Instamums in the Telegraph

[caperberries]

Is there a new thread about this?

I personally feel that numerous threads full of digs and nasty personal comments about various instagrammers (and their children) is being bitchy. It's just unnecessary. I find that kind of bitchiness worse than obviously taking the piss throwaway comments about cutting, stabbing etc.

In that case, would you agree instagram is a pretty bitchy place too, @Sofialemon

@Gobbolinothewitchscat like I said, it was a joke, but because Susie is under the microscope, of course she's going to retract it because the last thing she needs is to justify her joke (even if it's an off one) to a bunch of women that are waiting for her to take a misstep. She's trying to be the bigger person and get on here and have a rational conversation with anonymous people behind a keyboard. Good for her. I wouldn't have batted an eyelid (and most of you wouldn't have either), had she said the same thing over drinks at a pub.

@timetogetanewfence I posted pics of all my children on social media up until they were about 2 years old - when they stopped being sort of baby cyphers and started to become small people in their own right. After that age, I really slowed down the number of pics I shared of them and have been much more careful to perhaps not show their faces unless it's relevant to the pic. The pics I do share, I ask them before hand now if it's okay.

The other thing that's important to note, though is that I have my Facebook privacy (lol) settings as high as possible and I only have about 60 followers on instagram, as opposed to three quarters of a million people. So, the level of exposure is not really comparable - even accounting for randoms stumbling onto my instagram feed.

I've read the comments on Laura's post, and I've just spent 2 hours talking with her.

The person who used stabbing, ultimately wasn't doing it to actually threat violence, like @Susie3Milo wasn't (and we all know that as well) It was a worded post, that in their social circle is common language used. I'm not going to judge that, I'm sure I talk to my friends in ways others while find utterly unacceptable, such is life. Laura, on reflection totally sees how it was inappropriate for a public setting.

The whole post centres around firstly her having her mates back (weeslice) and secondly the inference that we on MN think that she is using her cancer as an excuse to say what ever she likes because, no one is going to be an arse to someone with cancer.

And it upset her, and pissed her off and it offended her that we would even bring her cancer into it, because her having cancer is irrelevant to her opinion.

I support her anger towards that, and I hold my hand up to not thinking about it from her perspective.

I won't go into the any more detail about the convo other than to say there is a lot of shit being slung from both sides. I've thrown it, I've just had it thrown back at me, and I can see where I could've been an arse.

Much worse than what, time? Do you mean the stabbing comment? I will reiterate - no I haven’t. Yes I’ve said things in anger - never I will stab, cut or have you/a person killed - but I have never said anything offensive about another person in a place where it is in the public record - which instagram is! I can’t afford to in my job and I wouldn’t want to. So you cannot, I’m afraid l, include me in the ‘we’ve all said much worse’ group because I don’t think I have, and if I have said anything as unpleasant I have chosen my audience carefully and no record exists.

I won’t return to this subject either because I don’t want to fixate on one comment and one or two IGers, in the interests of giving criticism kindly.

@PavlovaPrincess

I don't think I've ever said I have no interest in these threads.

I have a different opinion to the majority on these threads, and zero interest in slating MoD, FoD or the various others that you seem to follow purely to criticise and to try to catch them not using #AD

As soon as myself, Cady or a few others posted disagreeing with the majority we were accused of being instamums or friends of instamums. It was ridiculous.

@Boredandtired yeah.. I think there's a lesson in all of it, for us. I've never put my kids on Insta or FB, since the day I got my sonogram, but I don't vilify people who do, each to their own. Eventually, a platform like IG goes through stops and starts and evolutions, and right now, people are wanting it to be real again, and less fantasy-like. I get it. I have a fairly decent following and I also run a business and I welcome the critics (apart from the cuckoos telling me how I should live my life). It's important. But there's a line that's crossed sometimes, and people always seem to be quick to jump on an influencer's shoulders, when actually, they're navigating a tricky thing just like the rest of us, but they just might have it a bit tougher.

I wouldn't have batted an eyelid (and most of you wouldn't have either), had she said the same thing over drinks at a pub.

It's not equivalent though, it was broadcast to nearly 100,000 people by someone that a big proportion of those people probably admire and look up to in some way.

(sorry broke my self enforced rule there. That really is my last word)

@sofialemon if you thought no threads discussing appalling behaviour, non disclosure of ads, and using children is bitchy I'm very surprised you can follow the likes of Caroline Hirons, MoD, WeeSlice, Candice Braithwaite as the bitching that takes place on those accounts is horrendous and far more disturbing than anything I've read on here. (Apologies if you don't follow them but you mentioned CH)

Sigh. I ask nicely, twice, who you meant and you still ignore me @timetogetanewfence even though you claim to want to discuss things.

