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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask about trolls

453 replies

HairsprayBabe · 16/02/2017 15:05

NOT a TAAT - just inspired by a certain one

Tell us about your fave MN troll

I liked the woman who had a dead husband who hand painted the childrens bedrooms, and now she was remarried she wanted all of her stepchildren to sleep in one room so that her children from her first marriage wouldn't have to give up their bedrooms even for one night!

Surely IANBU to ask what your favorite troll on MN has been?!

OP posts:
daisychain01 · 19/02/2017 21:01

Was the Crunchy free spirit mum thread real? She of the - ahem - spirited child who was at liberty to run riot at Church on Sundays.

She had a distinctive posting style thats for sure

TimeforANewTwatName · 19/02/2017 21:02

My favourite wasn't really a troll because he was genuinely trying to recruit women to be naked prestesses, in the new country he was forming, with his mates down the pub.

They were apparently going to take over a large part of England once known as mercia. They had it all planned so well.........
Grin

That thread was fun, he was batshit crazy.

BalloonSlayer · 19/02/2017 21:26

Does anyone know why it always twins?

Well in accordance with my theory I think the twins trolling is by one or two posters who have had a traumatic experience regarding a twin pregnancy.

We know LOADS of twins. I hardly knew any when I was growing up. In the past, it was almost impossible to halt premature labour (common in twin pregnancies) and even harder to save premature babies.

I think posters have lost twins back in the day, when it was common for twin pregnancies to end in premature labour/delivery and for the twins to rarely survive. If they died there was no opportunity to mourn and funerals were out of the question. Yet the mothers, of course, felt exactly the same as mothers today.

I think these bereaved mothers have seen modern mothers losing twins and have been further upset by seeing modern mums receiving support that was unavailable to them, hence the threads to re-live the experience but this time receiving a bit of sympathy.

I also wonder whether if you lost a baby whose sex you did not know, not sure whether it was a boy or a girl, whether declaring it "twins" sounds more personal, and fits with the not-knowing, than the "it" that most of us would commonly use about a single baby.

PageStillNotFound404 · 19/02/2017 22:32

BalloonSlayer if you're not already writing a thesis on The Psychology of Trolling, you should be.

Unless this is your roundabout way of 'fessing up to being all of the twin trolls... Grin

JamDonutsRule · 19/02/2017 22:57

Hm, I wonder if the huge majority of I didn't know I was pregnant, gave birth on the loo" type of stories are actually trolls? Has anyone actually properly known someone IRL who this happened to?

JamDonutsRule · 19/02/2017 22:58

^ " !

dontbesillyhenry · 19/02/2017 22:58

Loved Beesimo and gran gran!

Also threads where someone ends up lumbered with a baby/child all night with no word from parents after having their child round for a play date/ babysitting

There was one thread where a woman was babysitting and the parents never came back and it turned out dad had been hit by a car- was he ok in the end?

UnbornMortificado · 20/02/2017 00:10

Balloon if your not working in psychology your wasting your talents.

The problem is on threads like that especially baby loss there is always posters (including myself sometimes) sharing their story's and offering support. I'd feel differently about finding out there was trolling afoot if it was for the reasons you mentioned.

It must be horrible been that desperate for support that you relive old memories just to get it, if your theory is right of course.

UnbornMortificado · 20/02/2017 00:13

Jam I didn't find out with DD1 till I was 24 weeks. I didn't put on weight and had regular periods, could definitely tell at 40 weeks though.

Happened to another poster on here but she's nc'd since due to some deranged stalker so I don't want to name her.

HCantThinkOfAUsername · 20/02/2017 00:18

I knew of one friend who went to A&E with a bad back and it was labour.
The night before we'd been clubbing,
This was whilst in uni & a few one night stands has been had so she didn't know the dad. This was about 8 years ago.
Last week a friend unknowingly gave birth. I'd seen her in tescos few weeks ago & stick thin, she too had a shock, lots of people have rallied round items for the baby etc,

Hope this doesn't happen to meBlush

BridgeRiverTower · 20/02/2017 01:00

Wasn't there an entire television series something like "I didn't know I was pregnant!" It must happen more than we think.

I remember a work colleague who got pregnant straight after giving birth. She went to the GP to say that she hadn't had a period in 7 months. He did an internal exam and declared that everything was fine and she should just wait for the return of her periods. He seems to have overlooked the 6 month gestation baby in utero! She did a pregnancy test a month later when she was 7 months along.

