AIBU to think some of you are awful?

[KMW79]

I have been mainly just reading (over the past 6 months) the popular threads on the ‘mumsnet daily’ via email inbox.

Honestly I have been so shocked by the influx of negative, unhelpful and destructive responses that people receive. Even when people don’t agree with an OPs opinion or a respondents reply or even whom the OP was posting about, so many are seemingly so keen to attack in such a virile nature! Name calling, aggressive, viscous responses when someone asked for a basic opinion.

Elaborating on why someone is or isn’t being unreasonable doesn’t require an attack on either side of the viewpoint. It blows my mind how nasty people can be, and I don’t believe that was what this forum was created for!

Could this forum maybe return to what it was intended for?

@Hoik
The MN forums have always been a place for honest answers*

There are plenty of forums out there where one can have smoke blown up ones arse by a load of cheerleaders but personally I prefer honesty

Honesty? If you want to call being unnecessarily rude, horribly bitter and thoroughly obnoxious 'honesty', then yeah, AIBU is really honest

I think society is a more angry place in general. People can (mostly) refrain from being total assholes to your face but certain situations see it spill out. Driving, customer service situations and anonymous social media accounts / forums.

YANBU, I agree with you OP. I’ve had some horrible things said to me on here - really personal attacks. It’s hard to not let it get to you but I just think that the people who post vile remarks are quite cowardly - they probably wouldn’t dream of saying those comments face to face but it makes them feel all brave and clever when they are hiding behind their keyboard!

I agree. Disagreement doesn’t need to be unpleasant. Lots of people guilty of that here, including me at times.

Isn’t some of this why Mumsnet is great, though?

If someone asked me face to face “are baby headbands ok?” I would probably say “dress your baby as you choose, mate.”

What I’d think is “hell no, they are tacky and stupid, and always seem to be on bald babies. Stop trying to signal to everyone your baby is a girl.” On Mumsnet people say what they think because we’re at one remove.

So if I really wanted to know how people viewed something, I wouldn’t ask on Facebook where it’s all U OK Hun, I would ask here.

@Arthritica - I agree with you to a certain extent and I’m all for a bit of straight talking but not out and out nastiness. I posted on AIBU once about a fairly minor issue with my daughter (She wasn’t answering her phone or replying to texts, I worried and went to find her to check she was ok) and bloody hell did it escalate! One nasty comment and then everyone else starts piling in. Complete strangers telling me that they would absolutely hate it if I was their mother and they’d bet that my daughter couldn’t wait to leave home etc. It did upset me.

If you wouldn’t say something to someone’s face but you would happily say it over an anonymous forum I think you’re a coward.

Life has become more difficult for most people and macro aggressions in society are mirrored in everyday micro aggressions from ordinary people who should really, know better.
I think there's a seriously sad inevitability about it. A lack of sophistication too.
But what gives me the rage personally, is what someone upthread mentioned regarding people holding an opinion that differs from theirs.
And I've experienced this first hand.
These days, people can't cope with entertaining an opinion that differs from the one that they hold and the fallout from that can be spectacular.
It's a toxic 21st Century form of intolerance bordering on mental fascism. Sad.

If you wouldn’t say something to someone’s face but you would happily say it over an anonymous forum I think you’re a coward.
Why?

*It’s almost like the anonymity in here is a licence for being a massive nasty twat to strangers on the internet (a lot who are vulnerable new mums) and that is pretty scary.

100% guarantee at a Mumsnet meet up everyone would be sweetness and light.*

Yup.

There would be a hair testing fistfight every give mins if people spoke to others the way they do here irl - I think they'd take the measure of the other woman (likelihood to get a thump off her and be considerably more tactful and mannerly if they thought so) ... They are taking advantage of this platform to be cunts. Keyboard warriors.

*Hair tearing

• 5

Aibu tends to be pretty robust. You're literally asking a bunch of strangers online if you're being unreasonable.
I find Relationships to be really supportive and the people who post there have helped many women to leave abusive relationships.

On reflection, I actually quite like the fact that people express their thoughts so bluntly. It makes me realise that stuff that I took for granted to be general opinion, or usually things that I thought no one would give a second thought to is actually not the case.

For example, there's so much vitriol against people who are late on here but it really never crossed my mind that people would make such assumptions around meanings behind this and personalise it so much. Now I know I'm much more mindful of how people might (mis)interpret my actions.

On a much more superficial level, another example would be understanding why some people like baby headbands and others don't.

If you wouldn’t say something to someone’s face but you would happily say it over an anonymous forum I think you’re a coward.
You do realise that people will often ask for advice or opinions online (MN or any other forum) precisely because they'll get an honest response that people wouldn't say to their face.

Offline there's a social code with friends and family where even if you don't like something / think something is awful that you say nothing on it and if you're asked directly then you use tact or fudge the issue to avoid hurting feelings.

If you ask people who don't know you what they think about X then you'll probably hear what people offline are thinking but they're being too polite to say.

I agree with you OP. I put a thread a few years ago on another username. Some of the Mumsnetters on the AIBU were horrible ! I stay because the relationship boards are fantastic !

I'm glad someone is bringing this up.

