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?

Oh yeah, that too. People start claiming you’re not genuine if you leave the thread briefly to go to work, do a shop, have a wee…

Mumsnet just guess at least some of the time.

@kungfoofighting did MN give you any reason why they'd deleted you or ask you for any info that could prove you were genuine? Not doubting that you were btw, just being nosey!

I don't actually care as much as some people seem to about this, unless it's something horrible. I read and post on MN for entertainment really, so if some posts are fake, it doesn't do me any harm!

Don’t forget the educational institutions too; always a TOP grammar school or super-selective. God forbid anyone goes to a regular grammar school.

Someone mentioned a “famous” MN ghost story upthread, and I have to say I think that’s a different category as ghost stories are by nature more about the telling than the veracity. Look at the BBC Uncanny franchise; loved by believers and sceptics alike because it’s so entertaining. I love a good MN spooky thread, and the way some of the tales have passed into legend and always get retold for a new audience. Who can forget Southend nightclub ghost or time traveller Brownie? 😂

Not that I recall! It was just unceremoniously taken down and when I returned to it there was a message to everyone saying basically that it was a fake thread! But they didn’t consult me at all or ask any questions, they just decided it was.

It wasn’t anything particularly outlandish, the person I had been seeing (who I was also renting a spare room to) bought a girl back and had loud drunken sex in the bedroom above mine 😬🙈🫣 (This was about 2017, I’ve now been in a relationship for about 8 years so seems like another lifetime 😂) I waited for him to get up, asked him to leave and went out and treated myself to a fancy lunch and went shopping

It was really stressful and the supportive replies on the thread kept me going!

My partner is a freelance writer and was asked to do this for a client – rewrite stories from reddit and mumsnet for clickbait articles. They just want to generate content from somewhere.

@kungfoofighting OMG I remember that thread, in fact I'm pretty sure I posted on it (different UN back then)!! Bizarre MN decided you were trolling. Maybe you were at the shops/in the loo for too long 🤣.

@kungfoofighting I would have been quite cross if that happened to me.

I never really thought it through, but I always assumed MN would give a poster a chance to provide some kind of proof. A bit of a silly assumption now that i think about it😅

I posted on an incredibly mundane thread that got pulled for being fake. Honestly if your fantasy life's that dull, how fucking tedious must your real life be?
Assume that nothing on the internet's real, it's just quicker.

On every innocuous thread where an OP in a professional career wants advice, particularly if it's around whether to return FT after mat leave or go for a promotion while children are young, there's always, ALWAYS a poster who "used to work as a nanny for a rich family where both parents work" who tells stories about how the poor children were neglected and had no bond with their parents. Or some variation of that.

There's a lot of 'testing the fence' posts from Russian trolls trying to test where people's limits are.

Can you explain, @Pelot ?

I'm finding it pretty educational TBH and a lot of the advice on here is brilliant. And some of it is outright hilarious ....

I think the majority of threads are either complete fiction or contain a kernel of truth that's supplemented with a lot of exaggeration. Doesn't bother me at all, because even if the original post is totally fabricated the ensuing conversation can be really interesting.

I see it as a thought exercise: "What would I do if....?". But I never get invested; it's just entertainment (and a great way to procrastinate😂)

I don't really care if a thread is real or not.

I'm not giving anyone money and I'm just filling time really. I'm rarely emotionally invested.

So if it's someone making shit up, they're not taking anything away from me that I wasn't giving away for free 😀 and worth what they're paying for it.

Just in case anyone was wondering, a cone has gone up this week at the front of the driveway, so I don't think the occupiers want people parking in their driveway.

What about the woman with the DH having an affair and meeting in a Mayfair hotel? That just disappeared....

Yeah it’s something I’ve learnt in time too.
They are overly dramatic
Constant detailed updates
Subjects that they know will get people invested, emotionally charged
Provocative and winding people up
Threads where it’s unanimous they are being unreasonable but they seem perplexed everyone disagrees

It’s pathetic how many people do it, something wrong in the wiring somewhere.

What ive found funny the past few days is that netters all work and pull in 50 to 80k yet thread after thread about benefits being cut,
So many are so worried over it and in fear of losing topups and pip.
So many say they dont get benefits only child benefit but thats still a benefit.

You mean the professional victim ones?

I've only been on here a few weeks and I very rarely believe any of them! There's always too much that just doesn't add up. Then I get annoyed with myself because I get a bit invested in some of them only to find out they're fake 🤥 I can't imagine the sort of people that do it. Why, just why?!!

I always wonder what percentage of posts are true and real. We’ll never actually know.

Even back in the day (20 years ago) you got people making up scenarios in order to play out a plot for a novel, or to get an article out of it, or in a few cases to get real life attention behind the scenes. There was one woman who tried to set herself up with an alibi for financial fraud (she got caught though). Now it's probably the teens who wrote fan fiction, just a bit grown up and finding themselves a bit lonely with a baby. (Which let's face it is why so many of us end up here.)

Agreed. I do think people are perhaps trying to get ideas for books etc or do some kind of survey. That's funny about the financial fraud woman 😂 I think we're all mostly here for the entertainment, especially young mums, but it is annoying when something seems plausible but you get six pages in and realise it's just rubbish lol. There's someone posting at the mo about her useless DH ( surprise surprise) and I swear is deliberately not seeing what a twat he is and getting everyone riled up, I think that one is made up. No one could be that much of a doormat.