To be irrationally irritated by the "only on Mumsnet" riposte?

[thepeopleversuswork]

You see this on almost every thread: someone pops up to say: "I've only ever seen this on Mumsnet, I've never heard of this in real life." Or the bitching about how privileged or metropolitan people are on Mumsnet. I just don't think this is fair.

Don't get me wrong, Mumsnet can be incredibly irritating at times: some threads upset me and some get nasty and turn into spiteful pile-ons (particularly on AIBU). And people can be sanctimonious or downright bitchy and often bring their baggage to the table. And so on.

But the one thing you can say for MN is that all (English-speaking) human life is here: you get a massively diverse range of opinion from people from all walks of life. I've seen posts from people on here who are clearly extremely erudite and some who are obviously well connected and others from people who are barely literate and really struggling with life.

You may get skews on some threads (eg people who've had unpleasant divorces on relationships etc). And obviously men, and arguably ethnic minorities, are under-represented here. It's also true that the internet amplifies strong opinions because of the anonymity.

But overall this is an incredibly diverse group of women much more so than you'd get in the average magazine and most of us are bloody lucky to have access to this broad a group of people to communicate with. I have no problem with people criticising MN but this strikes me as a lazy cliché from people who can't think of any other way to disagree with people.

@ClutchingMyPearlsAppropriately

The whole point is that anonymity of MN enables people to say what they really do/think that they couldn't say out loud to people they know offline.

So if people say they don't answer the door or that letting tradesmen use their toilet is annoying, etc it's not 'ONLY ON MN' (as though people don't actually do/think that way) but it's something they can only admit to online unless they know people who are honest about what they do/think.

Ergo, the people you know, who you think don't do this or think that, may well do but they've never told you.

Exactly. It's a bit like this thing where far more people vote Tory than admit to voting Tory because people are generally much more snobbish, selfish and sharp-elbowed than they want to appear.

I wouldn't kick off about a "tradesman" using my loo but there are plenty of things I judge people for which I would admit on here but probably not in real life.