Why are some MN so vile?

[IsMNReallySoAgressive]

Some lovely people on MN.

However… I have been following a few threads tonight and I’ve noticed how unkind some people can be.

”My trauma was worse than yours so stop complaining.”

”Sarcastic or passive aggressive replies.”

Surely people are not this unkind in daily life.

Why do people feel they can speak to people so differently when they are not face to face? There is literally a whole load of people who lack empathy and common decency.

An OP is obviously upset/bothered enough to vent or ask for advice but the way some people reply is awful.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion and to offer advice. People need to hear opinions vastly different to theres, it’s how we learn and grown as humans. Do people need to be so vile in their replies telling people to get over themselves, their failing, etc. There is given advice and there’s just belittling people, being rude and making an OP feel worse about themselves.

AIBU to expect MNs to be able give advice, even if it’s not what the OP wants to hear, without insulting the OP?

There's a lot of grown up haters on here and don't think they realise that trickles down to their kids

And this is a typical example of the 'I am superior to you attitude' - if you don't subscribe to the hive mind you are a 'zombie' with a weak mind

Nice!

I agree it seems to be worse than previous years. Some women are just bitches who like to tear down other women and not support them. Ain’t no such thing as the sisterhood for some women!

As the comedian Chris Rock said, “If women ruled the world there’d just be a whole bunch of countries not talking to each other”.

Do agree with previous comments that without ID for an MN login it is difficult to know who is really commenting on here.

You have to remember that other people will had different experiences and may be sad, bitter angry etc.

Take the whole xl bully issue as an example. If my child was in hospital having just been bitten, and someone on here started wittering on about harmless fur babies, I'd probably be fairly scathing.

Plus there are those who get a kick out of bullying people over the internet. And yes, as pp said, there are probably teenage boys, men with a grudge, all sorts on here.

I report anything I see that is harmfully nasty.

But you might without realising!
I doubt anyone would willingly be friends with a cruel, horrible or bitchy person, and few of us show our own unsavoury sides of us to friends/family.
But we all have the potential to be nasty; it is human nature.
So sometimes, when we read something we percieve as idiotic or completely against our experience/norms/parameters, we react, and it is of course, easier to do it anonymously.
Rather like needing a room full of things we can legitimately smash to vent our ager/frustration, forums such as these act as emotional smash rooms

What an unusual thread topic, it's never been covered before 🙄

There isn't the camaraderie of the early 00s, as MN is much bigger, but I don't think it is any worse now than it was.

The word vile is very MN though. Don't like what someone is saying - they are vile. What a vile post. That's vile behaviour. Aren't people on MN vile.

And here we have a prime example...

I've been on here over 10 years, I'd say it's deteriorated. Some incredibly mean comments which were far rarer a few years ago. There's lots of mean spirited people in the world, I suppose that's reflected as much here as anywhere - more users, will include more fuckwits.

Thankfully there's some lovely decent people, they make it worth staying

I think if you post something and another poster snaps back at you, it can be quite hard to ignore that - and it then quickly ends up in a heated debate.

I know I've read threads where Anne posts something, Jane has posted a reply, and then Sue jumps on Jane's response and tries to start an argument.

It happened to be just yesterday - I ignored "Sue" but they still kept responding to my responses to other people trying to get me to bite back.

Because some posters are stupid / irritating / arrogant / trying too hard / unwilling to be told they ABU. And you are not bound by the same social rules of real life where you can’t always say exactly what’s on your mind. It’s the internet. It was ever thus.

I always think you need a thick hide to post on mumsnet. People pick out the smallest thing to have a dig about. The worst and most irritating is the ‘I mean this gently’ and then some vitriolic comment after.

Some posters are nasty for the sake of it, and some people that start threads are dim and/or annoying, and people react to that. It’s a mixture of the two, just like most of the internet.

As the comedian Chris Rock said, “If women ruled the world there’d just be a whole bunch of countries not talking to each other”.

Don’t many countries already do that anyway and they’re run by men?

(Agreeing with poster ChiefEverythingOfficer, but missed the quote button)

I guess many posters skim read and then post without actually comprehending what an OP has written and even worse assuming that they only written the first post. I understand that some do not have the “See All” function but if you read the first page of the recent comments there can be some posters who have mentioned OP’s updates.

There’s a lot of projection, emotional manipulation when it isn’t necessary. Some posters will read a post as if someone is much better off than them and have to instantly tell the poster they should be grateful or see themselves as lucky without taking context into consideration.

I think internet forums often bring out the worst in people.

In our real lives, we all have to maintain a degree of civility to people we come into contact with, otherwise we’d have no friends, lose our jobs, be embarrassed in public etc. So we lie to our friends about how they look in an outfit, we laugh at our boss’s awful jokes, we grit our teeth when a car mechanic patronises us.

On-line we can say what we want. All that pent up frustration can be released. Some poor unfortunate poster who says “should of” gets the flack for the millions of times we can’t correct our work colleague who says it.

And on a more serious note, everyone here has their own past, which affects their thoughts. Someone who witnessed horrific domestic violence in childhood will struggle to read the “he hits me but I love him and I know he doesn’t mean it” posts, because they remember being the child in this situation, and they can’t stop themselves from speaking out.

I don’t think it’s any worse than it used to be though. I’ve been here 18 years and it’s not much different. It’s not nice but I think we’re all guilty of being a bit disinhibited online. Some people undoubtedly take it too far though.

Good post.

You don't have to have reproduced to sign up to MN. Anyone can join. Many people join up just to be arseholes to women.

@HiItsMeImTheProblemItsMe and that's a prime stock answer....

along with

Why did you open the thread then....

Some people are very irritating!

@HiItsMeImTheProblemItsMe that's a vile response is it ..... some people should not access internet forums!

There are more men here now. There are more childless teenagers here now. So of course it's worse.

Meh. I've been here a long time, there's always been a nasty element. I do think a lot of the humour and wit has been lost as it's gotten bigger, but I don't think the worst has changed much.

There is the occasionally awful post (which will generally be deleted if you report) but I think there's also a lot of really useful blunt advice that the poster's family and friends may not be willing to give in real life.

The whole point is that no one has any idea who these people are. They could seem to be the nicest, calmest, understanding people in rl, and totally different online.

Sometimes I think is there no level of human misery that won't attract someone to give the OP a good kicking? Husband left, house burnt down, living in a car at minus 10c with wolves circling and someone will correct their grammar... then there is the whole 4 Yorkshireman routines! You only have wolves circling? I just had a T-rex bang on the car roof..

I guess the answer to why is because they can?

I think you assume people don't behave like this irl. They normally take it out on colleagues and neighbours
My line manager was a nasty piece of work and I spent all my time carving her out of everything and reacting fast to prevent meltdowns. When I left 5 years later she had no clue how much I did or how the business was run or topics I kept her out of to keep my sanity
She'd say awful stuff to me about being lazy or question my morals and religious beliefs. This was a woman who ran out of a restaurant with husband without paying - at the age of 43
At one point she was at the point of default on rents. Then a couple of in laws passed and she was in flashing her expensive insured Pandora
Thankfully she wfh for half of my stay at that job which made things easier. People in the office realised the dynamic so they'd cover for me too