Have you ever been upset by something said to you on MN?

[grizy]

I’m a frequent name changer but I’ve been around for a few years. I deleted an earlier account after I somehow provoked a pile-on when I started a tongue-in-cheek thread about ketchup on roast dinners (of all things). Some of the comments were beyond brutal - I could laugh some of them off but others were really below the belt. Over ketchup!! 😂

In the end, I decided I was too thin skinned for the rigours of MN and I took a break until I decided to dip my toe back in MN waters again. I’m much more cautious now and tend to not start threads but I’m curious as to whether anyone else has felt upset at comments a stranger has posted at them online? Are you able to shrug it off or do you take it a bit more personally? This isn’t meant to be ‘oh, isn’t MN a horrible place’ discussion (I don’t think it is) but just me wondering if others get upset if you’re on the receiving end of spiky comments or if you’re able to just quickly dismiss it?

Yeah, Mumsnet is really not the supportive community it pretends to be! I’ve been called all sorts on here, stupid, no common sense, to the even more personal about fertility treatments shouldn’t be funded by the nhs which stung when I needed fertility support! Awful.

Yes recently actually. I deleted my profile because of it and I've been on here for years!

I'm not even going to mention what it was regarding because I don't want another pile on. The thing is it wasn't on aibu and I asked a very simple, straightforward question. I felt it ended up in a witch hunt. Yes I know these are just people on the internet but it really did take me by surprise that a simple question could cause such outrage and venom.

I will be extremely cautious with anything I post or comment on from now on

I once asked advice about how to repair some friendships (I’d basically had a bit of a breakdown after several miscarriages and a long distance move meaning I couldn’t see friends in person and unfriended people on social media at a very low point) and I was told it was all my fault and I should have thought about what those other people were going through. I’d completely owned the fact that I had done the wrong thing, just with the context of why, I got some really horrible comments and felt a lot worse :(

I guess it’s a mixture of real life. Some really nice genuinely helpful responses (the majority) and some people who are absolutely awful (the minority). Whilst there does seem quite a few awful responses, being anonymous, it does mean that people can hide behind the that. So you probably get the worst of some people. Maybe some people just like stirring and being difficult, nasty and contentious just to get some input from others. Sad really.

I wouldn’t put ketchup on a roast, but so what, if others disagree. No big deal. Some people get so worked up.

Whilst racism and biases bother me, the things that bother me more on MN are people in abusive relationships. Getting advice to leave and you kind of know that many won’t. It’s heartbreaking.

I once said I didn't think Lundy Bancrofts book was very good and was poorly referenced and a poster said it was because of people like me that 2 woman a week are murdered by a partner or ex-partner.

In the moment, I've sometimes got frustated. But I recognise that if it's got to that, I'm probably overinvested in a broadly irrelevant thread. I then take a step back, look at my life, and realise how lucky I am if all I have to get upset in life about is a MN thread. Then I shrug it off.

I regretted posting on a thread about language/grammar. I was more or less told that my opinion wasn’t valid as I was Irish and we don’t speak properly.

Ridiculous!! People on here say the weirdest things!

Bitter people love to feel every passing thought is aimed at them. I assume it's to do with feeling less than in real life, Iv had folk tell me what I was meaning/thinking, and wanting to berate me for their own reactions!

I recently joined MN and just finding my way around. I've been taken back by some nasty responses I've seen to other people's posts, but really pleasantly reassured by how thoughtful and considerate many people are. Are there any recommendations for areas of MN that are generally upbeat and friendly?

Yes, I was told that in a healthcare setting, no doesn’t mean no. Apparently I used the wrong word to describe what happens and that made me an awful human being.

shuffles on

er..

I remember one unhinged thread about people thinking a jacket potato was an acceptable side for a burger.

🤣🤣

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5110216-to-think-its-not-that-odd-to-order-a-baked-potato-instead-of-chips-with-a-burger?reply=136456737 😆

To be fair, nobody got particularly nasty on that thread!

They didn’t get nasty, I just found the strength of feeling about what other people should have with a burger bizarre.

