The old days of Mumsnet when…

[Anon778833]

Back in 2003, there was a section entitled ‘introductions’ and people would post identifying photos of themselves and their dc. And a post about themselves.

How times change!

Is this the type of thread where everyone fawns over Xname and begs to know where fuckit and blunt are?

🥱

@ThisUserNameIsAvailableOk don’t know you could do that I guess🤷🏻‍♀️

There was something about a penguin, wasn't there?

And yes, the bat

um, nope, soz. You are spoilin' for a fight, so nah. HTH

Oh how I miss those days

Yes, and no. I've been a regular but not super-frequent poster for 20ish years (various usernames and accounts). In t'old days, the clique would all gang up on you if you disagreed with one of them, however politely or reasonably. It was all a bit "Fifth Form at Mallory Towers" and tiresome.

OTOH, there were far fewer trolls or posters who tediously take everything really, really, really literally -meaning that people don't bother much with jokes any more.

Even when I joined about ten years ago there used to be meet-ups and the Christmas secret Santa gift exchange! <nostalgia>

In the early 2000s I was on a small baby forum on which most posters were anonymous and posted identifying info, full names, jobs, pictures, houses they were buying, even their addresses sometimes! I got to “know” quite a few people — many of whom I did keep googling for quite a while afterwards, just to see how they were getting on.

Bizarrely, I later “recognised” at least three of them on here, just from personal details that matched. (It’s definitely them, no doubt.) Makes you aware of how easy it is to lose your anonymity without even realising. I’m a nice person 😂 and if I see them post on here I just think fondly “oh that’s X!” But someone sinister could do a fair bit of stalking if they really wanted to. It’s a lot more anonymous on here these days.

For those of us not old enough to date in 2003...what's the deal with the bat??

on which most posters weren’t* anonymous. Gah.

I think that’s a fair assessment.

We used to look for the unanswered threads and comment on them!

Also we used to get rid of trolls at night by posting hundreds of ridiculous threads to move it off of the main page.

Oh yes, me too. It really doesn't any more

I was slightly later but I remember profiles and being nominated for a Xmas gift. And cod.

Loved Mumsnet when I was expecting with my first, which was 2003. Still managed to just pass my exams before baby was born but Mumsnet got me through it. It was helpful and HILARIOUS. Now it is a bit snipey.

You don’t see much of Terry Wogan’s cock anymore

I remember the profiles and meet ups. I was too scared to attend a local one as I thought these wonderful women were too clever and smart and I would be intimidated but I wish I had gone now.

When did Mumsnet start?

i lurked a very long time before joining about ten years ago.

i remember the unanswered threads thing.

when did profiled go? I remember them but didn’t dare create one.

2000, I think?

I was going to post the very same on another thread about spooky music tonight 🤣

"um, nope, soz. You are spoilin' for a fight, so nah. HTH"

What a strange response. The spoiilin' (spelt wrong, no G) is creepy

Just all feels a bit dog eat dog these days.

People are unfriendly

I came here from raising kids tiny little forum , very much a community. This was bigger but in 2007 was still a funny , supportive, friendly group of funny witty amazing women .

I do feel it's become adversarial now . And often quite nasty . That said I've had amazing support over the years and hope I've given that back to people who needed it .

I was here when the second coming was and getorfmyland and witty and shiney and BOF . Ah the good old days .

I met a lot of posters in rl back then .

I used to do the secret Santa . That was lovely .