Street Portraits: what do other say?

What do non-photographers say about it to you?  It isn’t something that is casually brought up.  Most of the time, it’s a raised eyebrow and a subject change.  Which, is pretty much fine. In May of 2019, I mentioned it to someone I worked with and it became a topic.  A topic as in they mentioned both as a dangerous behavior, and as a derogatory thing to add on to discussion. It actually got around. So, in June of 2019, I closed that account, and started this one.  Only the hashtags remained.