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Original poster

Anti-Dementors : The AD’s

317 replies

MinkyGreen · 15/03/2023 04:40

Anti-Dementirs. These are a long running group of threads on Mumsnet.
I’ve recently been on a Covid thread and felt attacked by a group of posters for stating a consensus science view.
I then looked into who this group are - and they have formed threads called the ‘Anti-Dementors”. Dementors being those who wore masks/followed lockdown rules.
The groups they perceive as ‘dementors’ are dismissed/ridiculed as putting ‘cheese in coffee’, - or sitting in their garden with laptops during lockdown. The fact is that many were vulnerable/protecting the vulnerable.
There us also support/links to publications like ‘Unherd’ and ‘State of Fear’ which are bordering conspiracy theory territory.

While I think the discourse is important - it makes me very uneasy when people form ‘echo chambers’ and ridicule/attack/make snide comments in a group towards those with opposing views.

I look forward to your response!

OP posts:
Knullrufs · 15/03/2023 14:26

I was on the AD threads for a bit, under a different username. <waves at BogRoll, Worldgonecrazy and others>

Genuinely saved my sanity. Lockdown was very, very hard on me. The AD threads were genuinely helpful, welcoming and supportive. There was very little ridiculing going on.

OP you've either missed the nuance massively, or you're being highly disingenuous.

You're also doing it over two years after the AD threads were last frequently trending in Active. It's a bit like popping up and saying that you don't think Nick Clegg makes a very good deputy PM. Whatever side of the debate you fell on in 2020 and 2021, the shit's been well and truly shat, squire.

WestwardHo1 · 15/03/2023 14:26

MinkyGreen · 15/03/2023 14:12

I’m not going to get into semantics. The inference is there. It would be derived from the same - probably Latin source word. Demented/dementors - they are words designed to insult and ridicule and belittle others.

Sorry but you're completely wrong by on this.

Dementors are a well known "thing". If you didn't know about them, that's no no one else's fault

DanceMonster · 15/03/2023 14:24

JenniferBooth · 15/03/2023 14:23

You looked into who this group are? Really How did you do that OP

Yes im interested in this too. Who exactly are we OP?

JenniferBooth · 15/03/2023 14:23

You looked into who this group are? Really How did you do that OP

cymylog · 15/03/2023 14:23

I posted on the Anti-D threads during lockdown - different username - after being attacked for having concerns about my GCSE child who wasn't being given work - despite me making clear it was a my children's school issue.

We followed all the rules have all been vaccinated and had family in high risk categories but had concerns that rest of MN wasn't allowing to be expressed.

I did stop posting as I felt they did go a bit fringe for a minute, rest of MN got better and things got more normal.

I haven't seen a thread from them for ages - so I really don't see how they are a huge concern now.

However I've always found MN very good at deleting anything that crosses their talk guidelines so if you have complaint other than not everyone had same opinion as me you can easily report.

Original poster
MinkyGreen · 15/03/2023 14:22

@MrsDanversGlidesAgain

But is it right to form a group where you sneer at others and assume they are ‘in their garden on a laptop’? With no acknowledgement they too MIGHT have been in a highly desperate situation?

OP posts:
Boomboom22 · 15/03/2023 14:19

I think op is very upset that all the data seems to suggest lockdowns were the wrong move.

DanceMonster · 15/03/2023 14:19

MinkyGreen · 15/03/2023 14:15

I’m trying to imagine a similar situation IRL, in a school - or in a workplace. Where someone forms a group where they can gang together and ridicule people they disagree with.

There’s a word for that.

The whole point is that anyone who expressed any negative feeling towards the lockdown measures was immediately pounced on, called deniers, covidiots, granny killers etc. The AD threads were started in response to that. It was a tiny corner of MN where people could discuss their struggles without being accused of not caring about vulnerable people.

JenniferBooth · 15/03/2023 14:18

Being called an anti vaxxer when you have had the vaccine. WTF was that about It wouldnt work for anything else.....ok lets give it a try. Im child free by choice but im a mum. See how ludicrous it was.

Boomboom22 · 15/03/2023 14:18

MinkyGreen · 15/03/2023 14:15

I’m trying to imagine a similar situation IRL, in a school - or in a workplace. Where someone forms a group where they can gang together and ridicule people they disagree with.

There’s a word for that.

Yes, the dementors did that, they were bullies. The ads were the ones being bullied and in a school environment would be protected.

MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 15/03/2023 14:16

MinkyGreen · 15/03/2023 14:15

I’m trying to imagine a similar situation IRL, in a school - or in a workplace. Where someone forms a group where they can gang together and ridicule people they disagree with.

There’s a word for that.

There is indeed. And in 2020-2021 this site saw a lot of it directed at people who didn't 100% accept the narrative.

Boomboom22 · 15/03/2023 14:16

No op, the original thread was about joy suckers wwho took the rules far too far and constantly accused others who did follow the actual rules of being deliberate murderers. Dementor as in the creatures in Harry Potter that such life. Not demented at all and not the same route.
You are bring disingenuous, it was the ads who were sidelined and abused not the other way around. You only need to look a a few threads from the time to see that.

DanceMonster · 15/03/2023 14:15

MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 15/03/2023 14:14

Demented/dementors - they are words designed to insult and ridicule and belittle others

Covidiots
Granny killers
Anti-vaxxers
Far right conspiracy theorists

And those aren't?

Quite.

Original poster
MinkyGreen · 15/03/2023 14:15

I’m trying to imagine a similar situation IRL, in a school - or in a workplace. Where someone forms a group where they can gang together and ridicule people they disagree with.

