To think MN is getting meaner?

It used to be absolutely brutal 17 years ago, when I used it first.

Considerations :

Users will be parenting different aged children. Some will be in the twee Disney pre school heads pace, others will have lived through all of that and may be parenting gobby teenagers and going thru the menopause, others will have even more life experience and will be mellowing (or divorcing and thinking WTF was all that relationship effort about for the last 30 years).

Responses may be curt/brutal, because people can't be arsed with unnecessary faff.

Take it all with a pinch of salt.

I get called out and quoted a lot for my grammar.
But i cant help it i have a learning disability.
I dont see numbers and letters like i should.

I try really hard to make sure i type every word properly and use all marks.
But i still miss some out.
If i get quoted now i dont bother trying to explain it.

I agree. It’s very immature at times. People often jump on the bandwagon rather than thinking for themselves. It makes them look intellectually and emotionally impoverished. Words can cut deep and we all need to be responsible for what we say. When I see such a cold response from people it makes me wonder how they are behaving within their own families. It’s grown ups bullying other grown ups at times which is abhorrent.

Disagreeing does not equal bullying.

So many times this has to be pointed out.

I don’t think the site has got any meaner, but the absence of wit, humour and intelligence makes what’s left look so.

Oh yes 😆

And here we go again!

I think this just about sums it up 😁
Oh and I agree too. Have definitely noticed a shift and I've been here years.

I see the cool mean girls have shown up. Oh, and the bullies.

I’ve been here since I was pregnant with my eldest, so over 17 years. And I have definitely noticed a more mean spirited vibe. But I have to confess that there are times when I respond in a way that I would never do in real life, especially when someone is being disingenuous or ignorant about mental health issues (particularly anxiety), neurodivergence, people on benefits etc. Because it’s as if they have sprayed themselves with essence of Daily Mail and I find myself getting wound up - which was probably their goal! But there are definitely threads where posters are needlessly rude and abrasive and not all of it can be accounted for by the difficulty of conveying tone when writing.

Not that I have started any threads, but I think its perhaps easier to discuss personal problems with strangers online that can have an insight into the problem.

I see nothing wrong in this. 🐶

I think in this day and age when you can be really well informed, if you so wish, to come on here and then whinge, for example about not having a pension and oh poor me, there really is no excuse.

Don't think so. However, it's certainly not as light-hearted and amusing as it was when I first joined in 2014.

As I said last time someone started a thread on this, the very first thread I clicked into when I first joined Mn, was about Mn being nastier than before. This was in 2011.

I totally agree. I saw a post the other day about a lady saying she was worried her heart rate monitor was faulty. The vitriol in the responses was crazy. Somewhere along the line people have forgotten that it's possible to disagree without being rude or having to take someone down. And this is in real life too... not just mumsnet.

Imo AIBU is hilarious most of the time! I do wonder who, in their right mind, posts their most personal problems (and silly whinges) to a load of total strangers in the hope of getting some advice? MN (again imo) is nothing more than a school playground full of bullies, show-offs, moaners and weirdos.
AIBU?

Every week there's a thread saying how mean MN is.

I’m probably “meaner”. Honestly, I’m just sick of the liars and the hypocrites - and sick of giving advice to those people.

I’ve had enough of the OP making a post looking for advice, giving advice and (because it’s not what they want to hear) them changing their story in a reply. Yes, I will point out that you’re lying - I will point out that your OP and your dripfeed are not possible if both are true. And then other people go “but why does it matter if they lied?” and “were you there?!”. I don’t need to be there to know (for example) that if OP met friends six years ago, and hasn’t seen them in a year, she wasn’t close friends with them for seven years!

I’ve had far too much of the hypocrites. Those who call out “bullies” and then make nasty comments two seconds later. I had a poster a couple of days ago call me all kinds of names and then completely deny it - it’s right there! She said I called her names first when I blatantly didn’t. I recounted the conversation and it goes from that I called her names first to that her name calling was justified because she thought I’d insinuated something… and then telling me she’d been nothing but civil just two words after calling me “unhinged”… all because I said I didn’t think my DH should lie to me about finding other women attractive…

Honestly, I’m very pleasant on this site except to liars and hypocrites.

Try reading what I was actually replying to. It's not very complicated!

What is vile about being menopausal and prone to being a tad easily irritated?

"Put your big girl pants on"

Christ, we can’t even have a laugh about being peri anymore.

I forgot to put ‘vile’ on that bingo card, OP! And ‘grim’.

What a vile thing to write. Is this better, MN?

Thats the thing though. People should be able to disagree without being horrible. Its sad that people can't. People could ask Google. But its also about communication and interaction with people.

I think it is. But it would be boring if everyone just agreed with OPs. Now that there is a poll option it’s possibly more likely that people vote YANBU and only comment if they think YABU, which might come across as being mean. I like to hear the different opinions and ignore the assholes. I think the ship has sailed for getting genuine emotional support on an anonymous internet forum, posters are better off asking AI or Googling as most things have already happened to someone else by now so you can usually find the answers.