Are people on mumsnet reflective of the online world?

[Ineverlose]

I used to love Mumsnet and it nearly always made me laugh, cry, giggle, or engage in some way. Over the last couple of years I’m increasingly horrified by it. Some of the comments I read today were so cruel that they stunned me. And this happens all the time. Aibu to think this is reflective of humanity having been on social media for 20 years and this is simple the way the online life is now? (Or has society itself become crueller? )

Most of Mumsnet is awful.

Some of it is ok and supportive.

My real life friends give me better advice than on here

I don't doubt that they have, but people really are becoming more selfish and nasty. I don't believe MN is any worse than other online forums however, people think they can say whatever they want online.

Indeed they do, but MOST are from the UK and it's often quite obvious that they do live there from their posts.

Actually (and it may depend which threads you are following) many many contributors are sane, witty, literate, eloquent, empathetic, kind and supportive, capable of grasping complex issues and of deploying reasoned arguments. (Not necessarily all of those things simultaneously,) And this makes Mumsnet very unreflective of many Pits of Hell in the online world.
Other contributors are . . . well, not so much of a pleasure to read. And really low on comma skills. And stunningly prone to misread (or only half read) the original post at the start of a thread. And therefore more reflective of the online world elsewhere.

Exactly! I'd put money that the miserable posters are from England

It’s also full of lies and trolls. I truly believe no one is honest here, or it’s a minority

Incidentally, I have been posting on another thread where I shared some (light) professional expertise to an OP who showed appreciation. The same thread has several posters rejecting the expertise as improbable (not just mine, FWIW) and refusing to believe that posters have the insight they are claiming. I am highly experienced in the subject and in real life, very sought after for my expertise.

My point is that MN can be a great source of expertise that you might not otherwise be able to access. Obviously you have to be discerning about who / what you choose to take on board, but it's a shame to reject it all out of hand.

You have to read between the lines I think. A calm, factual well written response that gets calm factual well written agreement from other posters is likely to be reliable. People who advise that way tend to just say what they have to say and leave it there. They know they're right, they've told the OP, and typically don't care whether the argumentative randoms agree or not. The angry shouty posts where its obvious the poster very much wants a thing to be true, because its 'fair', not so much.

I always wondered if that was a load of Tory bots, thinking that most MNstters fit that profile, when a large proportion don't. They really did seem to be trying to convince people and were using the SEND arguement to defend their point, which is a genuine reason, but I have a child with SEND and it annoyed me they were using that arguement just to try and get people to vote a certain way because of a policy that affected THEM.

I think there are a lot of fantasists and some who are just angry people who can't fathom an opinion different to their own. I'm always dubious about the I earn 200k a year types who post 50 messages a day. There are a lot of incel types pretending to be women too.

I think there is a level of anxiety and paranoia here that I don't see in real life. Example: the numerous women who have never eaten by themselves- even in a a cafe- because what will people think?

That is true, see also people who refuse to answer their front doors, huge amounts of health anxiety-related posts and people unable to navigate real life situations by just talking to the others involved.

You, like many others, have answered the question “is MN reflective of real life?”, which isn’t what OP asked.

However you have indirectly answered her actual question because it stands to reason that people with anxieties about real life will seek refuge online. Particular parts of the online world though- I think perhaps anxious people are more drawn to anonymous text-based forums where opinions are shared, rather than Insta/Tik Tok/Facebook which is more about pictures and posting info about what you are doing in real life.