There’s a word for that.

OP posts:
MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 15/03/2023 14:14

Demented/dementors - they are words designed to insult and ridicule and belittle others

Covidiots
Granny killers
Anti-vaxxers
Far right conspiracy theorists

And those aren't?

JenniferBooth · 15/03/2023 14:14

OP i had a suspicion that you were the one who got the A State Of Fear threads pulled. Now im damn sure of it.

Original poster
MinkyGreen · 15/03/2023 14:12

I’m not going to get into semantics. The inference is there. It would be derived from the same - probably Latin source word. Demented/dementors - they are words designed to insult and ridicule and belittle others.

OP posts:
MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 15/03/2023 14:10

I felt at my absolute lowest point during lockdown

Join the club. One bedroom flat, no garden, WFH with a crappy laptop, told I couldn't have visitors for months by a Health Secretary who at the time was shagging his side piece and looking at 'run off their feet and exhausted' nurses dancing in TikTok vids.

And as someone pointed out, it's not 'demented' - although God knows some posters on here in 2020 and 2021 would qualify - but 'dementors.'

JenniferBooth · 15/03/2023 14:09

@Worldgonecrazy

www.mumsnet.com/talk/coronavirus/4754309-the-whatsapp-message-leak?page=1

DanceMonster · 15/03/2023 14:09

MinkyGreen · 15/03/2023 14:03

It’s the inference that those who supported consensus scientific opinion were ‘demented’, putting cheese in their coffee, were calling everyone ‘granny killer’s’, saying things like ‘follow the f-ing rules’ and sitting in their garden with a laptop.

I felt at my absolute lowest point during lockdown - I have a huge amount of anecdotal and highly distressing reasons as to why I thought it was best to support the NHS during Covid.

Of course opposing views are important, but I have NEVER felt the urge to form a series of threads where I ridicule those who were anti restrictions - and call them demented.

@HopeMumsnet

You've entirely misrepresented the threads. They weren’t calling everyone who supported lockdowns ‘demented’. For a start, ‘dementors’ are completely different to ‘demented’. Have you read Harry Potter? Dementors were creatures who sucked the souls out of people. Dementors in this context were those who took every single people of guidance and magnified it; those who ranted at people for taking a 65 minute walk a day, those who said people buying Easter eggs in their weekly shop had people’s deaths on their conscience, those who jumped on anyone who expressed any discomfort or distress at the hardship lockdown was causing.
Why, 3 years on, are you attempting to have these views shut down?

bookworm14 · 15/03/2023 14:05

It’s not ‘demented’ - it’s ‘dementors’, as in the creatures from Harry Potter.

Original poster
MinkyGreen · 15/03/2023 14:03

It’s the inference that those who supported consensus scientific opinion were ‘demented’, putting cheese in their coffee, were calling everyone ‘granny killer’s’, saying things like ‘follow the f-ing rules’ and sitting in their garden with a laptop.

I felt at my absolute lowest point during lockdown - I have a huge amount of anecdotal and highly distressing reasons as to why I thought it was best to support the NHS during Covid.

Of course opposing views are important, but I have NEVER felt the urge to form a series of threads where I ridicule those who were anti restrictions - and call them demented.

@HopeMumsnet

OP posts:
MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 15/03/2023 14:02

JenniferBooth · 15/03/2023 13:56

YY @MrsDanversGlidesAgain The gaslighting and psychological abuse was off the charts Im sure it was me that got it in the neck for saying it was like an abusive relationship but i remember a couple of other posters saying it too.

In fact I copied this at the time to a word doc, I agreed with it so strongly. The date I saved it is 6 March 2021 - two years ago, so even then posters were saying this

QUOTE

We are in a fucking abusive relationship with the government. Can nobody see that? They have DELIBERATELY taken away all our coping mechanisms, such as seeing each other, swimming. Even in wartime, people were not criminalised for seeing each other. They are DELIBERATELY stringing out unlocking to fuck with our minds even further. They are DELIBERATELY brainwashing us with a campaign of fear to keep us docile, terrified, and to stop us rioting. They are DELIBERATELY playing divide and conquer - now it's so that we fight over whether the deified NHS deserves the 1% pay rise. Why bring that up in when we're still in the pandemic? Despite the stupid roadmap, with no roads, and the only transport is horse and cart which may well break down on the way, there is still NO END IN SIGHT; because we know how much Saint Boris loves his U-turns. I've just had another bad night of not sleeping, because of all this worry about the dystopian future which Saint Boris and his merry men (and Mumsnet) are drooling over.

. Someone posted on the FWR board once about if you wrote about the government's tactics on the relationships board, you would be roundly told LTB. They were savagely dismissed.

END OF QUOTE

JenniferBooth · 15/03/2023 13:56

YY @MrsDanversGlidesAgain The gaslighting and psychological abuse was off the charts Im sure it was me that got it in the neck for saying it was like an abusive relationship but i remember a couple of other posters saying it too.

MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 15/03/2023 13:49

I kept a diary through the worst of it all as I could see news and history being rewritten on the fly and the Orwellian nature of that terrified me - it's bloody painful reading now, and really really terrifying how a newspaper clipping from one day was then deemed to "not have ever happened" a week later

So did I. Have a 2020 diary and a ring binder bulging with press articles from 2020/2021. I was inspired by a local museum asking people to keep pandemic diaries for posterity. I don't think they'd like mine - some very harsh comments about people are in there - but I studied history and I know how things can be re-written and 'lost.'