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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Has this forum jumped the shark?

170 replies

Havalina · 13/08/2019 03:26

I feel quite sad thinking this, it used to be so busy and enlightening. It just feels so crap and irrelevant now.

A mix of completely banal questions, troll fodder and behind the curve discourse 😬

OP posts:
TSSDNCOP · 13/08/2019 08:45

I did not know that the origin of this phrase was in Happy Days. That was quite interesting.

StillCoughingandLaughing · 13/08/2019 08:45

I'd never heard of jumping the shark either, so I don't think anyone can say it's a well-known expression.

Well I’VE heard of it, so I think I can say it’s a well-known expression.

See the flaw in your logic now?

bevelino · 13/08/2019 08:47

A lot of the threads are repetitive and we have just about seen it all. There is nothing we do not know about CF’s, interfering mils, bridezillas, wayward teens and dodgy parking. 😂

Booboostwo · 13/08/2019 08:48

This thread is typical of why I find MN frustrating.

The OP asked a legitimate question that would have been interesting to hear answers to. Immediately some posters pounced on something irrelevant and tried to be witty. They not only derailed the thread, they were wrong and not witty, so boring all around. The OP has disappeared.

089ville · 13/08/2019 08:49

I think there's so many trolls and faux outrage mixed in with people that really are that offended. I use several forums and increasingly less MN and more the others

SnuggyBuggy · 13/08/2019 08:50

@Booboostwo good summary

TheVanguardSix · 13/08/2019 08:51

One post in clearly answers your very valid question.
Havalina (excellent username, btw), I've been on MN for years. My eldest is 17 years old, so I'm considered a noob by comparison to others.
I really notice the change when I go back to old posts from like 2008.
I miss that MN big time. It was smarter, funnier, more engaging, interesting. It's a bit of a dumbed-down 'same shit, different day'.
I'm still here all the time.
People have changed. They're intolerant of things that I can't believe even rile them, yet they totally tolerate things that I would find ghastly.
MNers are way more confrontational and there's no sense of sisterhood on here the way there used to be.

Jump the shark! Google it. It's an old saying now. It's a pop-culture reference to when Happy Days went downhill as a sitcom and writers began using cheap tricks and bad gimmicks to keep the show relevant, i.e. when The Fonz jumped the shark. Look it up on YouTube. It's one of TV's saddest moments. It's basically when you have to start flogging a dead horse to breathe some sort of life into something gone stale.

Sparklingbrook · 13/08/2019 08:52

I definitely look at more other stuff on the internet whereas it used to be mainly MN.
I am currently following a Scottish man who is cycling around the world with a cat. More interesting that the bajillionth thread about parking or shoes on or off in the house...

NoSauce · 13/08/2019 08:53

The demographics have definitely changed which imo is why MN has changed.

089ville · 13/08/2019 08:55

They're intolerant of things that I can't believe even rile them, yet they totally tolerate things that I would find ghastly.
MNers are way more confrontational and there's no sense of sisterhood on here the way there used to be.

This! Some just seem to come here to have a pop at people.

LazyLizzy · 13/08/2019 08:55

I go by thread titles in Active.

I miss Chat. I know it's there but it's hardly used since it went permanent.

Everything seems to be posted in AIBU now.

It's not the same.

blackchina · 13/08/2019 08:57

@Havalina No-one's forcing you to stay.

Just de-register if it's so shit.

YABU.

NoSauce · 13/08/2019 08:59

blackchina don’t be silly, people are allowed to highlight the fact MN has changed without being told to leave.

Sobeyondthehills · 13/08/2019 09:03

@Sparklingbrook

I am currently following a Scottish man who is cycling around the world with a cat.

I love Dean

089ville · 13/08/2019 09:04

Proving the point black China.

thisnamechanger · 13/08/2019 09:04

It can't be THAT well know if loads of people had to Google it.

It's getting a bit "cancel culture" but I mainly love it. Some of the humour on here you couldn't make up with ten comedy writers Grin

Jumped the shark do do do do do do....

blackchina · 13/08/2019 09:06

@NoSauce

Don't be silly. This is an open forum, and people are allowed to post whatever opinion they have, even if you don't like it. If the OP was wanting posts that agree with her ONLY, then she should have said.

Maybe the OP (AND YOU) should move to nethuns if you are so fragile, and can't take people having different views huh? Wink

blackchina · 13/08/2019 09:08

And half of the posters so far agree that the OP is being unreasonable. So it's not just me who thinks it.

As I said, don't like it here? Leave.

MustardScreams · 13/08/2019 09:12

@blackchina proving op's point quite spectacularly. Everyone can be here if they want, and they are entitled to an opinion and to express that opinion. You clearly don't understand how a discussion works.

Ragwort · 13/08/2019 09:12

I’be been on here nearly 20 years Grin and still find loads of interesting threads, just skip the boring/banal/uninteresting ones.

LadyHooHa · 13/08/2019 09:14

StillCoughingandLaughing I did also say "It's well-known if you already know it, I suppose". So I'm not quite sure why you're jumping down my throat... Perhaps trying to remind me of the Good Old Snarky (or Sharky Grin) Mumsnet Days?

NoSauce · 13/08/2019 09:14

This is an open forum, and people are allowed to post whatever opinion they have

Indeed they are and that includes telling those who say leave and go to Nethuns that they are allowed to highlight the fact of that MN has changed.

Yabbers · 13/08/2019 09:18

The question is essentially “AIBU to complain about this free Internet forum nobody is forcing me to use”

Yes, YABU.

I had thought jumped the shark was a very well known expression. Learnt something new!

I suspect it’s a generational thing.

MustardScreams · 13/08/2019 09:23

Telling people to leave is a pretty low argument isn't it though? Imagine if every time someone disagreed they were told to go. There would be no discussions, it would just be one opinion and nothing else.

notso · 13/08/2019 09:30

Posters have started threads pining for the good ole' days of MN for at least 15 years. There's a reason for the flounders corner topic.
I lurked well before then too but didn't have a computer at home so could only use the one in the library, saying that makes me feel about a million years old!

I think it felt like more of a collective in the past, possibly because as I've just reminded myself not everyone was online. Lots of Mums I spoke to back then etc had never heard of MN.
I found MN as I hated how cliquey baby groups were, as a 19 year old Mum with depression that was too daunting. Having said that MN was totally cliquey too but I could feel an invisible part of the group, people can't not talk to you when you can read what they say.

I think it's good in a way that it's so big now. Something like Moldies wouldn't happen.