The Psychology of those who look to depress others

[Outseyeder]

This situation has created a unique opportunity for a particular group of people. Those who gain enjoyment and self-esteem from controlling others emotions, specifically people who are looking for reassurance about when the existing restrictions might be eased.
The pattern is now quite clear. First there is an OP saying words to the effect of "when do you think we will have a normal life again". Sometimes there are specific variants like "Am I being optimistic booking a holiday for x date".
You can almost smell the glee in the Controllers' when they see post like this (or are they planting them there themselves??). They pounce with a formulation along the lines of "if you think this is going to be over by y you're going to be sorely disappointed. I think it will be at least z...." with some added justifications and virtue signalling. The Controllers seem to have engineered a sort of reverse takeover of MN, especially this section, and lurk and lurk waiting to pounce.
It is hard not to conclude that these people are absolutely REVELLING in the lost quality of life of others around them, and their great ally is uncertainty. This allows them to make prediction after prediction, once they have assessed the expectations of the other side which they want to undermine. They will never ever admit to being what they are, but they are all over this website at the moment and it is time they were called out.

@tobee

It's not even opinions people are offering though, which would be fair enough, it's stomping all over anxious and hopeful people's opinions with size 10 hobnail boots. And they certainly don't tolerate anyone else's opinion.

If people really just think it's a fair opinion then they need to read a few more threads.

And they are not confined to the Covid board.

This in spades.

If you dont agree with all the doom mongers you get shouted down and called names. They cannot bear anyone to be having any kind of hope never mind fun in thier lives.

They infiltrate every thread they can just to put people down.
MN is not a nice place to be any more. Its a shame they get away with spoiling it for every one else.

If i see dickheads saying 'i dont want to hear things that aren't overly optimistic' i think tough shit.

Literally no one has said that though, have they.

@ChimaeraEgg

If i see dickheads saying 'i dont want to hear things that aren't overly optimistic' i think tough shit.

Literally no one has said that though, have they.

Yes they have.

Its really bloody pissed me off because theyve gone on several threads that they dont want any measured stuff because its pessimistic.

Im not pandering to it.

Had enough of that after 5 years.

If you mean on the occasions that people wade on to the Good News Thread to play another round of 'let me give you a dose of realism' fair enough, people do give short shrift to that and I have myself. It's not the place. It's a collation of good news sources.

This is so depressing. Drains / Dementors. Such horrible language. We're in a terrible situation, and for me the 'Radiators' are really dangerous. But all the criticism is directed at the realists. Believe Johnson all you like folks, but it won't help you.

“Why do some people seem to enjoy trying to depress others?”
“How very dare you, I do not enjoy depressing others.”
Well then she’s not taking about you is she, fuck’s sake.

For the twenty-seventh time, there is a difference between being pessimistic and the revelling in doom that the OP is talking about.

Scenario 1:
“This new coronavirus thing won’t come to anything” - optimist
“I suspect this is going to be the next big pandemic” - pessimist
“The NHS is going to crumble under the weight of all the severe injuries from riots and the staff all fleeing their posts and we all need to accept that” - weird.

Scenario 2:
“I think there will be vaccines in under 12 months” - optimist
“I think there will not be vaccines for two years at the earliest” - pessimist
“People need to grasp that it’ll take five years to develop even the most vaguely effective vaccine, I’m afraid” - weird.

Scenario 1, the pessimist was right. Scenario 2, the optimist was right. In neither scenario was the third person adding anything useful.

@willow If you dont agree with all the doom mongers you get shouted down and called names. They cannot bear anyone to be having any kind of hope never mind fun in thier lives.
They infiltrate every thread they can just to put people down.
MN is not a nice place to be any more. Its a shame they get away with spoiling it for every one else.

Terms used in this thread by "optimists" to describe others:

crabs,
doom mongers,
dementors
controllers
social vampires
joy-suckers
miserable fuckers
glee
revelling
Tribe Gloom
drains
infested

Terms used by those defending a more realist position:

daft
wildly optimistic
groundless optimism
wishful thinking
ignorant science deniers
dickheads (love you, RTB!)

@GoldenOmber, so who are the crabs infesting this thread, then, if it's not any of us?

I've been on a tonne of threads, giving realistic information, based on actual research.

I've also simultaneously read the commentary about those threads in the anti-dementors chat.

Damn straight they're talking about us. I'm just pre-menstrual and calling that shit out today!

[quote Nellodee]@GoldenOmber, so who are the crabs infesting this thread, then, if it's not any of us?[/quote]
I haven’t said any crabs are infesting this thread.

Once again, if you are not a person who takes joy in dooming at others, then the thread is really not about you.

However, if you come in swinging with this “how dare you use that language about my team! We are merely the realists who can accept truth, unlike you naive Pollyannas!” attitude, then you are saying you are one of the people the OP’s talking about. You’re saying that’s ‘us’, your team, your tribe.

Frankly I have no ducking idea how anyone thinks it’s helpful to divide into ‘tribes’ on this and come marching in to defend ‘the realists’ against ‘the optimists’ as if there can only be two camps and once you’re a Shark you’re a Shark all the way, but it’s a very human trait I suppose.

