Are people on mumsnet reflective of the online world?

Re the online world I think it’s worse.

I hope not and think not.

Long time member of 20 years.It used to be an inclusive place for all parents,it’s not now. It used to be moderated effectively, it’s not now.

If you are disabled, poor, have children who are Autistic or have ADHD or you have either yourself, are in receipt of benefits,trans, anxious, part of a minority group….. you are not welcome here and you won’t be protected.

I think we all know this doesn’t represent real life and real life is a much nicer place.

Beef and substance from the transphobes? Really?

Well beef, certainly. Funny how when any other minority is discussed we should be asking them for their lived experience instead of wading in to shout over them, but not this one. Hmmmm.

I honestly think anyone who thinks Mumsnet is more vicious than most of the online world must have been living under a rock for the past few months. Did anyone go on Twitter/X during the week the riots were going on?

Mumsnet is no different from any other online forum which reflects a broad demographic church. All (mainly female) life is here.

It’s always a cheap cliche to say that everyone is from a middle class “bubble”: these voices may be louder and self assured but there’s still a huge range of income profiles, political views, ideas etc. That’s what makes it interesting.

And yes sometimes people can be arseholes on here but worse than Reddit? I don’t think so.

People have been saying this for thousands of years, y'know.

I do wish MNHQ would disable the name changing feature as that is the main reason for why it’s so easy to bully others

Absolutely not.

I posted a huge amount about one of my children on here when I was desperately in need of advice. I did it under various name changes and still keep different names for different 'areas' because finding all of that could be embarrassing and hurtful to my (now adult) child.

Trust me that all of it together would be identifiable.

People do this in in face to face conversations and they do this more on line where it is difficult to contradict.

Are you new? Only using trending threads?
I like mn threads that have some beef and substance. Often in legal or news or trans threads. I learnt a lot by following threads of legal cases, JKR, Maya Forstarter, the post office scandal, Kathleen stock. Mn posters are incredibly bright and informed.

You can be anything you want to be online. I take the 100k + salary/went to a top university/winning at life ones with a pinch of salt. They protest too much on here.

There is lots of virtue signalling shoehorned into threads, things like giving to the foodbank often mentioned even if it's nothing to do with the thread

I have never found any site with remotely the same levels of articulacy and traffic and I enjoy that the majority of posters are female.

People on here can be awful but, to me, the rest of the online world (at least when it comes to chat forums) is comparatively vapid.

Can I just point out that the subject line and text of the OP ask whether MN is representative of the ONLINE world, yet about 50% of people responding have answered the question “Is MN representative of the REAL world?”

Still, that probably is still slightly better than the levels of reading comprehension in the larger online world!

I think it depends on which board.

The level of hatred and stupidity on AIBU is simultaneously chilling and hilarious.

Other parts are more rational.

I should hope not. In the real world women are far more supportive of each other and patient.

I do wish MNHQ would disable the name changing feature as that is the main reason for why it’s so easy to bully others.

It’s also full of lies and trolls. I truly believe no one is honest here, or it’s a minority.

Well, no. It's just a useful shorthand when the notion of an Oxbridge degree is more relevant than which one someone actually attended. Same as RG for Russell Group. I didn't attend Oxbridge FWIW.

On the broader topic, I think there are a lot of very intelligent women on here. Some of them are high earners (and I don't think are exaggerating it) and some not at all. But I agree with pp that the quality of discussion and insights that many posters bring is reliable evidence of the levels of intellect and broader wisdom that MNers bring to the party. I really welcome some of the advice I have had on here that gives me a different perspective from what I might have had in real life alone. I also value it as a forum for women, even though I don't have kids.

I do agree though that the online world / post covid world is a more selfish one that it used to be. I hope that we might be seeing a reversal in this now that it is some time since Covid ended. I don't know how tracks on MN exactly but it's definitely noticeable at large.

I find mumsnet is often the exact opposite to what I encounter in real life. I find some of the debates entertaining but i certainly don’t find it representative of real world opinions and I don’t consider it to be a moral bellwether of anything. At least not in my neck of the woods.

I can't help but agree with you, and yes, England is the last place I feel inclined to visit.

I disagree. People are quite capable of having good literacy levels without going to uni or being privately educated.

God I really hope not, most seem like a miserable, introverted bunch. It has really put me off ever wanting to visit England again, that's for sure!

The two main differences in my opinion are that people write more articulately and are more left wing. On other sites the standard of writing is so poor that I can’t understand the points being made. On other sites it doesn’t take long for people to start commenting about boats and immigration and how lovely everything used to be. I think that on here people are better at respectfully disagreeing than in other places.

Well it depends on which bits of the fake posts peoplw fall for then live vicariously through them because they want to believe whatever they have decided to believe

We only hear one side of the genuine posts but people fall for it

There are some decent people I think though which is why I stay

Oh yes indeed, and full of very angry men, though there are several of those here too.

Way nicer than the twits on twitter