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?

I haven't been on that long and don't use any other social media but overall I think MN does have quite a supportive vibe. You can just scroll down the neggy comments if you want. I also think part of the fun and interest of MN is hearing what other people think, who you might not know IRL.

YANBU - some people clearly get their kicks from being nasty to others. Sad really.

Your points are valid but it does beg the question- why are you here then? if this "nastiness" is so awful- why participate in it for months? (by reading it). Why not move on to another website or close your lap top? There must be something keeping you here.

I agree that there is some nastiness but there is also people just being truthful about stuff that gets labeled as "mean" purely because they dont agree with everything the OP says.

Ive seen plenty of posts where the OP is very clearly in the wrong- is told theyre in the wrong by literally everyone then throws a tantrum and does a "goodbye cruel world" announcement that we are all mean bitches when really we just didnt agree with her that she was right.

🤣🤣 I love some of these responses! And personally I’m not offended by people telling me to flounce off or go on CBeebies or whatever, I’m amused. Maybe I didn’t realise previously that AIBU was a forum to say whatever you wanted regardless of who you were speaking to or what you knew about them apart from one post. I’m not even being sarcastic! I just didn’t know it was a ‘roast’ post, where everything went. My bad.

Don’t forget that Mumsnet attracts a fair number of people who hate women and want to have a go at them. I’m not suggesting that all negative responses are from such people, of course not, but there are people who come here specifically to put the boot in to women.

I imagine those people are who OP means when she says "some of you are awful" then.

Of course some people are awful on here -

1. it's social media

2. it's anonymous so people are free to be their worst selves with the greatest consequence being getting banned

3. it's representative of real life and some people in real life are awful

Try posting in chat or a specific subject if you want support - AIBU is for blunt observations, critical viewpoints and bun fights.

I posted in AIBU recently and got a bit of a pasting. I was having a gripe with DH and thought I was in the right. I was wrong

Ok, it wasn’t exactly fun being told I was a nasty person and being told I had no empathy (or people doubting that I love my husband!) but actually it was a really good experience. If we found ourselves in the same situation again I hope I would be much more understanding given the different perspectives I got on that thread. If they’d been couched in ‘aw, that must be hard...’ they probably wouldn’t have sunk in quite so much

Here's a nice pic.

BTW- what does it mean when someone posts just a biscuit?

(sorry if thats a dumb question but ive seen it alot)

oh its no comment! LOL got it

Many people are super cruel on here.

I think it might be time in general to have a conversation about:

Why are women cruel to each other so much?

Is it a feeling of competition? Have we become hardened?

What are you hoping to gain from the thread OP?

I love that so many have chipped in with snippy responses thus proving your point.

I know some people will say it hasn’t changed, but I’ve been on here since 2009 and it really really has. There was nastiness before but it has really ramped up over the last few years. I guess more traffic means more users and more users means more nastiness... Or at least in the past, when posters were mean they were, on the whole, usually funny with it, not just pointlessly bitchy. It’s a shame. I wonder if some people just don’t realise how they come across or just think they’re being funny, but the nastiness is really irritating. Of course there are great threads and loads of wonderful, funny, supportive posters too.

I will admit I have been horrible and I read some of my messages back realising how vile they sound. It's not nice and I have vowed to be a better and kinder person to everyone.

YANBU, the worst has to be the amount of racism, currently 40% of a recent AIBU. I was
Must admit the deletions are swift though MNet do root them out, but it's the fact they are there in the first place.
It has changed a lot since I first came on here, only about 9 years ago.
There's a lot of snippyness, judging, narrow mindedness, aggressive sounding posts.
But there are also so nice people who are lovely to communicate with, helpful and supportive.
I know which I prefer.

I agree with you OP. There’s plenty of people that have alternative view points and put them across in a perfectly reasonable manner.

On the other hand....

there are also those that appear to thrive on giving nasty, demeaning, rude, unpleasant and spiteful comments.

Twitter can be WAY worse. I feel like I'm constantly checking myself against any form of heineous thought crime there.

Here feels cuddly in comparison, with constructive vs pointlessly negative ratio massively in favour of constructive, as long as one does not expect mumsnet to be completely niche re: parenting. Not all mumsnet is into attachment parenting/homeschooling, etc.

Nowt 🥰

viscous responses

We may be a bit thick dear, but we're never sticky!

K.

There are good areas of Mumsnet, they just take a bit of finding. Many people stick to those and don't post anywhere else.

You are right. I think the list frustrating thing is that people infer and jump to conclusions about posts if it's hard to explain the issue. Then off the back of a total assumption, they offer up vicious judgement. Kind of bored of the whole site tbh, I'd rather just talk to my friends.

Piglet
I’m not sure that’s true - I’ve found Reddit to be a more supportive site (admittedly I don’t post myself, but reading responses to other people) so it’s not an internet-wide problem, it’s an AIBU problem. In my experience

Totally agree OP - So many people seem to take every single opportunity to start accusing people of being controlling, stalking, paranoid, unhinged or some other bad thing when in actual fact, the poster is just being normal. I do not think these negative posters are being 'blunt' or 'honest'. I think that MN, like all online forums have a % of people who love the opportunity to be nasty anonymously.

"Do we have to be supportive to all mums?
Even unreasonable/precious/abusive/neglectful/delusional/racist/homophobic ones?"

But it's not just these posts, you're being disingenuous. People pick holes in the most banal posts, and sneer and are unkind, just because they're anonymous. I think people forget there's a real poster sometimes.

You see it on Facebook too. The internet has fostered a vitriolic streak in a lot of people.