AITA - Why is everyone using this now?

[saveforthat]

I thought people were making typos, then I googled it, apparently it's am I the arsehole, used on reddit. AIBU to say this is AIBU?

Hate the word Arsehole.

It is annoying. Lots of Reddit stuff creeping into MN. 'Female (25)' is another Reddit thing.

YANBU.

See also: 'I (33F) and he (35M) went out with his DB (38M) and DBs new GF (28F).' I don't care how old you are, keep it on Reddit

I feel these could be very advanced AI LLM bots starting threads using what they learned from Reddit. "Bots" is almost doing it a disservice because the current range of LLM AI engines are light years beyond easily recognisable spam bots and fake threads. They may also be engineered to generate a fake posting history or create a digital footprint that most closely mimics a human profile (eg female 35, one child, problems with partner etc)

Anyone even vaguely familiar with MN knows the AIBU acronym so it makes no sense for someone to splash Reddit-isms all over their post. It does make sense if it's an AI model trained almost exclusively on American content because AITA is the most widely used abbreviation there. It's a very obvious slipup from a human POV, but not from an AI POV. If the AI hadn't been trained on content from British websites and MN, then it has no way of knowing that AIBU is more commonplace than AITA.

I think you're thinking too hard @User54614664 - more likely the average new mumsnet user grew up on Reddit in their early teens and now have those "tells" in their digital language

YABU as reddit is better than MN

You are probably right.

I’m pretty sure it’s AI.

I had to look this up today as I noticed it but had no idea what it meant. It's only been the last couple of days or so though, but that I've seen it a few times makes me think it must be AI generated as well.

I needn't have bothered looking it up though as DD(15) knew what it meant and I could have just asked her!

Honestly I like this cause it gives a quick background

But yes to "am I being unreasonable" being processed as am I the arsehole in my head

Come on now. You love it really /s

Technically it is Am I the Asshole? I think it originated on US Reddit. Another version of AIBU but edgier or coarser. If that's possible. I hate the word asshole even more than I hate the word asehole. If that's possible.

It brings up horrid visions of a sweaty, hairy male bottom for some reason.

Asshole doesn't sound nearly as bad.

We're British - it should definitely be AITC.

Ta-ra then. Don't let the door catch your arse on the way out 😁

Am I the Cad?

Maybe the thing to do, next time there’s an AITA thread, is ask the OP why they’re using it & see what they say.

Highly unlikely 😄

As a previous poster said, it’s much more likely that Reddit users are using MN more and are used to those abbreviations.

I think ages are really relevant in lots of threads 🤷‍♀️

It's come from Reddit but it's pretty universal online now. It's fine with me, and the me 32F and DH 34M usage is great, lots of info very quickly.

I prefer AIBU. It references the behaviour rather than the individual and doesn't turn fairly minor issues into huge ones, even when the poster isn't being entirely reasonable. eg. My late mother-in-law was a houseproud fuss-pot. I'd lather myself into a ridiculous state of anxiety before her visits because the house could never be up to her standards and her perspective was extremely gendered. It was decades before I really believed my DH when he told me I had nothing to prove to his mother, that not only were we not reading off the same menu, we weren't even sitting in the same restaurant! She wasn't some sort of monster and I was only BU insofar as I generated enough anxiety to power the national grid. Asking which of us was an unseemly body-part would have been overkill.

Platform migration is usually very unusual and difficult. People who use Tiktok don't move to Instagram and people who use Reddit don't inexplicably move to Mumsnet. Even successful companies or creators who actively attempt to get their followers to engage with them on a different platform find it extremely tricky. Humans are creatures of habit and one of the hardest things is letting go of something which already works and having to learn the ropes to something new, without any promise of a higher payoff.

The speed at which it happened (virtually in the space of weeks) suggests it's more of an orchestrated experiment or campaign. Another telltale sign is that Reddit still exists and runs perfectly fine. There's no reason for a mass exodus from the platform to MN and people suddenly dropping AITA jargon and Americanisms everywhere. When Trump/Musk started dominating Twitter, that was a very plausible explanation for why people move elsewhere. But absolutely nothing has happened over on Reddit. If anything, it's more popular now than at any point in history.

There seems to have been a big influx of 'man here' threads in the last few months too. Dunno if it's connected in some way.

I agree, if anyone here is also on Reddit please try and set a new trend.

Arsehole is a great word