To find many People on Mumsnet are fake!

I do agree with your comment there as many people know medical professionals can't give out info online that they are not willing or can't put put there name to . Why don't many people not know this ?You can't ask people medical professionals, why do people not know this ?

I find MN quite funny and it's definitely getting easier to spot the fakeys. I start from the position that it's an entertainment site and the OP might be who they say they are but they might also be a bored teenager who's looking to wind up all the wimmen.

I don't think it's all fake but there are some very suspect posters. If in doubt, don't comment and move on.

Some people make up stuff online.

Some people earn way over the national average.

Some people ride horses.

Some people live in Scotland.

Some people have chaotic lives.

Some people don't see much life outside their own bubble.

All of these things can be true, and will affect what you read on Mumsnet.

Absolutely this: you may get the odd person who creates a fantasy persona on Mumsnet, sure.

But the idea that everyone who claims to be a doctor or a solicitor must be lying is batshit. Honestly it says more about the inner life of the people who claim to be able to spot “fakes” than it does about the poster.

Also why is it so unbelievable that people are doctors or solicitors? There are millions of both in the UK. Statistically it’s perfectly plausible that some of these are on here surely?

Posh is relative anyway. I was seen as massively posh by my rural comp
peers and very much the opposite by my university public school friends. You can’t win in the middle!

You’d have to be a real weirdo to lie - it’s anonymous!

I got accused that I wasn’t really the bog standard professional I actually am. If I was weird enough to lie I would say I was something more interesting than a solicitor!

It tickles me that people on her think they are middle class and a bit more high brow than other forums.....then you read the replies and stories 🤣🤣🤣

Why though? Who would pretend to be a doctor or a solicitor to a bunch of complete strangers?

I mean a small handful of weirdos with problems might do that. But why is it so surprising to you that people are doctors or solicitors?

@iwentjasonwaterfalls
Really pleased it all worked out.

Well done

Keep your eyes peeled for an increase in the infiltration by journalists over the next few weeks. I suspect there's already a hard core who regularly stir the pot.

It's the internet, doesn't matter whether on here or Twitter people are melodramatic and make shit up.

From a demographic point ot veiw I've never been convinced many are middle class and well educated, we see lots of 'doctor here' or 'solicitor here' but I don't believe it for a minute. I think most <present company excepted > spend their days on the sofa surrounded by crisp packets.

I do think some posts are fake and some posters are trolling. That's bound to happen on an anonymous forum like this. I feel there are a lot more aggressive posts than there used to be too - it's hard to tell if people are really that aggressive or play acting but I suspect the former is mostly the case.

Best to take what chimes with you and ignore the rest. There is still a lot of good advice given and some OPs posts do ring very true, especially when they continue responding. Others stop responding when they clearly disagree with the majority view which suggests that they just wanted to wind people up.

As for different life circumstances- of course there are many different situations. My friends are generally fairly well-off and university educated but through work and some other aspects of my life, I'm well aware there are people living in poverty or with limited means.

I've recently come back to MN after a long break and the only thing that has really changed in 10 years is that the replies are nastier. Probably a reaction to all the crap of the last 10 years, but it's sad. It feels like every thread has people (not even trolls, genuine posters) competing to say the edgiest, nastiest thing... and then you have to wade through that to find the posters turning up with advice and kinder words. I'm not sure why people feel like they can / should / have to be this way, but it's significantly worse than it used to be.

That said, Mumsnet has its target demographic, but it's never been solely for the middle class mums in leafy suburbia. When I joined the first time around, I was a full time uni student, living in halls, my parents had no money (and no intention of supporting me anyway) and I'd just found out that I was pregnant.

It's only thanks to the support and reassurance of people on Mumsnet that I am where I am now; with a ten year old who lights up my life and a first class degree I didn't even need to take time out of uni from, plus postgraduate qualifications. It didn't matter that I wasn't wealthy and married and living in Surrey.

Nowadays I think I'd have to sift through two pages of comments about "what a stupid decision", "what did you expect to happen if you had sex?" and "why should my taxes fund you to stay at university?" before getting any meaningful advice, which is sad.