"dementors" are people that say the following, all of which I have seen on multiple threads and all of which are completely unnecessary and utterly stupid:

"Literally sobbing and shaking"
"you are murdering people by adding non essential items to your shopping"
"schools wont be back until at least 2022"
"life will remain this way FOREVER"
"Lockdown should be enforced by the army until 2022""

By this rationale, its a miracle we recovered from the spanish flu!

I've been on a tonne of threads, giving realistic information, based on actual research.

So have I. 🤷‍♀️

FFS this thread is nuts. The OP was only talking about people who answer a poster who asks a questions like "When do you think I can book a holiday" with bullshit like "Never I'm afraid. Sadly the world we knew is gone. Sorry."

Why do people assume she is talking about them personally?

How odd.

@HesterShaw1

FFS this thread is nuts. The OP was only talking about people who answer a poster who asks a questions like "When do you think I can book a holiday" with bullshit like "Never I'm afraid. Sadly the world we knew is gone. Sorry."

Why do people assume she is talking about them personally?

How odd.

Exactly.

A great example from my local FB page.

@Hollyhead

I think people are just different, but the thing is with covid restrictions, for the sake of your mental health, unless you're actually seeking information to inform yourself because you generally don't know, it's best to stick with your 'tribe'.

For example, I cannot cope with focussing on having the DC not in school after February HT. I do realise it MIGHT be Easter, but actually if I use that as the end date it makes me feel catastrophic. Whereas thinking about 'just 5 more weeks then we might get a break' really helps. Other people find this unsettling, and yes, I've been on the recieving end of 'you know there's NO WAY that's going to happen don't you?' When it's said to that, it feels a bit like being stabbed. However, these people are probably the opposite of me and can't focus it on being after HT becuase they'll feel too disappointed if it's not. So, for now i'm staying away from people who are more settled by pessimistic outlooks.

This is partly because cases are plummeting - people focus on deaths but in terms of covid decision making deaths are an irrelevant statistic - we know people will die if they get it. The only stats that really matter are hospital admissions/capacity and the number of cases. So actually, when I hear someone justify a pessimistic decision with 'deaths are too high' part of me does want to punch them just through sheer frustration!

I agree. The people I know in real life are fed up but optimistic and making plans because that's how we get through this. Others like to take a more pessimistic view. Everyone is entitled to feel how they feel but I prefer to be optimistic personally.

@GoldenOmber

A great example from my local FB page.

I find that initially funny myself, but then I can only imagine the kind of effect it would have on someone who is really struggling at the moment. And then it isn't funny at all - it's hateful.

Several people in this thread have talked about the thread being infested by crabs. I quoted them. I didn’t say “Everyone on this thread thinks I personally am a crab.”

Even if you are interpreting this thread in the most benign way, if you are joining in and calling people the names I listed earlier, you are still sneering at a group of people who aren’t you.

If you’re complaining that some people enjoy making other people feel miserable because it makes them feel better, and then you call that group of people a bunch of offensive names, aren’t you... kind of... doing the exact same thing? Or is it okay, because the people you’re calling names aren’t actually supposed to be reading your posts?

@GoldenOmber

A great example from my local FB page.

You see I read that as "what we used to consider as normal won't be normal in the future because it's likely that companies will change working patterns, there will be more working from home and flexible working, so telling you that the 8am train was busy in 2019 won't correlate at all into 2022."

Perhaps the main issue is social media and the influx of the written word (does no one actually have conversations any more?) which means that the same phrase can be read in 100 different ways by 100 different people.

I actually find those threads really annoying, when someone says "when do you think restrictions will end?" and then everyone gets cross with each others different suggestions. Nobody knows, nobody can predict, the people who say "tomorrow" are no more or less likely to be correct than the people who say "never". Its all pointless speculation.

The media are just as bad, headlines saying "so and so says lockdown will go on until September" or whatever. They might as well say "my nan says lockdown will be over by September". We dont know!

To be fair, I don’t go on Facebook much, and I haven’t read a lot of threads about putting cheese in milk.

Cheese in tea!

Nellodee it was on MN back in the spring. A poster was being admonished for having the audacity to need milk and go to the shop for it. Someone suggested that cheese in her coffee instead was the least thing she could do to stop people DYING, which is what would DEFINITELY happen if she went to the shop.

I really hope that particularly poster is embarrassed now.

Yes I work with a fucker that revels in others misery. She was like that before this. The psychology behind it being she is a boring verse with no life and lie self esteem that loves to see others feeling miserable.

Terms used in this thread by "optimists" to describe others:

crabs,
doom mongers,
dementors
controllers
social vampires
joy-suckers
miserable fuckers
glee
revelling
Tribe Gloom
drains
infested

Yes these are ad hominem attacks. An attack on the person instead of that persons debating position. It isn't much of an argument, just endless name calling and an element of shoot the messenger

A reasonable discussion might go

Person1. "I don't think this virus will ever go away because science says blah blah blah ..."

Person2. I disagree with your position because other science says blah blah blah. ..."

This is reasonable debate because the people are attacking each others positions but not each other personally

But if person 2 were to say "You're just a dementor, a crab, spreader of negativity, a joy sucker who wants me to put cheese in my milk, seek mental health support" and so on, then it's a way, in their mind, to cancel not only an opinion but the person themselves

There is also the irony of accusing others of negativity by starting a thread dedicated to negative name calling. Infact this is one of the most negative, and divisive, threads I've ever seen on MN and that's saying something