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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

To wonder why many on MN

236 replies

CourtneeLuv · 04/12/2022 08:54

Are so pedantic, literal and joyless?

Other sites aren't like this Confused

OP posts:
stuntbubbles · 04/12/2022 14:29

My favourite is when we’re all 20 pages deep in a pointless but silly debate over something entertaining but inconsequential – do you cut your pizza with scissors, should DH have rung the doorbell or used his key, how many salads do you make a week – and someone new to the thread metaphorically purses their lips into a cat’s bum mouth and goes “Is this the biggest problem you have to worry about? What about UKRAINE!”

Or ENERGY PRICES or THE STATE OF THE NHS or COST OF LIVING. Or whatever joyless thing they think we should be discussing: even though there are myriad serious threads they could find on their pet joyless topic, it’s like they can’t bear for anyone to be making jokes about tea towels or jokes at all.

(I’ll never quit this hellsite, it’s too entertaining.)

stillvicarinatutu · 04/12/2022 14:31

Yep . Like

OP - help. I'm dying . Does anyone no what to do ?

REPLY: it's know not no . Hth .

See it all the time - pithy and mean spirited.

stuntbubbles · 04/12/2022 14:34

stillvicarinatutu · 04/12/2022 14:31

Yep . Like

OP - help. I'm dying . Does anyone no what to do ?

REPLY: it's know not no . Hth .

See it all the time - pithy and mean spirited.

Next post: you’re obviously not dying if you’re on MN posting about it. Hmm How dare you single-handedly destroy the NHS.

ElfHasBeenSilly · 04/12/2022 15:45

PonyPatter44 · 04/12/2022 09:02

There is actually a reason, and if you read a lot of threads over a period of time,you'll probably figure it out. I'm certainly not going to say it out loud because I'll probably be banned, or at least hounded forever by precisely those people!

What?

ReneBumsWombats · 04/12/2022 15:55

stuntbubbles · 04/12/2022 14:29

My favourite is when we’re all 20 pages deep in a pointless but silly debate over something entertaining but inconsequential – do you cut your pizza with scissors, should DH have rung the doorbell or used his key, how many salads do you make a week – and someone new to the thread metaphorically purses their lips into a cat’s bum mouth and goes “Is this the biggest problem you have to worry about? What about UKRAINE!”

Or ENERGY PRICES or THE STATE OF THE NHS or COST OF LIVING. Or whatever joyless thing they think we should be discussing: even though there are myriad serious threads they could find on their pet joyless topic, it’s like they can’t bear for anyone to be making jokes about tea towels or jokes at all.

(I’ll never quit this hellsite, it’s too entertaining.)

The pizza cutting thread was great. There was one poster getting more and more enraged because some of us preferred a different method, while insisting everyone else was over-invested. You could see everyone backing slowly away because she was about to blow.

I suppose that's one way to ignite your wood-fired pizza oven...

AccioChocolate · 04/12/2022 17:31

CatJumperTwat · 04/12/2022 12:36

Oh yes definitely but there was a lot more humour and sisterhood back then.

I've been here 10 years and this definitely isn't true. Start a thread 10 years ago and you'd get the same replies as you get now.

Not true!

There was a troll bumping decade old threads recently and it was obvious each time because the OP could ask a question and not be instantly ripped apart. I found it quite interesting. I've been on MN for about 13/14 years and while you used to have a few MN royalty who could be dicks, it's dicks as far as the eye can see now

AccioChocolate · 04/12/2022 17:37

newmumtopreciousbaby · 04/12/2022 12:43

Since I’ve been looking at this website, I’ve seen so much nastiness and judgement. In the last few days alone:

  • Bullying new mums scared of strep A or other illnesses, telling them their anxiety makes them bad parents
  • Racism and bigotry
  • Obsession with benefits claimants
  • Total obsession with class (what makes you middle class? JFC get a life you saddos!)
  • House price mania/you’re a failure if you don’t own a house
  • Bullying people out of going to a&e when they really should be going to a&e
  • Just general shitty judgmental behaviour and complete lack of solidarity.
No wonder this place has such a bad rep among millennials and gen z! It’s awful. Why? My theory is a lot of unhappy, possibly drunk older women whose lives haven’t turned out as they wanted and who feel better if they vent their spleen at other, younger, less experienced women.

I think most posters probably are millennials actually.

And have you met gen z? They'd hang you as soon as look at you in the name of "being kind"

BeyondTheLetterOfTheLawTheLetter · 04/12/2022 17:57

If we're gonna stereotype and guess ages, I imagine most mners to be gen x - incredibly cynical about everything.

Closeofday · 04/12/2022 18:00

There was a troll bumping decade old threads recently and it was obvious each time because the OP could ask a question and not be instantly ripped apart. I found it quite interesting. I've been on MN for about 13/14 years and while you used to have a few MN royalty who could be dicks, it's dicks as far as the eye can see now

Name changed!

I agree with this. I wonder if it's partly to do with the site being so much larger. It was easier to make friends (and also in real life) in the olden days but I'd be more wary of doing that now.

Mumsnet royalty is no longer as much of a 'thing' now in my opinion. Though I suppose that could be seen as positive.