@Arthritica
If someone asked me face to face “are baby headbands ok?” I would probably say “dress your baby as you choose, mate.”What I’d think is “hell no, they are tacky and stupid, and always seem to be on bald babies. Stop trying to signal to everyone your baby is a girl.” On Mumsnet people say what they think because we’re at one remove.

Yep yep yep.

@BohoBunney If you wouldn’t say something to someone’s face but you would happily say it over an anonymous forum I think you’re a coward.

Then you don't understand the basics of social interaction.

It's a way for people who are unhappy themselves to take out their frustration and sadness on other people by making them feel bad too. Being entertained by someone elses misery.

Aibu tends to be pretty robust. You're literally asking a bunch of strangers online if you're being unreasonable.
I find Relationships to be really supportive and the people who post there have helped many women to leave abusive relationships.

That's so true. I've had a lot of support on the Relationships board when I've shared my childhood SA with others who have been through similar experiences. It's something that's impossible to do in RL even with people I've known for years.

I do get both sides of the argument. It's easier on an online forum to be more honest than it is in real life. However like the OP has said there is a way of saying things. I think some people come on here and look for someone to be unnecessarily horrible to, probably as a way of dealing with their own everyday emotions. It isn't right though.

Have you never considered that it’s also pretty awful to come to a forum and tell a large portion of the users what terrible people they are? As others have said, there’s at least one of these every week, and every time the OP thinks she knows better than anyone else. ‘You’ve all been horrible and unkind and nasty, but now I’M here to tell you how awful you’ve been and how you should behave’. It’s arrogant and pretentious to unilaterally decided your opinion of MN is more important and more carefully considered than anyone else’s. There was a thread on this the other week that was even worse than this one - essentially it was ‘You’re all horrible; this is how it’s all going to change now that I’m here to put you right’. She even said anyone who disagrees with the OP shouldn’t post! It’s laughably naive.

Yes, I’ve seen some people be absolute arseholes here. Yes, there are people who come solely to make trouble. But there are also plenty of people who aren’t afraid to stand up to the troublemakers and tell them exactly what they think of their nonsense.

I know it’s fashionable to slag off AIBU and say the other forums are much nicer, but I actually see lots of really supportive posts in AIBU - and genuinely supportive doesn’t always mean ‘Awwh, u go 4 it hun, don’t listen to no haterz!’ It can mean a sometimes quite tough assessment of the situation the OP is in and practical, if not always palatable, suggestions on how to get out of it.

Of course people shouldn’t act like wankers for their own entertainment. But neither should people create threads asking for ‘advice’ when what they really want is someone to agree with them and act as a cheerleader. These tend to be the posters who then claim the dreaded ‘unkindness’ and lament how they ‘should have known not to expect support [i.e. blind unquestioning agreement] on MN’.

People saying ‘I bet they’d never say that to someone’s face’ are missing the point. Surely half the reason you ask an anonymous forum is to get a range of opinions without the respondents worrying about that?

Good post @StillCoughingandLaughing.

It's also akin to those who complain that people are 'bullying' simply because they're disagreeing with them, and not couching their post in extraneous niceties never mind the huns, lols, babes and xxxs

@StillCoughingandLaughing Yes, I agree that there are OPs who act like drama lamas and accuse everyone of bullying. It isn't bullying to say that another poster is being unreasonable.

What is uncalled for is to say to the OP, 'YABVVVVVU, you're being an absolute twat/cunt/arsehole (take your pick! ) and I'm glad you're not my family member.'

Another irritating type of post is the following:

OP: AIBU?
MN: Yes you are
OP: No I'm not

Because these posts normally happen when there's been a pile on early in the thread, with a lot of posters acting like sheep and just repeating what was said before, but then there's a few pointing out that the previous posters haven't really read what the OP actually said. So it's an attempt to drown out the opposite point of view.

Also irritating are those posters who just say YABU without saying anything to explain why.

Then there's the accusations of drip feeding. It's led to ridiculously long opening posts 'so as not to drip feed'.

It's not just the posters saying YABU in a very obnoxious way. I also get fed up with posters saying to the OP, 'You're getting a hard time on here', when in many cases it hasn't been that bad.

And yes, I have seen plenty of support on AIBU. I think the problem sometimes is that it simply isn't the best place to go to. For example, someone will post about their toxic mother. People who have had a secure upbringing and a close relationship with their mum often don't understand what it's like to have grown up without that. So you get someone who is grieving for their beloved mum telling the OP that they should be grateful to still have their mum. It's completely inappropriate, but comes from ignorance and not unkindness.

Yes some Mumsnetters are bullies on here. A year ago, under a different username, I put a thread on AIBU and I was accused of being a troll, I was literally slaughtered on there. Mumsnet HQ banned me for a couple of months as they sided with the fellow Mumsnetters on the board. I pleaded with them to not do it, gave them my reasons for hiding and changing information around but said everything in my thread that happened was true. Also, the relationship boards was a LIFE SEND and I needed a way out of my abusive relationship. Nope, they didn't care. I was banned, and they took away that online support that I needed.

I think something needs to be done with these bullies and troll hunters. I will never post anything on AIBU again. I learnt my lesson. I'm only here because of the relationship boards. Well done OP for bringing this up, well done. 👏👏👏

Literally slaughtered, you say? Crikey.