ElvishArchdruid · 20/02/2017 02:44

That has to be like a total nightmare.

What's sock puppeting?

The vom at the restaurant post was beyond grim.

ElvishArchdruid · 20/02/2017 02:47

There was the post also about someone want to reunite a Dad with his child. They were like family, so she wanted to do her best. Then it turned out they'd only worked together a short while. The Dad had a savings account with oodles of money but didn't pay Mum maintenance. That could have been real but was odd.

ElvishArchdruid · 20/02/2017 02:51

Just grimacing at the humping thread. I hope that's genuine and not some sort of troll. Confused

PageStillNotFound404 · 20/02/2017 02:55

Sock puppeting is having more than one account and replying to your own threads under a different name as if it were a different person, to make it look as if people agree with you or support you.

VintagePerfumista · 20/02/2017 07:47

Ha ha, I remember the mother with the kids in church. And the parents being in hospital and not bothering to tell the woman who had their kids where they were because the phone battery had gone and as everyone knows, if you don't have a functioning mobile, you need a carrier pigeon to communicate with the outside world.

Sockpuppets are (IMO) fairly easy to spot. Because they turn up 8 pages in to unanimous YABUs and support the OP, but without really saying why. They just say "OP is getting a hard time here, FWIW OP I agree with you" Then an advanced search shows they joined MN just to say that. Along with the rush of about 10 others in quick succession.

Although of course there are the longterm alter-ego socks.

paxillin · 20/02/2017 08:14

I sometimes sock by accident, because I forget who I am.

Original poster
HairsprayBabe · 20/02/2017 08:32

I don't think I would have the time or energy to have two personalities on here Vintage

OP posts:
ElvishArchdruid · 20/02/2017 08:40

Would anyone be interested in a spoof thread? I've obviously got too much time on my hands!

paxillin · 20/02/2017 08:48

I don't think I would have the time or energy to have two personalities

Me neither. I've done joke name changes though and then forgot though.

ElvishArchdruid · 20/02/2017 08:57

Is it personalities or story telling?

I've come across a post that fell on my trolldar, but could be innocuous. Could be bait for bored little fishes.

BalloonSlayer · 20/02/2017 09:45

Page no not me honest! Grin

Despite all my sympathetic theorising though, whenever there is a "what's the most outrageous lie you ever heard" thread on here, there are always loads of people IRL claiming to be pregnant and miscarrying so maybe it's just more common than I think. I guess that as an honest person I think there must be a reason behind it, not just plain attention seeking. Sad

When I broke up with ExH and lost a baby at the same time, I thought that was IT, I would never have children because I would never meet anyone else and if I ever did by that time it would be too late. I can still remember the despair and the envy of other women with babies and thinking that those couple of weeks of pregnancy was the closest I was ever going to get to motherhood. That very early miscarriage loomed very large in my consciousness, and I thought about it all the time. A few years later I met my now DH (my real DH!) and had two more miscarriages before having DCs and I don't remember those in anything like as much detail although I was distraught each time. Now I have my DCs, all the miscarriages have a much more sensible amount of emotion attached to them and have retreated right to the back of my mind. But if I never had met anyone else, and that first pregnancy was also my last . . . how would the inside of my head be now, I wonder? Would I have moved on? I hope so . . .

MsHooliesCardigan · 20/02/2017 09:53

Take a Break and Chat magazine have an item in every single issue about someone having indigestion and then giving birth on the toilet. But then they also print stories about women breastfeeding their dad.

BalloonSlayer · 20/02/2017 10:01

Stranded Bear posted a picture of herself in her cheerleader outfit taken - she said - a week or so before she gave birth. She didn't look pregnant but it was front-on. The only picture I have of myself heavily pregnant with 9lb 9oz DS1 is taken front-on and I am disappointed because you can't see I am pregnant, but I assure you I looked like a danger to shipping from the side.

UnbornMortificado · 20/02/2017 10:15

I was told (and it could be bollocks) that apparently the baby can position itself so it doesn't look like your pregnant. That's what happened to a friends mam.

I imagine there's a certain degree of denial. There was with me and DD1 as I was 16 at the time. I didn't twig I was pregnant till I felt movement Blush