Mumsnet seems brutal

[LL3]

Why are there so many mean and unsupportive replies on here to posts from people who are just looking for help? It feels like everyone just loves a pile on.

I think people are often afraid to post a different opinion within a thread.

I also suspect the majority of posters are older.

I completely agree with you OP. Recently there was a poor woman (on relationships) who'd accompanied her husband of 20 years to the UK for his work. She was isolated and asking for help about his infidelity she’d discovered a few days before.

She was obviously not a native English speaker and had used some AI, which was clearly as she was trying to improve her communication in a second language. More MN posters challenged the AI use than offering help to the poor woman (who was understandably devastated at her DHs betrayal after 20 years).

It was fairly easy to read between the lines and spot some cultural differences in her DHs behaviour too, but instead of posts focusing on the fact she was devastated about the affair, people posted interrogating her about several details, to try and expose her as a troll (which she wasn’t).
I ended up messaging her privately in response to her cry for help. I felt MN let her down when she was experiencing a life crisis.

I take as I find - I did a deep dive on this platform and most responses are people having a go at others

A deep dive? Where I work that usually means a pretty thorough analysis.
How far did you go back? Do you have a spreadsheet with charts & percentages?

I think a lot of people can't handle the truth. If you want people to just agree with you and sugarcoat everything ask family and friends for help if you want honesty then here is a good place for it.

Because some posters are so far up their own ass they think their lives are so perfect!
So people come on here saying about how their partners won’t help them with this or that and then you get the same people who post stuff like oh, my partner would never do that we do 50/50 of every thing blah, blah, blah!
Hal of them on here wouldn’t post the truth about their own relationships and children, because they want to make themselves look good whilst putting everyone else down!

I think there’s a lot of frustration, after you’ve been on MN for years, over nothing ever changing. Women are still making themselves extremely vulnerable in a variety of ways or considering doing something that will make them vulnerable, and then coming on MN to ask why it happened to them and what should they do. Well, first of all don’t have a third child when your DH has been cheating; always always check your family passports before you book your flight; stand up for yourself when your MIL is a cow; and buy a better bra. Obviously the last one is silly but sometimes the lack of self-awareness is frustrating.

Can you give a more robust example ? Or is it a case that anyone who vaguely challenges the ops views is ‘being mean’.

The internet is not a safe space though. That should be news to no one at this point.

I agree with the frustration part to, the amount of women on here who seem to think its acceptable to bring children into abusive relationships and then will continue to put a man and their inability to be alone ahead of their children's safety and happiness really annoys me.

Normally you can filter out the posters who are bored or just being contrary.

I also suspect the majority of posters are older

Yes, nothing wrong with that but it sometimes gives a certain slant to threads & topics. I feel like MNs has failed to attract the younger audience in recent years, I guess other sites do that now.

Ageism makes me feel brutal.

One thing that I do find frustrating over the mean posters is the general lack of comprehension.

Exactly this!

Well....sadly your thread, this thread here which you started @LL3, has made me feel judged, scorned, despised, sneered at, condemned and unsupported.

I think its a thread filled with thoughtlessness and unkindness.

I am so sad after reading your postson this thread 😢

I am so glad you said this. I’m in my 40s now but when I was 20 I was on a different forum, back when it was quite a novel thing. I was posting a lot because I was lonely and anxious at university and really just looking for a place to chat. I got ripped to shreds on that forum. The thing that stands out the most was everyone piling on when I announced my excitement about the grad job I’d secured. I got called a liar so many times. I remember the content of some of those responses, word for word. 20 years later and I’m still in the same job, managing the whole region.

i ended up having quite a bad breakdown that year. While my mental health was not the responsibility of strangers on the internet, their lack of kindness definitely didn’t help.

I agree with her. What was the point of this post eg?

MN is brutal because the world is brutal. If I pour tea into a cup I pour tea from a cup. We get back what we put in.

Life is becoming harsh after a fairly long period of peace, prosperity, security and social mobility.

When Thatcher said "there is no such thing as society" what was meant "is there will be no such thing as society.

Politics is shifting to the right for two reasons, neo liberal economic policy has impoverished people and the state. But since the state represents the owners and controllers of capital then the state must push back against any challenge. Since the only challenge is from the left people must be made ideologically its opposite. And when you are already competing and been fed the lie that you must (as is your human nature....haha) fight for any last scrap you will now fight over even fewer scraps.

Is there a link between imperialism, competition and war between nations and the relentless struggle of ordinary people to fight each other? Yes of course.

Is it human nature to be competitive and lack empathy? No, of course not.

I don't blame individuals, I see the spiteful condescending posts and realise this reflects both the narcissistic ego of late capitalism and the fear and struggles of late capitalism.

There are some nasty, spiteful, vicious bullies on MN who are far worse that the men that they purport to despise. . I honestly feel sorry for the families and friends (if theh have any) of these horrible specimens

It's always been like this, I would never come for advice on anything or 'handhold', in fact the only threads I have ever started have been on TV programmes in all the 18 years I have been on here.

When I first started here years ago under a different name I made a post or comment about Breton striped tops. And got a backlash. I couldn’t believe how brutal it got but over time I got hardened and also learned where and where not to post. Eg not aibu.

Yes. I mainly post in the Litter Tray, FWR & occasionally What we’re reading. AIBU is just occasional.

Did your deep dive cover anywhere except AIBU & Relationships, OP?

I have a theory that people generally lash out when their own lives are not going well. Lots of people are feeling the pressure with COL, job insecurity, mortgage stress etc. maybe that’s a part of it?

I chuckle at the ‘Mumsnet has always been robust/tell it like it is”. It’s blindingly obvious that it is much less supportive, and just so much meaner these days. Maybe because a much higher percentage of posters are unhappy in their own lives.

It's not toxic for the most part, there are loads of different topics with no doubt 100s if not 1000s of posts every day. The vast majority of those are perfectly innocuous discussions and chats.

You sound like you're doing some kind of research, this thread comes up most weeks, the Internet is what it is, you aren't going to make some kind of breakthrough discovery on a topic that's been down to death. Neither is the culture going to suddenly change

Agree, but it depends on the language used. You can give an honest opinion without resorting to name-calling etc. When I see people do that, I just think they must be very unhappy themselves.

I don't think it's mean..it is judgemental because people are asking for opinions and so people will give their judgement. I honestly think it's just people being honest with the odd nasty one thrown it which usually gets taken down