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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

What's the biggest lie/distortion you have seen someone post on social media?

245 replies

grumpelgoatskin · 19/12/2019 12:36

A friend posts regularly on Facebook about her very happy marriage and her wonderful husband.

In reality she cannot stand him and is looking for a way out.

I have no idea why she feels the need to post these lovey posts when she could just post nothing.

OP posts:
Jeeperscreepers69 · 20/12/2019 18:36

Hate the presents under the tree pictures. Look how much ive spent lalala. All wrapped in identical paper which matches the tree.
Man i no from school days does a video every day on fbk crapping on about nothing. He even asked someone to film his wedding proposal and put it on fbk😬 hes 45🤣🤣🤣

Praguemum · 20/12/2019 18:39

I take care of social and PR for a very large high school. Someone posted on FB that a gang had been waiting outside the school with a knife, intending to attack a particular student. The national media picked it up and printed it as fact. All complete fantasy. Caused untold stress to the parents of our students who thought we had some sort of gang problem. We made a complaint, but the damage was done. Journos need to do their due diligence, but a lot of the young ones are so hungry for a story that they completely disregard the law (not to mention ethics).

exaltedwombat · 20/12/2019 18:40

If life's rough, I'm all in favour of pretending it's wonderful. If you want to cry, force yourself to laugh. It works!

Much better than the various flavours of Project Doom we've all been getting thrown at us recently.

Iwasneveragoddess · 20/12/2019 18:47

My MIL posts soppy shit Memes about how much she loves her grandchildren (not my children)

She’s seen them twice in the 10 years I have been with him and doesn’t know when their birthdays are.

Lindylooboo · 20/12/2019 18:48

I had a friend post that she worked directly for President Obama when in fact she worked for a company that had a hand in organizing a rally for Obama. She didn't even get close to him, let alone meet him, know him, or actually work for him.

Menora · 20/12/2019 18:48

My old neighbour. She lives in a proper shitty old manky rented flat and she also leases an Audi, but from IG you would think she’s Tamara Eccleston

FestiveFavourites · 20/12/2019 18:48

People that fake pregnancies must be mentally ill. That takes facebook fakery to a whole new level. There were a few notorious online trolls who faked pregnancies - Emma Bowyer and Rebeccah Beushausen. The latter posted photos of a reborn doll, claiming it was her child.

I am guilty of only posting photos that show me and my home and my familt in the best possible light though, always in sunshine, always smiling Blush but I've seen some photos on other people's social media where they really should have checked the background before posting - a bathroom shot with a visible turd in the toilet is one.

Menora · 20/12/2019 18:51

My friends and I also followed a woman for ages because all of her photos made her look like a wide eyed perfect skinned Disney princess whereas in RL she more resembles Ursula from the little mermaid. I don’t know how many photos she takes of herself with her eyes wide but it makes her look deranged. She also slims herself down from a size 22 to a 16 in photos

Illcallbacklater · 20/12/2019 18:52

@Lllot5 because the person's friends and families all jump in and cause a huge argument, and it's just becomes a mire of "social media drama" that most sane people don't want to get involved in

Lllot5 · 20/12/2019 18:57

Don’t read it then.

FruitcakeOfHate · 20/12/2019 19:14

One friend who posts loads of body shots of herself and how much weight she's lost. Lots of how gorgeous are you? comments. In reality she is diagnosed with an eating disorder and her mother has custody of her kids due to her illness.

MashedSpud · 20/12/2019 19:16

Facebook’s tag line should be “Join Facebook and show friends & family the reality you wish you had”.

Afternooninthepark · 20/12/2019 19:16

A woman I know regularly posts on Facebook about how much she loves her dh and dd, people will reply saying what a fantastic wife and mum she is and an all round great person. Little do they know that she has been shagging my next door neighbour for last 10 years!

halexanderamilton · 20/12/2019 19:20

I know someone who always posts and shares those 'buy from a local self employed person and pay for a child's dance lessons rather than buying from a big corporation and paying a CEO's salary', which is a great sentiment. The only problem is that she works from home selling holidays for a gigantic multinational travel agency who put on big lavish awards ceremonies and the like.

