To think some people are so thick it’s almost beyond parody

[Annecydrone]

Photo on local history Facebook group. A beautiful Georgian mansion, taken in the 1930s. The post clearly explains that the mansion was demolished in the 1950s after a devastating fire destroyed most the structure, at which time it was in private hands. There’s a second photo of the shell of the building post-fire, clearly showing all but one wall standing.

Comments underneath include people
blaming the council for not preserving the mansion, demolishing it for “profit” at the behest of “developers” (despite the council not owing it, selling it or giving permission to build on it); how the failure to preserve the mansion was “woke” and shows the left’s disrespect for our heritage; several entirely serious posts about the land probably being used for a Mosque.

The land where it stood is still empty and still privately owned (as far as I can see).

Are people genuinely this stupid or are they keen to shoehorn their political views into literally anything?

Yes. A fair few people are stupid.

A lot of those comments are posted by bots to rile people up.

FB is basically all AI and bots now.
The more stupid comments the more engagement with the post.
So you have people correcting the stupid comments and people believing the bots

Some people are definitely as thick as two short planks

i agree about 90% of what I read on social media now (including on here? Not sure about the amount, I do think FB and X are worse) appears to be monetised rage bait, presumably by bots or in some cases actual people sounding like a bot. So I wouldn’t assume it’s any kind of reality beyond the buying of our attention and emotions. Depressing though I agree.

I work in retail. It staggers me how some people manage to put one foot in front of the other without supervision.

Yes, people are thick.

Being thick as shit these days is seen as a good thing, look at half the pricks on TV.

Didn’t see it so much years ago, they weren’t allowed out.

While I agree that it’s bots and rage-baiters more than stupidity in that specific case, yes, there’s a lot of under-informed people around. Those Mn threads intended to be funny (which invariably feature envelope necks on babygros and the Channel Tunnel disappointingly not being a transparent tunnel along the sea bed from which you can wave at fish and submarines) are actually pretty frightening.

A lot of the comments on Facebook are ragebait and bots. I've given it up because there's just no point to any of it any more.
Some people are very thick, though; including some of the decently educated ones.

You would think that anyone on a History page would be not too thick!

I think people don't always read the article properly and just jump straight into comments - a bit like on MN when someone asks for ideas about a Xmas gift for a five year-old girl... at least one person will ask is it for a boy or girl? 😊

No. Our local Facebook has more than it's fair share of idiots. They're not AI nor bots, because they're people I see out and about in real life, walking their dogs, in the shops, their profiles show their pictures at local events, etc.

It's too easy to blame "bots" for everything.

A lot of "real" people are idiots, have VERY extreme political views (both left and right), blame "the council" for everything (without doing the simplest of research as to which council is responsible for everything, or not responsible at all.

But I also think a lot of it is that a huge proportion of people are unhappy over the past 10-20-30 years, unhappy with politicians, unhappy with the state of the country, unhappy with rising prices/low wages, etc., and it spews out in social media vents as they've no other way of "protesting" as they see it.

Local Facebook pages are the absolute WORST - I'd like to think it's full of bots, but bots normally spell coherently and at least post sentences that make sense. I never thought I would be standing up for bot posts, but compared to some humans they seem rational and well thought out!

Many many posters here are thick, and I'm not just talking about comprehension skills. They can't get context or critical thinking and seem to be constantly misplacing anger. Thick and angry with Internet access, it's a recipe for disaster.

I once posted that 50 % of the population are of below average intelligence.

There was a bit of a "pile on" denying this and abusing my intelligence for not understanding statistics. 🙄

The number of rage bait posts on FB, particularly the local pages, that come from people who are clearly, functionally illiterate, as well as bigoted and extremist, offends me.

There was a study recently that said that up to 40% of all the posts on Facebook now are by bots.

They typically post stupid / rage bait to get you coming back to argue.

superfactful.com/2025/10/28/more-than-half-of-internet-traffic-is-bots/

Think of it as a good proportion of the population are below average intelligence.

I was about to point out that almost half the population have an IQ under 100…

Agree on the bots/ragebait as fact, but it's honestly one of my biggest peeves. These people walk amongst us, and locally, are invariably the loudest. It's lunked to entitlement too I find. We have a local ish discount/cash and carry type place (short dates etc) They posted this week that they have a stock of plain school uniform pieces, with pics of rails of trousers/polos etc. They are priced at £1.50 an item and Buy 2 get 3rd free. Some woman commented below tagging her mate 'That's not bad' - no doubt whilst eating a 4 quid 'loaded brownie' or somesuch.

This! I run a tiny YouTube channel and we often get awful comments. YouTube deletes them a few hours later because they're 99% bots.

It can be quite frightening as well! And causes some nasty arguments. It spirals very quickly from a lovely story to a full blown emotional argument.

Sometimes YouTube will remove the entire "argument" because its Bots arguing with Bots

Our channel is a very small and local one. Not very interesting to most people at all 🙈

Are people genuinely this stupid or are they keen to shoehorn their political views into literally anything?

It's both.

There are idiots everywhere, there are a fair full on MN who parrot the same response for the 250th time 20 pages in, when the OP has said they are doing xyz.
Why do some peeps write as if the OP is asking them directly and noone else?
It amuses me when someone will ask " Where is my local library / foodbank in place A?"
Then someone will helpfully reply "I don't know, I live in place M." [200 miles away]. If someone is ND I could understand it but it can't always be because of that.

Thickness seems to have become extremely prevalent in the past 20 years or so. All the smart tech is making people more stupid 😂

I think they're desperate to shoe horn their political views into everything and too stupid to know the difference between a good example and the rantings of a fool.

There's a name of someone I was once aquainted with in RL who often turns up on the LocalAreaLive comments and she's genuine. My experience of her in person was that she was entitled, whingy and not very bright, and her comments are true to that.

The average reading age is 9. Education standards are not distributed evenly. Some areas bias above average, some below. There are a lot of people who just barely function in life and are just about literate enough to post online. They'll tend to live in a small world with similar people with similar views with little awareness of the complexities of wider life.