Some people on here are ridiculously gullible

[SkipperTheEyeChild]

Honestly, some of the stories posted on here are so far fetched it’s laughable, yet people lap them up and spend hours earnestly replying.
Do people genuinely not question anything they read? Some of the threads are so obviously made up, I can’t believe how many people fall for them.

AIBU?

See also the “I’m down to my last 5p and have no formula for the triplets”

I wouldn’t assume that everyone who replies to a thread thinks it’s completely true or that replies are necessarily “earnest”.

People like giving advice and offering their opinion. It makes them feel good.

For lots of people MN is entertainment, or validation or a form of self soothing.

And why do you believe the responses are genuine?!

You need to report the threads, not break Talk Guidelines and claim they're fake on the threads themselves.

What I find even more gullible are the ones that are like 'I think X caused Y' or 'I think A do this more than B - what do you think?' but based entirely on 4 people they know and extrapolating to the entire country/ human race

The whole thing is just for fun. I'm sure no one believes them, it's all a bit of a soap opera.

I sometimes reply on threads that I suspect are less than truthful because I always think about a person in that situation for real searching for advice and coming against the thread. It might be fake in the original but someone might later suffer it for real and need the advice.

Yes! Always no family or friends, new area with no car, no ability to google food banks etc.

See it as interactive fiction - like those books where you chose your path.

What are people gaining from making things up though? They are just wasting time ? It’s a mystery to me.

I quite like a bit of cobblers really, lol. I was sat in the hospital waiting room for hours yesterday scrolling mums net and it was entertaining. Of course some of the stories are rubbish, but hey ho, got me through an hour .

Sometimes they are entirely made up
But sometimes i think there is some truth in them but the Op gets carried away and massivly exaggerates

I take every thread on Mumsnet as a hypothetical situation, that probably is happening to someone , somewhere out there.

I don't get over invested, I'm never outraged, and I like the predictability of seeing some utter nonsense in the right wing media getting it's own thread on here , complete with inaccuracies, bigotry and general nastiness ( motability thread for example).

I get pissed off at obvious trolling when MNHQ refuse to delete the thread and then sanction anyone who dares to suggest it’s a load of old pony. Seems very counterproductive to me and makes me inclined to think they don’t give a shit about credibility, just clicks and engagement. There are some which are probably started by MNHQ themselves to boost traffic.

I follow Judge Judy’s advice that if something doesn’t make sense then it’s not true, eg most of the threads on here where the op jumps the shark and vainly scrabbles to get their bollocks back on track.

As a childfree man, mumsnet is endlessly entertaining.
"mumsnet classics" is where its at.

I agree with this.

There was one thread that did end up being made up but I'd been through something incredibly similar so I did keep on replying to the OP but if someone else on that thread read it and was also going through similar then hopefully it was helpful to them.

Really didn't bother me that it turned out to be a troll, I wasn't emotionally invested. There are plenty of threads that people don't believe but others have been through themselves.

I’m finding the incessant flow of threads about immigration, benefit claimants and disability very tedious. I also find it depressing how inhumane a significant element of the human race is.

God yes, this is so true. I particularly like "self-soothing". It feels right and I'm going to have to think about it.

One of the other self-soothing things I do is biting my nails, and at least I can't bite them while my fingers are busy chatting passionate nonsense on MN, so there's that.

This is probably the best approach, but sometimes it’s almost painful to watch other posters clearly believing absolute nonsense.

This. It’s still nice to reply and it might help someone else who is reading. Which is why I don’t feel they all need to be deleted.

The point is that you have no idea what they believe, you only know what they write.

Also tone is subjective and is often misread.

I’ve been on MN for about 20 years. I’ve been accused of being “furious” when I wasn’t even mildly irked.

There are often threads suggesting that lots of posters are lying about their lives/incomes/houses/children. They point to posts which to me seem entirely believable.

If a situation is completely different to your own life it might seem unbelievable- that does not mean it’s necessarily made up.

You actually don’t know for sure what’s true and what isn’t either. You aren’t the oracle.
I have worked in mental health for 30 years and every time I think I have heard everything, patients surprise me. Human beings are pretty strange and unpredictable and illogical.

I think of most posts as a hypothetical scenario that sparks a debate. PPs get to give their opinion and you can see the range of different views and approaches. It keeps me in touch with views of women from different backgrounds and of different ages. So it doesn’t matter that much if it’s not real.

I've been on MN for about 18 years and it has definitely changed, I think I can spot some troll threads but many are more than believable.

I don't mean to be snarky but sometimes people are a bit superior about their amazing troll spotting abilities - so what if I get taken in by a perfectly believable story told by an OP. The trick is not to get over invested. Write a response, maybe engage a bit more then move on. I have no doubt replied to many a fabricated tale but it hasn't really done me any harm.

And as @CardboardScott has said, just because a situation is unrecognisable to you, doesn't mean it hasn't happened.

I’m disabled and I have found it hard to access support and find services.

i often post on relevant threads.

Google searches often pick up Mumsnet threads and (for example) I got lots of useful advice on braces for my teens.

so if the person posting doesn’t find it useful others might.

Yes, I have been told I'm upset or angry over things I was mildly curious about. When I've made my own OPs, I get told I'm too invested or making a mountain out of a molehill when really I'm just passing the time of day.

The one that always makes me laugh is "you bothered to make a post over this". Well yes, I had some time to kill and was mildly curious, thought it might make someone think or smile, but you've bothered to reply!

Softzilla is a prime example here. IYKYK.

Also a thread ages ago where an OP had discovered an affair, kicked her husband out, changed the locks, consulted a lawyer AND given birth. All in around 48 hours and all whilst being able to update multiple threads.