To think MN is basically is drowning in fantasists?

[Staggeredatthisadmission]

Who can you actually believe on MN? We spend hours…days…reading posts, debating, giving advice and genuinely becoming invested in other people’s worries, only to find out later down the line that they were in fact fake. Why? Some recent threads have been so upsetting that you almost feel you are living through it with them…and then they’re gone without a trace.

Is it a reflection on our own lives that we become invested in these posts. Does it say more about us than them? Are we using MN because we ourselves are lacking friendship or to fill a void?

I don’t see begging threads any more — are they still happening? Mn certainly had a policy of posting about not giving people money on any threads that seemed to be implicitly asking for financial help at one point.

I miss the parking threads. There have been some great ones in the past.
Does everyone have their own space to park these days?

To answer your last question, in my case, yes: I use MN because irl I lack friends who are in the same stage of life. I also hate mums groups, so... I'm stuck here, I guess 🤣

You're overcomplicating what is really very simple.
If it's getting clicks on MN it'll get clicks on the Daily Mail when the Daily Mail write "MN poster said this and got these outrageous replies".

You can tell what's getting clicks on MN as they have a Trending list.

Not sure why you think a MN staffer would need to copy and paste the trending list to send to a journalist. What paper is going to pay for that?

So the bf didn’t say all that to his mates then? Do they put the fake threads on for traction and love it when they see them filling up to volume 4? How very odd. Imagine what that person is like IRL

Yes I always wonder how many posts are indeed genuine but skeptics report them and in a flash they disappear without trace. MN will sometimes say ‘we are investigating behind scenes’ but how many threads that turn out to be real are ever reinstated?

The ones that annoy me the most are when people accuse anyone with a decent salary of lying! People don't seem to grasp that having a high salary doesn't equate to not having feelings or mulling things over.

Agreed. [ETA I was agreeing with, I think, @Stairsdown’s deleted post] And that level of investment is mildly scary to me even when there’s no evidence the thread is not entirely genuine. I once had a thread on here that got a big following — more of a mildly cheery suspense situation than any kind of a crisis, but, like an idiot, and slightly dazzled by the attention at a rather lonely stage in my life, I continued it to two or more subsequent follow-on threads. I ended up leaving the thread because I actually got a bit frightened of some posters’ insistent desire for updates. They were more invested than I was, and it was my life!

I posted something about 5 weeks ago of an upsetting nature. I don't use Mums net that often. I was accused of it being fake and I was shocked. How could someone think I was making it up. . . . But now having read other "fantastic" threads I can see why they would think that.
P.S. I had the thread taken down but it was extremely helpful in what was a rotten situation that I couldn't talk about IRL

Well to be fair, on the 'why hasn't my house sold' threads, the conclusion, if it's not price or a lack of brightly coloured plants by the front door, is that it's because it doesn't have off-street parking for seven vehicles, a boat trailer and a caravan. So, maybe?

I read threads because I find the psychology of humans very interesting. I post if I think I have anything to add, even just solidarity, because, even if it IS a fantasy and a story, all posts are a part of the whole. So I guess I read more as though I'm reading an interactive book than anything else.

Plus, one person's fantasy might be another person's reality, so any advice can be useful to someone.

I find this thread a bit disappointing, tbh. Imagine being new and bearing your soul seeking help to be accused of being fake. Surely the answer is to check whether the OP has posted anywhere else on the site? When I first joined only a couple of months ago, someone said I was an AI bot! Lol.

In my life I've had cancer, been widowed and witnessed a suicide, been in 3 seriously abusive relationships with narcs and attacked with a knife in two of these and moved about the country like a traveller. Does that sound real? Perhaps not - but it is. I feel that I have (now I'm older) experience that I would like to share with other women to empower them. No one has to take the advice from any of us, but it helps for people to feel heard, I believe.

I comment when I feel something useful or additional to what's already been said. If someone else said it first, I don't echo it, but I will say I agree.

MN for me is like having a group of supportive acquaintances and I for one really appreciate that. I have friends but I can't speak with them sometimes. Garlic style said "you'd be lucky to find a group of real-life friends who know as much, about so many diverse topics, as Mumsnet!" and I really agree with that. Why can we not support each other rather than bring each other down? This is why a patriarchy survives IMO - because we aren't sticking together.

I think you get to know them after a while on MN. I'm not saying I don't get taken in by plausible threads - or that some outlandish stories are actually true (I could post some true stories from my life that would get people screaming troll!) - but there's a certain style these posters have that piques my suspicion.

Mumsnet is the last place I’d be updating if I had a seriously sick child, so I’m definitely wary about those threads.

I just see all threads as entertainment, something to pass the time , it doesn't matter to me if it's true or not. I've often wondered why it matters to mn as well , I mean if a thread is getting engagement and not gone totally off the rails , the why delete it ?

Was this about their sex life?

Was the 10 year-old child with a brain tumour thread fake?

Every day on the school run I see someone literally parking in the driveway of a big house to collect their child, they just sit there with the engine running, and I'm just waiting for the owners of the house to start their MN thread about it because I can't believe the brazenness of some people! I'd never come across this phenomenon of people parking in other people's drives before and it's a regular occurrence with this one drive and a pair of seriously CFs who seem to race each other to park in there.

I contributed to a post about a TA who had been told off by an SLT member for going to the toilet. She had had bowel surgery. The thread disappeared, was it fake or was it removed?

But maybe they know the people who live in the house and have their permission? I know someone who lived close to DS’s first primary had an informal agreement with one or two parents that they could pull into her drive on the school if necessary. (Though, from what I remember, the arrangement ended once someone else, a total stranger, decided the offer was open to him too…?)

They’ve done that a few times recently. Said ‘Ok, letting it stand despite all the reports’.

I think sometimes threats start out real but people get caught up in the drama.

I don't think there are as many fake threads as there used to be or maybe I don't notice. I do remember lots of threads posted by a woman who was apparently really poorly, a frequent hospital patient, so much so she apparently had a new hospital wing named after her. I thought she wasn't real when she posted an update to her many ailments while being blue lighted to hospital. Now, if you are in the back of an ambulance leg hanging off and baby hanging out, blue lights and sirens blaring why the fuck would you be posting on Mn. Hmmm very dramatic! Can't remember her name now but it was something like seaside.