Is mumsnet mean?

[Dalmationlover]

I see so many abrupt or just downright rude replies to fellow humans on here. People can have different opinions and be polite surely. Some proper misogynistic insults seen recently calling other people dramatic / hysterical (hyst is from uterus). Come on mamas we can do better than this 😭

what is it that makes some people here like this?

• maybe there are lots of rude people anyway but I just stick around the less rude ones lol
• People feel they can be meaner when there’s anonymity. Is this what people think but filter out when their own name is behind it?

peace and love ✌️

We are all different. Abruptness really doesn’t register with me, and in fact I vastly prefer it to politeness which conceals enough of the truth to render the answer meaningless.

Mamas?

ah yes that makes sense - so

some people who post actually seeking this unfiltered honesty. Fair enough :)

Mamas = mums
fellow mums of mums net

and dads too I’m sure there’s some on here too :))

You've made a whole post about how people address people, and then patronise us all with "mamas".

Oh I see what you mean. I just used “mamas” as a friendly sort of greeting — no patronising intended at all! I’ll retire it from my MN vocabulary ✌️

The weekly MN is mean 😆

I used to just breeze around Mumsnet enjoying the chat. Now, when I see someone has replied to anything I post on Mumsnet I literally, physically brace myself to open it and see what someone has said. If I don't brace myself it can really take the wind out of my sales - people are so blunt and often rude and unkind, and at the point where I'm asking for advice on an anonymous internet forum I'm often a bit too fragile to cope well with that.

Not all posters, but a significant minority. I think it's a shame - it has certainly stopped me reaching out in the past. Which I suppose is exactly what the unkind posters would gleefully want, so they're not likely to change!

Mumsnet used to be forthright. Now it's often mean.

But then, I remember when all this were fields and you knew 50% of the usernames.

I think largely no. Most people mean well.

Whenever I write a post I accept that the first few comments will be the trolls that lurk on "new" posts and ignore them. They always seem to be the nastiest. But it must be quite a sad existence.

& I do think on popular topics like AIBU it can attract a lot of people who just fancy a fight or have had a few glasses of wine and want to put the world to rights.

There used to be many more trolls or people instead being rude , just typing for disagreeing with them: are you on glue?

Have not seen < are you on glue > from a very very long time. Perhaps it was banned

Unfortunately I agree OP.

What I have noticed is one reply is snarky and loads of people jump on and do the same but then someone shows some humanity and it calms down.

I think people would not behave the same way in person… one would hope not!

@Baggingarea Whenever I write a post I accept that the first few comments will be the trolls that lurk on "new" posts and ignore them. They always seem to be the nastiest. But it must be quite a sad existence.

That's probably a good way of thinking about it. I ought to be less bothered by them.

Double post for some reason

Yanbu op

Yes and best not to give the fight they are lookkng for.

Yes. It’s rough in here!

The only time I see it be a bit mean is the odd occasion where the first response or responses are very forthright and critical and that sometimes seems to trigger pile on.

Far more frequently I see protestations of meanness when someone has posted on AIBU; they are clearly unreasonable; and a succession of posts pithily point it out and why. I see it as a welcome balance to the fact that IRL our friends and family are conflict averse, for obvious reasons, and therefore likely to make the right noises when we rant about our ex/ in-laws/ neighbours/ colleague. It’s therefore a huge shock when the anonymous internet overwhelmingly tells us we are being a twat.

Nobody is compelled to post here.

Furthermore there are many really wonderful threads where posters receive terrific support and sometimes invaluable and informed advice.

Huge swathes of the internet offer a magic mirror for us to wallow in our specialness and celebrate ourselves uncritically as proud momma bears and hardworking mamas. I think there is space for some consensual honesty.

My view is that many people who post this sort of “insight” (mamas or otherwise) often hang around AIBU and/or Active where you miss so much of the greatness of MN

People on here can be awful. If their child was online and people spoke to them like they do on here they'd hate it. It's no different for adults speaking to each other or it certainly shouldn't be.

I hate the judgey ones, where someone asks for help and people reply with 'why can't you manage?' Or 'my child is just fine' or 'you monster!'

Someone posted once about putting their child in a high chair for about 20 minutes whilst she got on with some essential housework, and the thread ranged from people saying her child would experience a developmental delay which would make them fail in schoo, to calling it child abuse.
It was bonkers.

It's a snapshot of life. Some people who are nice, some less so, Some polite, some not. Some helpful and wise, some unhelpful and idiotic.

I find all of it useful - we all live in bubbles, where are own views are reflected. It is helpful to have that challenged.

There are some very mean, regular posters. I think they must be having a horrible time in their personal lives to vent like they do sometimes.
Recently, I was commenting about a FWB relationship I’d had years ago, that had worked well for me at the time, and was basically accused by a poster of being an unpaid prostitute 😵‍💫 Now that’s pretty nasty

Harsh but fair.
Like all social media there isn’t the visual feedback of someone’s expression or tone of voice, that you would get in face-to-face conversations, making it hard to know when a comment has gone too far.

First day on the internet?

Yes. Women can be vile to each other - it starts with playground bitching and follows some into adulthood. I assume the worst of them are just deeply unhappy bitter souls. Thankfully I don’t see this in real life since I checked my teenage daughter’s year group WhatsApp. Nasty girls make nasty women.