.

“That bloke had a busted eye – see the lad there? He was bleeding all out his eye,” Spanian said.

The influencer said his experience in Palmerston was “really eye-opening”.

Spanian described one housing commission block as looking “abandoned”.

“This is trap as lad,” he said.

“It almost looks abandoned but I can see people are still living in them.”

The video included several young locals speaking about the NT’s justice system, common substance abuse in the area, and their testimonies, and also included a visit to the Palmerston Youth Centre in Moulden.

Spanian said his Palmerston experience was “eye-opening”.

“That was sick lad, that was hectic, that was really eye-opening.”