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

That’s not your fault at all. There’s nothing worse than when that happens. Some people truly have nothing better to fill their day with, poor them. Hope you’re feeling better now x

How can you guarantee that? There are men on MN. There are men who come to MN with the express purpose of disparaging women (they boast of it on other forums) There are posters on MN who are so obsessive in their upholding of pro male (often anti female) viewpoints, it seems reasonable to believe they have skin in the game. So in what way are you able to guarantee that all the unpleasant posts are written by women?

Ahh I have been thinking this for a while now. Same on Reddit, and those mean comments are equally from men and women.

Is it stress that makes people lash out? Lack of autonomy? Lack of something, certainly.

Very few people would respond like that in person. Although some would I guess, but that doesn’t mean it is right.

And the patronising comments, ‘are you perhaps very young and inexperienced?’. Just, why? What went wrong in your life that that is deemed an acceptable way to communicate?

Kindness is such a great quality to endeavour to have.

It’s especially obvious when a mean responder either has to invent things the OP hasn’t said, or ignore things they have said in order to be as rude and obtuse as possible.

A (rather tame) example is a thread I remember by a poster who was in debt due to some bad spending habits. They were very honest about how the situation was their own fault and were asking for advice on how to change their behaviour, and one of the first responses was “You have to take responsibility and get your spending under control!” She just bloody said that! Such a stupid and redundant reply 🙄

I also remember a thread where a woman was panicking because she’d slept with her boss after a work do. Ok not great but hardly crime of the century. Everyone was rushing to gleefully tell her what little regard her boss would have for her now, how she should ‘forget about it because he already has’, how he was probably shagging half the office so she was nothing special. I thought to myself fuck me some women are so jealous and catty it’s sad.

The classic response is OP asks about something quite reasonable, or just wants to check their interpretation of something is correct, and someone feels they have to respond 'You sound like an absolute nightmare, OP' 🙄

I think that MN has always had a bit of a cruel underbelly. I agree that the cruelty is getting more overt.

For the most part, comments tend to be helpful. Thing is, it’s probably really hard to dismiss the nastiness when you’re at your lowest ebb - which posters often are. So they engage, feed the trolls and the whole thread gets derailed. And the trolls win.

There are some deliberately obtuse readers - or their ability to read and understand is non existent.

Those are the kind options!

And presumably it was deleted because it breached the guidelines.

Agree with this comment.

Simply disagreeing with someone isn't grounds for deletion, but I'm sure you know that.

I think posters need to stop for a moment - really stop - and wonder how they would actually feel in OP’s shoes, not just in an objective ‘this is how I should feel’ way. Would you really not be angry with the other woman? Not be annoyed at your MIL for letting your toddler play with a bottle of bleach? Be absolutely fine with your child being thumped at the soft play because the perpetrator has (not mentioned and purely speculative) SEN?

It's the internet. People lose their sense of proportion, there are no facial or body language cues, and the superego lets rip. Most people also lack critical thinking skills and just respond on instinct.

Also, when was the last time you met someone who considered that they had poor judgment? Think about it. But yet people do and say stupid shit all the time and defend it to the hills.

I always think of this when people say how hateful tattle is.

I think some people just aren’t very nice and have to work hard to hide it in their real lives. An anonymous site is where they can be their true selves 😂

I also believe (corny, but true) that happy people don’t bully. Maybe some posters are miserable and make themselves feel better by giving someone a kicking?

I've seen comments deleted purely because someone did disagree with them. Quite astonishing. I saw someone once bulldoze through a thread, called most of the posters shit parents and when people asked her to back off and said she was being a bully, MN deleted everyone else's comments and left hers up.

I have noticed the same, and yes I see signs here in England asking people not to abuse the staff. I link it with online anonymity making people feel free to insult total strangers, and lack of empathy perhaps caused by interacting with people who aren’t actually in your presence.

I think this has normalised a level of rudeness we weren’t used to before. That’s sad, and I think may spill over into real-life interactions.

Well, did anyone report her posts?

There seems to be a point of honour not to report posts but if they're abusive and offensive, why wouldn't you flag them to the mods?

Tattle is venomous to public figures but actually pretty nice within itself. I've seen people on here dispute that but I've been on there a while now and never had a poster be rude to me.

Of course she was reported. Lots of people said they reported her. I reported her too. It was really bizarre.

Quite a few years ago I posted on here asking for some advice about my dd. In context, she was having some difficulty with a teacher at school. She was just 5 at the time, I had very little support other than my DH (my mum died years earlier and I was very alone) so I asked MN.

Many of the responses I got were awful, for the most part suggesting I was wrong and my dd was in some way to blame for the situation with the teacher. So I left MN, I was really upset. Anyway, I ended up talking to other parents at school, many were having similar problems as my dd with this teacher. In short, the teacher was investigated and dismissed. Dd is now taking GCSEs, all is well with her.

I’ve come back to MN, really just to read the threads. Lots of good advice and interesting posts but some posts are really cruel.

I basically said words to this effect earlier on in the thread. That posters will cruelly say to OPs "your poor child, how could you" etc. I was told that no it didn't happen, they were just being told they were wrong. Thank you for confirming this and I'm glad it all worked out well for your DD.

Or someone who claims benefits in one way or the other or has social housing or wants to claim benefits etc

I’m with you on this. Lots of lovely people on here but some are vicious who can’t resist putting the boot in. Not just a difference of opinion, but nasty.

Funnily enough this isn't the first thread today that I've seen that same user name having stupid arguments making themselves look about 12. Seems like their parents need to switch the WiFi off for a bit...

I know the one that you’re talking about. That behaviour from admin really bothered me too - some very useful info being given by other posters but the OP just didn’t like the sound of being disagreed with