ChampagneCharley · 20/12/2019 19:26

Step son who tells everyone how caring he is and how well he is doing over his mental health struggles. In reality he’s a vulnerable narcissist who did nothing and hung around the house, causing a lot of tension between me and dh. But you’d never think that from his posts. Thankfully he moved out of our house and I don’t read his bullshit posts anymore.

Afterthestorm · 20/12/2019 19:30

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

VerbenaGirl · 20/12/2019 19:31

It’s the MLM stuff. It’s so deceptive.

SunshineAngel · 20/12/2019 19:33

There's a couple I know, and looking at her Facebook and Insta you'd think they had the best lives in the world, completely in love, only eyes for each other.

In reality, she's addicted to her phone but won't seek help, her kids have been in counselling for behavioural problems because they don't get any attention from her and honestly believe she doesn't love them, and the husband sits crying to me (we share a hobby and a group of us go to the pub on occasion) saying he feels so alone even though she's there, because her head is always in her phone.

I have in the past been for a day out with her, felt as though it was only me there, because she barely spoke to me - yet on Facebook later it looked like we'd had the best time, as she snapped a few selfies in different places - but genuinely, once those split seconds were over, her head was back in the phone.

It's sad, it sucks.

She's always posting things like her family mean the world to her, and she has the best husband .. and I just think to myself that's bollocks, as they're all sitting in separate rooms feeling completely unloved and unwanted.

theemmadilemma · 20/12/2019 19:51

@Christmastreejoy You are so right.

nowaypose · 20/12/2019 19:55

I don’t use FB anymore but I had a friend who tried to proclaim everything in her life was perfect because she had married her childhood sweetheart and they had two kids so picture perfect lifestyle. In reality, he had autism and just sat around playing computer games in his office all day every day. He also lashed out and got violent if the kids made too much noise, pushed his then 7 year old DD over in the shower and she hit her head.

All is not what it seems on SM. She liked to project herself as the perfect woman in every way, home schooler as well so loved to brag about that. She didn’t work, nor did her DH so they lived on benefits. She gave up her job to home school.

Illcallbacklater · 20/12/2019 19:56

@Lllot5 I think the point is going over your head or you're being deliberately obtuse. You asked why people don't call them out on it and that's why. We're allowed to read whatever we want you're the one getting your panties in a bunch because no one can be arsed to call them out on it. Biscuit

Illcallbacklater · 20/12/2019 20:00

@Afterthestorm I don't have any SM anymore but when I had it, DD's dad and step mum never once posted about her, but were (still are) the most attentive, involved and amazing people in her life, I wonder if the usual correlation is the more you feel the need to say it on Facebook the less true it is!

Pawsandnoses · 20/12/2019 20:19

@TheMovingFishfinger I have one of those too. She's a good friend but loves a drama. She pointed her mum out to me as she walked past her house. At the time we were early 30's and her mum had kicked her out at 16 and never even met her high school/primary aged kids. They had a mutual hatred of each other. She found out that she was ill when she had been moved to a hospice and after several days deliberation finally went the day before she passed. Then came the drama .... it's continued on FB on every anniversary of her death & mothers day for about 10 years now. It would probably also be the same on her birthday, but she has no idea when that was.

Lllot5 · 20/12/2019 20:38

Well I dare say you’re right. But I wouldn’t be able to bite my tongue. Especially if it was constant bullshit. Probably just as well I’m not on it.

poptypingchef · 20/12/2019 20:51

My friend works in production for a well known TV show. I saw a girl who I fired for stealing worked beside post about attending the wrap party on a forum we are both a member of. She received lots of coos and questions of what she was doing on the show. She coyly alluded to a high up role in costume that she couldn’t possibly talk about.

.... spoke to my friend, she’s the tea lady 🤨