AIBU to think many Mumsnet replies are overly aggressive and shaming?

[EdgyCrow]

To think that MN is full of people just wanting to argue?
I read so many threads that are generally about a specific experience someone is having and many of the responders are so aggressive. Shaming them, making them feel like terrible human beings. I wonder if a friend or even just someone they met in a shop brought up such an experience, whether they would reply in such a blunt manner? You always find reasonable people in the comments who genuinely want to help/support/ offer a different opinion but the majority tend to be along the lines of 'Jesus Christ...' 'I hope he leave you and finds someone better' or 'this must be rage bait'. When its just someone living in a different way to you?

It’s interesting you say about Reddit, I find it much more friendlier than here. Even if I did make it on the mumsnet trolls subreddit once 🫠

People will pick one tiny thing out of a post and pile on - even when the tiny thing is totally irrelevant.

arseholes

Yes, people deliberately want to argue the opposite, I find it pathetic.

I think you've hit the nail on the head here.
Some people just come on here to be nasty.
They don't even read the OP properly, let alone think about it.

Yes, I was called a twat for encouraging a man to pick up a massive poo his dog had just left. The man had his head buried in his phone and he had no idea his dog was pooing.

@WildLeadera raft of twats. That’s really tickled me!

@WildLeadersorry for double post on same issue.

”Scroll on seagull” 😂😂😂😂😂😂

You should write professionally!!!!

Yeah if I read ‘do you lack reading comprehension skills?’ one more time …

Aw thanks. 😆

Now I had better go hide from the rafts and seagulls 😆😆😆

I agree, OP. As someone else said, it’s sometimes even completely innocent threads that end up this way.

One that really sticks in my mind is a thread about going back to the office post-Covid. It got into the area of what to wear, and I was talking about how, even though my office had a very casual dress code, some people still tried to make themselves look important by adopting a smarter version - in the case of the women, long sleeved dresses and high boots.

My god, the vitriol. I was the most stupid person in the world; everyone knows what women wear that sort of thing to the office, it’s perfectly normal, what was wrong with me that I would even suggest this was unusual for an office. It didn’t matter how many times I pointed out that I was talking about MY very casual office; I was still apparently too stupid to leave the house.

What makes it worse is that the most vitriolic criticism usually comes from people who have completely misunderstood the thread and/or its responses.

As on any forum and being anonymous it allows people who like to unpleasant to be so. Some comments I think my word, is picking up a tiny detail in a post mean so much to you? Very sad.

I'm probably being awful saying this!

I remember reading once that health visitors tell people not to use Mumsnet, as “it’s so confrontational”. You see, Mumsnet has a reputation to uphold.

There was a horrible thread yesterday with an obvious upset OP, a couple of posters just wouldn’t let it go, kept interjecting all the time with unhelpful nasty comments. Pointless

This is very sound advice.

There's a poster who is always having a go at me in particular. There's no need for it!!

And yet you say it’s ‘pure entertainment’ for you.

Did you stand up for the people being attacked on the baby on board thread?

Health Visitors generally get a very hard time on Mumsnet, almost as bad as MILs.

It’s bad really that a site for parents hosts so many negative reviews of the service. I’m sure it must put people off accessing the care and support that HVs offer.

I think other posters need to call out nastiness on here. Otherwise these people will just keep getting away with it unchecked. A bit of shaming on here does sometimes shut them up. I regularly tell people that there’s no need to be so nasty, I once told a poster exactly how disgusting it was to pick on someone about a petty thing after she’d come on seeking advice about domestic abuse. She stopped posting after that

I don't think some people actually realise how abrasively they come across. I also know people IRL who are often the same. They'll complain about how horrible somebody was, when I've only ever found them to be lovely; and it turns out that they speak to them like dog dirt that they've just stepped in and are astonished that they didn't respond to them with doormat-like sweetness and light.

Maybe it's an inability to fully understand which parts of the internet are driven solely by bots and which ones involve actual people? We've all smiled at older people who are new to the internet and who ask Google a super-politely-worded drawn-out question rather than just entering three or four salient words; but I think it can work the other way too, with people exhibiting signs of main character syndrome who think that other human participants are only there as accessories to their own lives, with no feelings or value of their own.

It shocks me how rude some people are. They are usually leaping to conclusions. A few months ago, I commented on a thread about autism and a poster told me something like I was naive and stupid and knew nothing about autism. I took great pleasure in telling her that I am autistic!

On another thread about immigrants, I had a lot of posters piling on telling me that I had said X and thought Y. Neither was true. When I tried to explain again what I had meant, which I think was actually perfectly clear in the first place, I got even ruder comments along the lines of I was the biggest lier on the planet and thick to boot.

All the threads that ask for opinions on whether the poster or their DC could be neurodivergent (especially if it’s ADHD) attract rude comments - usually stuff like people only get a diagnosis to use as an excuse for bad behaviour and to get accommodations at work or school that they don’t need. Oh and then there are numerous people that say they have come up with a theory that excessive screen use causes ADHD. And there’s always people coming along to say that is over diagnosed and half the people who have a diagnosis are misdiagnosed. All the above is wrong. When I try to explain why it’s not true and give links to proper information, I invariably get a very sarcastic reply.

I actually love a good debate on here and don’t mind at all when people have the opposite opinion but I really hate it when people tell me I am naive/stupid etc and refuse to accept factual information from good quality sources. (On the thread I mentioned above about immigrants, I posted an article from the BBC website and everyone told me it wasn't true because it was published by the BBC but obviously nobody had any actual evidence for what they were saying).

It seems to me that some people aren’t able to look at things from another’s perspective only their own narrow lens. They either can’t or won’t try and put themselves in another’s shoes and consider how they might like to be responded to. Some have low tolerance for others but can’t just let it pass them by they have to say something derogatory or rude.

I can’t read thread where two posters have derailed the original post and then write many lengthy posts to prove how right they are. I don’t know who has the time to be so relentless with their posting to people they don’t know. I’ve noticed a lot recently that unless the op covers all bases assumptions will be made and others will respond to the op according to what they think has been written not what has actually been written.

Some people are arseholes and being rude on an anonymous forum is what makes them tick.

It shocks me how rude some people are. They are usually leaping to conclusions. A few months ago, I commented on a thread about autism and a poster told me something like I was naive and stupid and knew nothing about autism. I took great pleasure in telling her that I am autistic!

Probably the same kind of nasty idiots who angrily approach people using disabled parking spaces - with their blue badge clearly on display - and rebuke them as frauds because "You don't look disabled to me!"

I hadn’t really been on MN for years & returned recently as I was seeking advice on university applications, I was astounded at the vitriol on many posts.

Ooh, is it?

BRB.... 😂

At the risk of proving your point, it is time for the daily ‘MN is so meeeaaannnnn’ post?

People know the kind of replies they are likely to get. If they want something more gentle then some of the boards are fine but AIBU is always a snake pit