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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:
BogRollBOGOF · 15/03/2023 15:06

MinkyGreen · 15/03/2023 14:48

@Topseyt123

They did though. The ‘Anti-Dementors’. Several threads of it.

There's many ongoing chats thread after thread... WAG, a group pushed out of another forum, the specialist topics are full of them, Telly Addicts, Housekeeping, Exercise.

I'm sure MNHQ were kept looking at AD threads regularly as many posters didn't like AD non-conformity to the authorised groupthink of the time and regularly reported posts. Few were pulled. Only one thread was deleted as a TAAT as in its early stages after the previous completed thread it did discuss another thread. AD threads tended to look far less like swiss cheese than most Covid related discussions.

There have been other Covid oriented long running chats such as Covid Lungs too.

It just seems daft to complain now about a thread that's been running since last autumn and is only the second one in 18m. Seems pretty easy to ignore to me.

Original poster
MinkyGreen · 15/03/2023 15:06

@Topseyt123

’Silly and a bit of fun’.

While I was dealing with a loved one who was bleeding out in the toilet and trying to get her in a hospital overwhelmed by Covid.

OP posts:
DanceMonster · 15/03/2023 15:05

MinkyGreen · 15/03/2023 15:02

@DanceMonster

My children did too. One in particular. But if people were being insulting to that degree - then it should be challenged. It needs to be a discourse with empathy on both sides.

Not threads being formed in an attempt to dismiss others as ‘dementors’ or sitting in their garden on a laptop. It’s the latter comment there - that I find particularly insulting. Suggesting it was ‘fun’ or ‘easy’.
Or to pounce on someone on a Covid thread assuming that person was doing just that because they stated an opposing view.

So you’re insulted by one comment. Well… all I can say to that is that no one has the right to not be offended.
I was offended by many, many comments at that time. Not least the one that I mentioned upthread… that if my children were normal and loved me they’d be happy to be at home with me 24/7. Why should your hurt feelings take precedence over mine?

Topseyt123 · 15/03/2023 15:04

WestwardHo1 · 15/03/2023 15:01

Is "starting a thread on MN" now classed as "forming a group"?

Show quote history

Apparently so. What should we call this group that the OP has started this afternoon? 🙄😁

MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 15/03/2023 15:04

I don't quite see what OP's problem is, apart from 'OMG they were horrid to us in a few threads' hurtyfeelz. After the events of the last few years there's a lot of posters on here who could justifiably claim that. Many covid threads were utterly foul towards even mild dissent, especially when masks became mandatory. Funny how that's being skated over.

Topseyt123 · 15/03/2023 15:02

MinkyGreen · 15/03/2023 14:48

@Topseyt123

They did though. The ‘Anti-Dementors’. Several threads of it.

No. It was just a silly name and a bit of fun. Because so many on here at the time seemed to have had a sense of humour bypass, and were you possibly one of those?

You really have gone looking for something to take offence at, and have bizarrely hit on threads that are two or more years old.

Original poster
MinkyGreen · 15/03/2023 15:02

@DanceMonster

My children did too. One in particular. But if people were being insulting to that degree - then it should be challenged. It needs to be a discourse with empathy on both sides.

Not threads being formed in an attempt to dismiss others as ‘dementors’ or sitting in their garden on a laptop. It’s the latter comment there - that I find particularly insulting. Suggesting it was ‘fun’ or ‘easy’.
Or to pounce on someone on a Covid thread assuming that person was doing just that because they stated an opposing view.

OP posts:
WestwardHo1 · 15/03/2023 15:01

MinkyGreen · 15/03/2023 14:48

@Topseyt123

They did though. The ‘Anti-Dementors’. Several threads of it.

Is "starting a thread on MN" now classed as "forming a group"?

DanceMonster · 15/03/2023 15:00

MinkyGreen · 15/03/2023 14:50

It’s ethos would be based on it being a parenting forum - hence a more robust way to report offensive posts. Certainly more so than a lot of social media.

Just not a ‘parenting forum’ for those of us who wanted advice regarding our children who had huge issues with school closures/lockdowns. We were hounded off the main boards by those telling us we needed to teach our children resilience.

WestwardHo1 · 15/03/2023 14:59

Quite WHY this is an issue for the OP two years later is completely beyond me.

Buzzinwithbez · 15/03/2023 14:59

@EmmaEmerald
The original wording
"During the emergency period, no person may participate in a gathering in a public place of more than two people except—"

Then the exceptions

When Johnson made the announcement ( I bothered to watch them at this point) I rechecked to make sure I wasn't going mad one it was available! The wording was not altered.
There was a similar allowance in German law. I remember reading newspaper articles about it before ours came in.

www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/350/regulation/7/2020-03-26

DanceMonster · 15/03/2023 14:58

ScentOfAMemory · 15/03/2023 14:38

Except nobody ever suggested cheese in coffee.
What actually happened is far less exciting. A couple of posters with toddlers were worried about getting fresh milk. Somebody asked if the children ate cheese as it's an excellent source of calcium. Cue the birth of an urban myth.