@Youdontevengohere

I agree, it’s quite noticeable. It’s also noticeable that the claim which tends to prompt the greatest suspicion on here is when a woman (as opposed to her husband) earns a high salary.

This famously happens every time anyone posts with a salary of £100k or above. You immediately will get seven or eight posters saying “course you do dear.”

It’s quite depressing that so many people find the idea of a woman earning a high salary so out of reach so implausible that they dismiss it out of hand.

Definitely this.

I can also spot the occasional incel post on relationships threads, they love to stir because they hate women.

I think there’s a weird idea that if people post about a life that is unfamiliar to someone else, it must be a lie. It only works on way though, often people on lower incomes will claim more affluent people are lying, but you don’t get the high income posters shouting that the less affluent must be lying.
We have a high income, live in a large ish 4 bed house (in the midlands, both commute a couple of days a week into London) and have 3 children. Most of the people I know socially live the same sort of lifestyle. That doesn’t mean I don’t know different circumstances don’t exist, or disbelieve those who say that live in a 2 bed council flat for example. So not sure why it’s disbelieved the other way!

Maybe some of this is AI and trolls.

But I find it bizarre that people assume that everyone whose life is different from theirs must be lying? It’s so lacking in Imagination to be immediately suspicious that someone who says they are a high earner must be a fantasist.

Why do you assume everyone is paid roughly the same and has the same circumstances? Surely you are aware that in real life there are very affluent people and very poor ones. We live in a very unequal world, sadly. Why can’t some of the very rich people be on here?

There is an awful lot of inverted snobbery on mumsnet. And, judging from those posts, those people tend to have narrow view of other people's lives who, they perceive, are living 'above' their own.

I can't bear the threads where someone is made to feel bad or out-of-touch, for posting that they're feeling the pinch on a 'high salary'. Out of touch with who?!

Cries of 'it's not real life'. It's my real life!

I'm on £80k, husband on £100k. Life in middle class south east, commute to London. Two kids in state school. We're comfortable but not rolling in it. Sorry I don't live in a council flat or have a wage of £21k at the age of 40 (doesn't mean I can't appreciate someone's life like that, though).

Also, why lie on an anonymous forum?

People with high outgoings are allowed to feel the pinch and talk about it. That’s the problem. It’s naive to just say ‘well, downsize, suck it up til your kids are older and basically shut up’. Someone is allowed to feel anxious about it.

@ValueAddedTaxonomy I get what you’re saying. Sometimes I think that I can spot Chat GPT or a made up story but then I get invested in a thread that seems genuine. And when I come back to find out if the Op has updated I discover the thread has been deleted because the Op was a previously banned poster. I feel a little bit disappointed.

I do think that a lot of threads at the moment are just flat-out not real. They are started by spammers (wanting to build up a posting history to make any future spam threads harder to spot), by people playing around with AI, or by people with a political agenda wanting to shit-stir or (more recently) electioneer.

I used to eye-roll a bit at posters who complained about the high number of fake threads, but either I have become less naive or the number of fake threads has shot up.

AI is a game changer for trolls, I think. The situations posted about can be so random and/or detailed that it is tempting to think that no one could be bothered to invent them so they must be real.

It is really soul destroying to be caught up in this fakery.

They could well be Dyslexic

I think this thread shows that some posters struggle to comprehend that people live differently.

There was an example up thread where the poster lived in London and joked that people (fake) post about their rural life.

I live 10-15 minutes drive from the nearest shop. DC's school has 100 pupils and is over 3 miles away. Our house is tiny (no en-suite) and one downstairs bathroom. If we didn't have a car we'd be screwed!

I grew up rurally but lived in cities for 15 years. I'm not rich but university education did bring opportunities.

I would hate people to live identical lives. I don't look down on anyone. Most people have more money than I do!

Sorry! I just thought your degree might have been fake. My bad….

Even before the internet there have been people who love to talk bullshit and people who act fake. Now we get to come across people like that from all over the world in one social media platform.