Sparklingbrook · 04/12/2022 18:01

Which generation are the unhappy old drunks supposed to be?

inappropriateraspberry · 04/12/2022 18:03

Because I can't be so pedantic I. Real life, and can let it all out on here!

BeyondTheLetterOfTheLawTheLetter · 04/12/2022 18:08

Sparklingbrook · 04/12/2022 18:01

Which generation are the unhappy old drunks supposed to be?

Based on general internet blaming-of-things, I'd say boomers?

(note, I'm not saying boomers are actually unhappy old drunks, just that they generally get the blame for most things online)

I wonder if "unhappy old drunks" was a way of indirectly claiming they're boomers, without invoking the word and then having to defend the claim... 🤔

AccioChocolate · 04/12/2022 18:08

I think most first time mothers coming to MN will be millennials. 41 is your oldest millennial. Definitely some Gen Z.

So Gen X and baby boomers must be the bitter drunks? I'm not sure. Parenting teens might drive you to drink. Tweens is definitely starting to push me towards gin.

AccioChocolate · 04/12/2022 18:10

I'm a millennial for reference and I don't think that "women have vaginas" is a hangable offence, so I might be the wrong kind of millennial.

BeyondTheLetterOfTheLawTheLetter · 04/12/2022 18:11

Me too accio, or xennial if I'm feeling especially pedantic 😁

BeyondTheLetterOfTheLawTheLetter · 04/12/2022 18:13

I mentioned boomers being "to blame for everything" on the internet, of course the other side of that is that all millennials are twenty-something avocado-eaters 🤣🤣

AccioChocolate · 04/12/2022 18:15

I do fucking love avocado 🥑 to be fair

BeyondTheLetterOfTheLawTheLetter · 04/12/2022 18:17

I just had avocado on my tea

Boooooot · 04/12/2022 18:23

Sparklingbrook · 04/12/2022 18:01

Which generation are the unhappy old drunks supposed to be?

Definitely my mums generation. Her friends are all the same. Late 50’s.

onlythreenow · 04/12/2022 18:32

There are also a lot if whingy tell-tales here too. I can't abide the reporting of posts simply because someone doesn't like the difference of opinion.

This really annoys me also. If you are going to report posters for disagreeing with you, or even for pointing out how ridiculous you are, then why post in the first place? I also agree that there are a lot of joyless and pedantic people on MN - far more than I encounter in real life - whose mission seems to be to tell everyone how superior they are. In actual fact they are just bores.

CatJumperTwat · 04/12/2022 18:36

AccioChocolate · 04/12/2022 17:31

Not true!

There was a troll bumping decade old threads recently and it was obvious each time because the OP could ask a question and not be instantly ripped apart. I found it quite interesting. I've been on MN for about 13/14 years and while you used to have a few MN royalty who could be dicks, it's dicks as far as the eye can see now

Funny how perceptions are different. I see no difference between those threads and current threads. You have to go back at least 15 years before you get the "friendly" responses (to me they are cliquey and cringey, but to you it was nicer).

FloydPepper · 04/12/2022 18:50

I’m gen x, and yep definitely grumpy, maybe slightly bitter, often sarcastic, rarely drunk.

it is true there are some nasty people on here. Emboldened by anonymity they try and rip
people apart. Who knows why.

I’ve occasionally seen the nasty posters on other threads talking about problems they have or things they’re struggling with and it shows that the mask (I’m amazing, fuck everyone else) can be just that, a mask.

there are some amazing people on here too.

and a whole load in the middle, like me, who just try and rub along without too much of a fight.

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 04/12/2022 18:52

I think it depends where you look, @CourtneeLuv. I think that there are so many wonderful MNers giving advice and support on so many subjects - pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, weaning, mental illness, domestic violence, ereavement, and abuse, schools and schooling issues. Then there are the hilarious threads posted by MNers who don’t mind sharing their pratfalls for the amusement of MN - you can lose hours in the entertainment of Mumsnet Classics - Elderly Korean Lady, Auntie Tantrums babysits (“Well - that went well”), Mexican House Thief, Honeydragon dying the baby blue, “Your Minge” (where a MNer carefully removed her tanking bottoms at the poolside and didn’t realise until her husband came out of the changing rooms, pointed across the pool and said “your minge” and she concluded she must change her name and never go to that pool again).

Or the charity work done by Woolly Hugs, which began as a MN group knitting project to make a blanket to send to a MNer whose little boy had died after surgery to remove a brain tumour, and mushroomed into a group that makes blankets for MNers who have lost a spouse or child, and also blankets for children in hospital, for women undergoing treatment for breast cancer, for refugees, for premature babies who are stillborn (so the hospital has something to wrap them in that isn’t just clinical), and also runs two online craft sales each year, that raise money for various different charities - not terribly joyless.

BeyondTheLetterOfTheLawTheLetter · 04/12/2022 18:54

"Honeydragon dying the baby blue"

and then a few weeks later, immaccing the same baby, iirc... 😂

Sparklingbrook · 04/12/2022 19:01

I do wonder how things like the pregnant cousin and lemon drizzle would be received now.

Or if we got invaded by the Pie & Bovril lot again. 😂