To ask whether anyone else has noticed this phenomenon?

[proximalhumerous]

Whereby someone posts an AIBU thread and another poster comes along with a tenuously-linked scenario in which they are clearly not being in any way unreasonable and proceeds to get very offended, indignant and self-righteous.

For example:

OP: AIBU to think you shouldn't buy a pet if you are not able to look after it?

Outraged Poster: Well we bought a dog to have as a family pet and we loved it very much, but then my husband had a freak accident at work and all his fingers and toes fell off, and my DS developed a life-threatening allergy to dogs and then my MIL, my best friend, my next-door neighbour and my beautician passed away, and I was diagnosed with acute housemaid's knee in both knees so I couldn't walk more than half a dozen paces, but if you want to judge us for not coping and for asking my sister to look after DDog for two weeks while I recovered then you go right ahead!

Or something to that effect...

In the example you give the poster is really just saying if people get a dog then their circumstances can change and they can become unable to look after it through no fault of their own. Which I think is a fair enough point.
And posters often tend to process an OP in the light of their own experiences and this influences their answer.
Given all the nasty replies on MN I think you are being very unreasonable and critical of posts which the OP, and anyone else that wants to, is free to ignore.

Internalise, exaggerate, shut down the other person. Because they can’t handle the truth.

Of course it's a fair enough point. And clearly not remotely what the OP had in mind!

I hope it's clear that I'm only specifically criticising a post that is entirely made up...

It's when the poster projects and posts shite like that having a pop at the OP then the same PP aggressively jumps on every post that doesn't validate their world view for the next 10+ pages of the thread that gets me. Let it go!

I've noticed that people do like to post that they are not/don't do etc x,y,z when it seems obvious, to me anyway, that the poster was generalising or clearly didn't mean people like them/doing what they do. (If that make sense 🤔, lol)

Yes, they'll post a very specific, niche set of circumstances where whatever it is is not unreasonable but that the OP clearly didn't have in mind.

OP: AIBU to tell my 15-year-old DD she should be revising for her GCSEs and not watching Bluey in her pyjamas every day?

Outraged Poster: My 15-year-old DD is severely disabled and Bluey is one of the very few programmes that she enjoys watching.

YANBU! It's often obvious (and posters repeatedly point out) that the thread doesn't apply to them; but they're insistent in being 'wronged'.

Sometimes tiresome, sometimes hilarious and sometimes I just want to comment in a way that validates, in the hope they can move on.

Yep.

I'm not always entirely sure whether they're being obtuse, provocative, disingenuous or just a bit dim.

Yes. Or someone will post, eg, ‘As a pedestrian, I hate it when drivers splash me by driving carelessly through a puddle’ and someone else will reply ‘Well I’m a driver and I never do this, and anyway pedestrians do bad things as well’. Like… so what? If you don’t do that thing then the post… isn’t about you?

They're providing an example that might get you to think a bit more broadly about the other person's circumstances. (Which you never really know).

MN's never been any different, that's why it's so funny at times!

I do think some posters just click from thread to thread, hoping to leap in and post a left field rant that has little to do with what the OP is actually saying.

"I need to lose weight because I look terrible at the moment".

"Oh, so all us fatties should be locked away incase we offend the delicate eyes of those who think we look terrible??? You fat shamer, you!"

🙄 but also 🤣

Like accusing people of being ‘disablist’ for judging those that leave the house / go to a hotel breakfast in their PJs. You have the ability to get out of your bedroom / house. You are not so disabled you can’t throw some clothes on.

I remember someone making up an example of this once.

AIBU to think you shouldn't keep your kids off school for no good reason?

Reply: Well I've kept mine off. It's April 15th 1912 and my kids go to school on the Titanic!

This reminds me of the lockdown threads where people were commiserating about juggling school work and work & so many posters responded with "shouldn't have dc if you can't look after them".

Oh my gosh I hate these.

Like , someone asks, are more people taking the piss around getting of work with back injuries?

And someone say, you ass-hole, how could you say that, I fell of a roof and fractured my spine and 20 other bones when working in my 20s and now am frozen up with arthritis and on benefits! Why are you encouraging hate?

And they can't seem to understand that the OP is not talking about people who actually have medical issues with their back that preclude working.

It's all about them, and their situation.

And the worst thing is, you get like 5 of these people on the thread who make it impossible to talk about the actual topic, and tell everyone how awful they must be.

It’s quite a thing to observe. I came to the conclusion that’s it’s deliberate. It could be considered gaslighting.

If people start a thread along the lines of:

AIBU to think you shouldn't buy a pet if you are not able to look after it?(I know it’s just an example but there are often threads that are more or less like this)

they are hardly going to get responses saying:

YABU People should get pets even if they know they can’t look after them.

So basically, except for the type of responses you describe, it would be 100% YANBU.
It’s not even really an AIBU. It might as well just be Let’s all have a rant about irresponsible pet ownership.
So people are unreasonable to start those kinds of threads in the first place imo.

I guess it's a type of straw man argument. Attacking a misrepresentation of what the OP said rather than responding to the point they actually made.

Yes. Sometimes I wish there was a “FFS” reaction.

I think often it's because people are very self-absorbed. I find you can always tell with threads that start, "See, ..." or, Me being me..." and similar openers.

Just saw something similar online. Although this one is probably more down to not great comprehension skills.

Ugh. See the entire “performance parenting” thread.

Just to add, I realise this isn't the same as what OP was referring to, but thought it funny anyway.

Oh God yes that was painful.

So many people deliberately misunderstanding what performance parenting is, just so they could have their little ranty tangents.

I think one or two really didn't understand what it is but they were in the minority.