OK I get from your post to Gobbolinothewitchscat you meant Susie.
My next question, and this can be a rhetorical one, is why you came on all exasperated that we didn't get a joke and justifying her saying that AFTER we have already had a v pleasant conversation with her and that comment had been put to bed?
I've got no interest in stoking the dying fire by continuing discussion about something where an acknowledgment/apology has been made and excepted.

@ISayOldChap you're right, it's isn't equivalent, but, it is a largely unmoderated site that allows anyone to say what they want and how they want.
It doesn't mean that it's ok, and it's a learning curve that I'm sure Suzie is now fully aware of.
Which is why places like here should exist, because somewhere there has to be a moral compass swinging about when people fuck up a bit, unlike on IG where you have to have the 'right' opinion.

@SugarBunker I already explained what I think about Susie's comment. Scroll back.

Sofia yes you’ve said all this a few times. But it helps to actually post stuff other than having a go

I’ve been less interested in the Ad side but if people want to talk about it then fine, it’s a free forum

See, this is the problem. People want other people to act "just like them', and when they don't, they get aggro, instead of having a wider perspective.

Let's just unpick this a bit

You posted saying that you mixed with people who often said they would kill someone or take a hit out on someone and specifically invited other posters to say if they did or not

I said I didnt and it would raise eyebrows with the people I know

You said I was being obtuse and I said maybe you didn't mix with quite as diverse a cohort as you think you do but I am aggro and don't have a "wider perspective" because I don't agree with you and have missed the joking tone in online threats to stab someone for having a different view point

Can you see how hilariously ironic and illogical that is? 😂😂😂😂

@Sofialemon have you ever heard the saying "it's not what you say, it's the way you say it"
Perhaps a reflection on that may be prudent for you.

@ScipioAfricanus

Were you on any of the earlier threads? These have been going since last year snd there are literally hundreds and hundreds of comments that are personal slights and nothing to do with ethics. Most of the worst were deleted but there are posters on here who are fully aware what has been said and are trying to gloss over it.

@Gobbolinothewitchscat: 'No, maybe your cohort of friends isn't as diverse as you think.'

So, let's unpick that a bit, shall we?

Your friends never say anything untoward in a jokey way. My friends both do, and don't. And I accept both, because I have a varied group of friends. But you don't accept comments that you feel are inappropriate, which is a bit single-minded, no? Hmmm.

Interesting concept if I can keep it on general terms.

A few years ago someone I used to work with had some very offensive comments written about him by someone he taught. Our department head said he shouldn’t be concerned because it was just like pupils bitching about you with their mates in the corridor on the way home. It dawned on us that our head saw the internet/SM as an extension of existing modes or communication, whereas we saw it as a Brave New World - this bitching about my colleague was out there and would follow his name on Google forever - totally different in our minds to bitching on the way home.

Over the last few years I have mellowed a bit and as I say, I don’t often check what’s written about me as I know some will be bad as well as good, and I expect employers to take it with a pinch of salt if they’ve any brains. However, it’s intereting that some posters here see Instagram as talking to your mates (like the bitching on the way home) and some of us see it as a public setting. Perhaps this is one way we fail to understand each other: we fundamentally have different views of how the internet is perceived.

(I obviously think my view, that it is a public and professional setting, is correct! If I were to put up photos of myself drunk on a night out on my pretty private FB I could be disciplined for bringing my profession into disrepute. So many employers also share my view.)

@ScipioAfricanus that's actually one of the most thought out comments on this whole thread. Thank you.

@sofia yes I was. I’ve been on most of them. It really interests me, partly as I’m aware of the negative effect SM can have on me personally, and part because I’m interested in advertising, materialism generally. I am not trying to gloss over it - I have made comments about specific individuals on the threads, I’m sure. Nothing I’d call bullying but as I said, I’m dialling back on the specifics because I don’t want to be part of an Us vs Them divide. I’m taking on board the counter arguments as well as the ones that agree with my existing viewpoints.

well thought out, rather.

You’re a broken record sofie. Hilare.

"The whole post centres around firstly her having her mates back (weeslice) and secondly the inference that we on MN think that she is using her cancer as an excuse to say what ever she likes because, no one is going to be an arse to someone with cancer."

Something I find very annoying and idiotic is how several instamums equate a single opinion with MN as a whole.
One person @Oddish made that cancer comment. No one repeated here or backed it up (I think from memory).
Can understand why it caused upset and frustration but that's not what she expressed is it. She'd already called a MNer a fucking prick for posting their experience at her friend's event.

Your friends never say anything untoward in a jokey way

but that is not the question you asked. You asked a very specific question about two specific phrases. And no, we don't casually talk about stabbing people or taking a hit out on people as a joke. In addition, these are not appropriate comments on a public forum for all the reasons set out above. Trying to reframe the discussion or the comments after the event does not change these facts

I must proofread, though - my typos are horrendous and, if I wasn’t anonymous here, I would be concerned I was bringing my profession into disrepute via bad punctuation and spelling!