I used to sometimes, but TBH, I've decided any comment is 'just a person on the internet'. Sometimes people are harsh but actually fair, and I will take their views on board when I reflect on it and think 'Yeah, that's justified'. Sometimes a person judges or advises from a place of their own experience that you know just doesn't tally with yours and gets cagey if you don't accept their analysis but - they're 'just a person on the internet'. They don't have the full picture to say what they do and you can never put it all across in a forum post so you just leave it and move on.

The funny thing was I was talking to my mum on the phone and mentioned that thread in an eye rolling sort of way and then she started arguing with me that you shouldn’t have a baked potato as a side to a burger either 😂

I've had some really bizarre comments over the years.

I used to comment quite often on posts about primary school education, SEN and early years. I'm entering my 20th year in teaching, I'm an early years specialist and have literally won awards for my work.
But comments I've had include such gems as "I'm so glad you're not my child's teacher", "You're a disgrace to the profession", "I'd call OFSTED if I knew who you were."
EXCUSE ME? And they were literally because I disagreed with something they'd said.

Needless to say, I rarely bother commenting on education-based posts any more.

Yes. Less so when directed at me but when people call my kids names

people jump to verbally abuse with very little to go on - terms are floated around very easily but they can be very hurtful. I doubt they’d do it in real life.

but as someone said - I more worry that the nasty people on here are real and walking among us. The stupidity and pure nastiness is strong sometimes!

The thing I find most upsetting is the zealous, almost gleeful advocation of punishment. Some MNers love to show off how good they are at dishing out strict consequences to people who misbehave - whether it's partners, children, neighbours, colleagues, even hairdressers or teachers who have stepped out of line. It's like they're competing to show off how TOUGH and UNCOMPROMISING they are. If you dare to advocate going easy on someone and showing compassion, you're branded a "wet lettuce".

Really it's when this happens on threads about children that it bothers me the most.

I saw a thread a few years ago and it upset me a lot to read it. It wasn't even my thread!

A grandmother had been taking both her children to her house since they were babies, but one had autism and she was finding it increasing difficult to manage him, his behaviour and physical needs. She felt like she could not physically care for him anymore but didn't want this to have a knock on effect on this able bodied sibling, who would lose out on this time with the grandma too unless she came alone. The grandma really wanted to do the right thing by everybody. It seemed like a very sad, difficult situation with no real fair solution but the very well meaning and (clearly) loving grandmother was torn to absolute shreds. It was painful to watch and I might even have shed a tear in frustration, as I read along. In the end, the grandma asked for the thread to be deleted but I honestly lost a little bit of my faith in humanity that day. People on that thread were deliberately misinterpreting everything the OP said and many of them displayed whatever the opposite of giving someone 'the benefit of the doubt' is.

The behaviour of some of those posters was atrocious. If I was them, I would be waking in the night absolutely cringing at myself. It was absolutely shameful. I am saying that as someone whose brother has autism!

I don’t think I have been personally upset, but increasingly I feel despairing of the human condition, and very worn out by threads by posters with severe mental illness or social impairments.

I should avoid them, but you can’t always tell by the title what a thread is actually about or how it’s going to go.

I also need to examine what I’m avoiding in my own life by the weirdly unhappy escapism that is the internet just now.

I had also once posted something about my 7 year old son and how he had been pushing things. He kept touching my new born baby's face and I didn't want him to. I batted his hand away once or twice, when he came home from school with unwashed hands.

One poster said she felt sorry for my child who was being smacked for showing affection to his sibling and probably was just doing it as he got no attention from me. Ok then!

Mumsnet gave some advice and I took it and had a chat with my son and he said to me 'ok mum, that's your boundary and I will stop xyz'. So I posted that there had been a resolution and explained our chat.

A poster on the thread, a doctor, don't you know, responded with 'are you telling us that your 8 year old son used the word 'boundary'?' This doctor or possibly another poster perhaps, surmised that the whole situation had all been resolved far too easily and that my son's use of the word 'boundary' was just a bit suss.

I just thought this was incredibly stupid. Number one, if i was going to make up a thread it wouldn't have been much juicier! Number two, an 7 year old is more than capable of understanding that a boundary can be synonymous with 'rule'.

I just thought it was really silly! I hadn't made it up!

If I might derail here, it’s only gloop if it comes out of a packet and is made up with water. Real home made gravy is a thing of wonder.