I was on the early AD threads but when they descended into constant whining about how bad off a time the "ADs" were having of it compared to the rest of the UK and were absolutely infiltrated by anti vaxxers and COVID deniers I shipped out.

The irony (as has been said about the ADs on other forums) is that for a group of people purporting to be ANTI the gloom and doom they were seeing elsewhere, it had to be the most miserable joy sucking "poor us" entitled whingefest ever seen on MN.

You became a long running joke.

Show quote history

well luckily for you, no one forced you to seek out the thread and read them. You had the other 99.9% of MN to enjoy!

WestwardHo1 · 15/03/2023 14:55

Oh I see someone else has.

WestwardHo1 · 15/03/2023 14:55

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

Nice, real nice.

If we're on the subject of taking offence, I could take offence at your disableist comment.

And FYI lanyards weren't like blue badges. You didn't apply for one, you just printed one off.

And no, I didn't get one. I just stopped wearing a mask at Christmas 21, when my anxiety was off the scale and it hit me like a sledgehammer that it was all performative bollocks. Not a soul ever challenged me so I concluded people didn't care anyway.

I could report your post and demand that it's removed, but actually I'd rather let it remain visible.

MichaelAndEagle · 15/03/2023 14:51

It was honestly so difficult to find anywhere to discuss worries about how children were coping.
The AD threads were the only place to go.
Its not a hate group, its a support group. You've got it wrong

Original poster
MinkyGreen · 15/03/2023 14:50

It’s ethos would be based on it being a parenting forum - hence a more robust way to report offensive posts. Certainly more so than a lot of social media.

OP posts:
DanceMonster · 15/03/2023 14:48

Bothers me as Mumsnet is a parenting forum, and people come here for advice for their families

Yes, and many of us on the AD threads had children who were struggling massively with lockdowns/school closures. Those threads were the only place where we could discuss those issues without being told our children lacked resilience, or that their issues were caused by our poor parenting. I remember being told that my child was ‘weird’ for loving school and struggling with being home all the time, and that ‘normal children who love their parents’ would relish being home schooled.

Original poster
MinkyGreen · 15/03/2023 14:48

@Topseyt123

They did though. The ‘Anti-Dementors’. Several threads of it.

OP posts:
WestwardHo1 · 15/03/2023 14:47

You're choosing to take offence and so you're complaining to MN and demanding that the thing causing your offence is removed?

Why not just NOT go looking for it then?

MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 15/03/2023 14:46

Bothers me as Mumsnet is a parenting forum, and people come here for advice for their families. Differs in that way from FB or Twitter

As has been pointed out ad nauseam on the numerous 'You aren't a parent why are you on MN?' threads, this site is about a lot of things, not all of them parenting. As far as I can see what you're saying is that MN isn't being run in a way you like.

justasking111 · 15/03/2023 14:46

In Wales we couldn't buy clothes, birthday cards, books, chocolate. BUT Drakeford never locked down the booze aisles . Hmmmm

Topseyt123 · 15/03/2023 14:46

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?

Nobody actually stood up and formed a group! That is paranoia, and more than a little bit conspiracy theorist.

Disagreements and sneering go on all the time on many MN threads every single day.

Some people agreed with lockdown and seemed to love it to the extent that they craved doom and gloom. Others didn't, and never the twain shall meet, as they say. In reality many of us fell somewhere in-between and tried to apply balance and common sense.

On here though, it did seem that balance and common sense had no place at the time.

DanceMonster · 15/03/2023 14:45

MinkyGreen · 15/03/2023 14:42

@MrsDanversGlidesAgain

Well I can’t say - from what I’ve seen on the Covid boards - that I’ve EVER read ‘suck it up Granny killer’. And I’ve never seen a series of threads where - those who wanted to say such things - got together in a group.

From what I read on the AD thread - perhaps not all posters, but there are a fair few there ridiculing those who supported restrictions.

I was on a Covid thread, and there was a group of posters being pretty unpleasant, and making out that I was inferring things that I wasn’t or trying to twist my words. I was posting within Mumsnet guidelines. I then saw from a search that many were from this ‘anti-dementor’ group.

Bothers me as Mumsnet is a parenting forum, and people come here for advice for their families. Differs in that way from FB or Twitter. I think Mumsnet take this into account so you can report for personal insults, health misinformation etc

And I’ve never seen a series of threads where - those who wanted to say such things - got together in a group

They didn’t need to get together in a group, because it was the mainstream view. It was on 99% of the threads on every single board. So one small group in a small corner of MN was hardly going to cause huge issues. It was our one place of support.

Worldgonecrazy · 15/03/2023 14:45

Actually, if wearing a mask caused ‘considerable distress’ it was listed as a valid reason to not wear one.

We know they don’t work, we know generally the way people wore masks made other illnesses more likely, we know they were a waste of fucking time, and were used as a visual fear reminder. I’m bloody glad I never wore a fucking mask! And yes, the thought of wearing one and the knowledge of what that particular insanity did to people makes me ‘considerably distressed).

GMOOH2023 · 15/03/2023 14:45

Bothers me as Mumsnet is a parenting forum

It isn't though. May have been in the beginning but it certainly isn't now.