The trend of putting the boot in to the OP

[ZippyPinkUser]

I’ve seen it here a lot more recently, there will be a post where you can tell someone is genuinely struggling and 95% will be decent well intentioned responses and then bam someone comes along and seemingly goes out of their way to be unkind to the Op.

anyone else here think they’ve been seeing that a lot more lately

You're a horrible OP

Yes absolutely. It's like some lurk just for that opportunity. Just awful behaviour, easy to be nasty when you are anonymous

I've been here, on and off, for many years, and it's always been the same. I've been called names for the most innocuous things before.

Its just the nature of Internet forums.

Yes. I always wonder if they are men.

I feel like I’ve seen it more lately, I don’t know I was wondering if it was randomly related to CoL, people feeling a bit out of control and helpless, getting a bit of power back and taking their anger out in someone anonymously

Yes! One post I was involved in probably had 50% posting the most awful unhelpful, nasty, kick you when you're on your ass comments.
I am relatively new to MN and have found it a bit of a shock. I'm not naive as to what absolute dicks people can be behind a keyboard but I expected something else here for some reason

😆

wurdzhurt

Yeah it’s like it’s a race and to get the nastiest comment sometimes.

must have boring lives to be like that

Why?

Something odd has definitely been going on for the last few weeks. I've been on here for a good few years and I don't think I've ever seen so many OPs get such a kicking. It has really been quite vicious just lately.

I often think posters who are horrible for the sake of it can’t have anything positive in their lives. It’s the old keyboard warrior syndrome, people are anon and think they can say what they like on forums although a I bet a few of them wouldn’t be so balsy in real life. MN has always encouraged robust replies but I don’t class some replies as robust, some of them are just bitchy or downright nasty.

I agree with you OP - I've been on MN for years and I do think that a lot of posters are more unpleasant now then they were years ago . I think in the change has been subtle over a while .

I was empathising on a post earlier where op was having a shit time and I got jumped on by someone telling me I'm punching below and all sorts

It happened to me too at the start of the year, I posted an OP under a different username about something I was struggling with and I got the most nasty, cruel replies. They made me burst into tears to be completely honest. Then when I asked Mumsnet to delete the post they were reluctant to; I think I had to ask them three times.

Oh sweets! I’m sorry, that sucks people can be real arses!

i saw one a while back of a PP who was working and was asking if she could claim PIP to finance therapy because she’d been a victim of childhood sexual abuse and there wasn’t anything on the nhs, she’d been getting flashbacks following a baby and it was impacting her a lot . The responses were vile. If she’d gone into have a kid the childhood rapes couldn’t have been that bad, and maybe she shouldn’t be a burden on the public purse and should just stop thinking about it. I mean maybe PIP isn’t the right funding stream therapy but Christ it was like empathy had left the chat.

My impression now is that there are a lot of people who aren't really interested in the topic...let alone the specific OP question.

These people jump onto many threads and come up with brief, weird nonsense posts contradicting others to get attention and troll others into answering them.... especially if OP sounds vulnerable or posters are having a good, helpful, informative, authentic thread.

I've had the nonsense posts, tbh I just skip over them rather than reply.

Assume they're trolling for kicks, trying to get the person they've addressed to then "explain themselves". So best to ignore

Such a weird post. Why?

I saw a post earlier where someone was saying that it’s like people jump to get a punch in for the first comment. I always think imagine if they have no one to speak about their problems to in real life and then they get hopped on here. It’s getting extremely mean here lately in general, race to the bottom doesn’t touch it

Yes I see it plenty. Agree with you totally. Wouldn’t say they were men though… definitely more likely to be women. There are some wonderful, kind individuals on here and also some real horrors who seem to be on a mission to attack people and or drag up their past post history. No need to advance search anyone unless they say ‘as per my previous thread’.

I've been here well over a decade I don't think the nastiness has changed at all tbh. The humour has gone, but so have the cliques.

If you post for advice on here you need to be ready for what's coming, it's not for the fainthearted.

I do think most threads give very useful dispassionate advice of the kind that it's hard to get offline - most friends won't tell you to LTB or suck it up and be kind to your MIL, no matter how much they think it.

There are occasionally posts that would take your breath away with the nastiness though.

Strange conclusion, no men in my life would act like that?

I think this is part of the problem tbh, people expecting something different.

Mothers should be sweet and kind and warm and supportive. But really, for the longest time, MN is an internet forum populated by women rather than a group of supportive women online. If that makes any sense.

If responses wouldn't suprise you on Twitter or Reddit they shouldn't surprise you here.

Yes but it's a good exercise for me in not getting defensive because that's something I struggle with and if I perceive something to be rude then I can overreact when perhaps the person was being more straight talking than rude. So I have learnt not to jump to defence mode immediately and reply politely instead.

It does get hard when you want to post something personal, hard not to get defensive if you get criticism in that case but at the same time if you need advice this place has a lot of traffic. People can certainly be vicious on here and I'll bet it's put a lot of people off asking for advice and/or made them feel worse.

@CelesteCunningham yes you're probably right. I don't use twitter or Reddit and only use FB anonymously for access to health support groups. This I did expect to be more as you alluded to. Romanticising 😄