what's this PO stuff all about? I have just read some really vile stuff on here....

[Portofino]

Women presumably who don't have a certain sense of humour, or don't agree with certain (long standing) posters being described as beige admin workers who nag their ugly husbands, who were friendless at school, wear cheap clothes, have no fun in their sad little joyless lives etc etc Literally paragraphs and paragraphs of nastiness.

This is some of the most vile and misogynistic stuff I have ever read on MN from other women. These kind of comments normally come from trolls and MRA invasions. Is this really what MN has become? Does everyone think that this sort of shit should stand? What happened to the fucking sisterhood?

I am astounded to be quite honest.

'There is a particular form of passive agressive behaviour which involves laughing at the expense of others then accusing them of being humourless when called on it...'

You mean like fruitshoots, Gregg's sausage rolls, netmums and tickers, wearing Per Una and the wrong sort of clothes, pebbly shite?
There are many on here that regard themselves as the arbitrators of good taste and what they should be smug about. Most of the time, they get laughed at in turn.

Lets just bring in Passive Aggressive PA whilst we are acquiring lots of letters.

I think calling PO is a type of PA but that is IMO or even IMHO. So we need PA, PO and PU with occasional qualifiers of IMO, IYO and a distinction between po and PO (obviously all separate to OP)

simple

www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/bst0020l.jpg

What slightly boggles me is that people are shitting their beds and screaming about a rant that was meant to be a joke. Whether you find it funny or not, it wasn't a call to arms or a demand to deport anyone who wears beige or shops at Asda or whateverthefuckitwas. Yet no one ever seems to want to start threads objecting to the percentage of pig-ignorant benefit-bashers overrunning the place at the moment - someone did make the good point that Laqueen might take the piss out of 'the poor' but she doesn't. actually, come on the benefits threads and start telling them they shouldn't have children they can't afford or should eat their pets or whatever.

ISTR it being said at some point that there are now over 2000 MNers. 2000. THat's got to include a bunch of thickos, a bunch of whiners, a bunch of bullies and a bunch of fantasists. But it also means there's plenty of room for everyone else.

Right well for clearness of expression I have always use po as po-faced, looking for reasons to complain.

I have missed all of this being in forrin parts temporarily, but I love jokey threads (and yes, Ghandi what a bastard is a classic) and miss them.

clearness of expression followed by typo. Shoot me now.

Gawd Nebulous. That pic could be me and my hair this morning. Must get in the shower....

Oh FFS, no one is 'screaming'.

But if people make jokes that are not funny, because they are nasty, then they should get called on it and society moves on. Otherwise we would still have bloody Jim Davidson on telly every Saturday wouldn't we?

What SGB said.

That is SUCH a good point about Jim Davidson

Could we call them pofaced? For the avoidance of doubt?

Yes, that is fair. Even on that thread someone said to LaQ that she was talking about what people had (I paraphrase), and she said the same thing then, it was about attitude, not possessions.

Also, sometimes people get on a narrative roll, and it becomes about that for its own sake, the start point often left way behind.

Lots of people don't like LaQ (for whatever reason), and dear lord queenie you sure don't help yourself, but she isn't poor-ist.

PO, "goady fucker" etc etc. Everyone seems to want to make labels for people and identify groups, instead of seeing different posting characteristics as being mixed up within all of us. The alleged groups don't correspond to anything in reality. They just meet a need people have to generate an imaginary other, so they can project their own unwanted behaviours onto them and feel themselves to be part of the corresponding luffly not-other.

It's all about self-definition and social dynamics. No other real content at all.

It's also what happens when you are on MN too much. There's nothing else left to talk about so you talk about the talking.

(Or as in my case here in this post, you go one step further into aridity and talk about the talking about the talking. )

I think if the occasion calls for it there is nothing wrong with saying to one specific poster that they are being po-faced. So:

Poster A: AIBU to paint my face like a clown this morning to give dh a surprise at breakfast time after he said I was always clowning around with the kids and should be more mature?

Posters B-W: YANBU!

Poster X: Oh no you could frighten him in to a heart attack and then won't you feel bad and he could have a morbid fear of clowns forever and so could your dcs and I think you're a bad mother.............

Poster Y: That's a bit po-faced of you Poster X don't you think?

Porefssionally Offended oth is always a crappy term, usually used as a weapon against those who object to some sort of hate and/or discrimination filled bilge. Describing people such as Poster X above as 'one of the Po/po/PO' would be a bullying tactic imo.

SGB, the question for MNHQ is: Are we meant to tolerate the bunch of bullies which you say is inevitable on the site? Do we just watch the bullying going on and do nothing? Is that the culture of the site?

I think it's fair enough to expect us to tolerate the bunch of fantasists - but tolerating bullying? Really?

You are so meta, floatie

WHO ARE THE BULLIES??

I always hear a lot of talk about this mysterious group of bullies

Who the fuck are they? Where do they hide? Do they want my lunch money?

But that's just nonsense LaQueen. That's not what you posted about. You barely made any comment on how you're (sic) perceived Po felt. It was all about what they had, or more accurately didn't have.

*I think you're classic Po was perhaps quite clever at school, but they were never popular...they never had any sparkle...they never had any glitter...and, that's why they had to settle for a bland DH...and they sit on a sofa that looked fancy in the shop, but now they realise is just cheap tat...and they live in a bland house that is one bedroom smaller than they'd like...and is 2.5 miles away from the naice part of town...and their DCs are at a mediocre school, struggling to hit average targets...and their part time job is dull and admin based...and somehow, they never get invited to anything fun...in fact they rarely get any invites, at all...and this is precisely because they are no fun...and they have no glitter...and they have no sparkle...and the tragedy is they know it...and they know their lives are always going to be like this.

And. It. Makes. Them. As. Bitter. As. Hell.

The Po always do their weekly food shop on a Saturday morning, probably at Morrisons (but they do also use Aldi/Lidl nowadays because their DH will never rise any higher in his job, and his salary has stagnated at £23K a year for the last 8 years)...they park their dark green, 7 year old Citroen Picasso in the car park...and they walk round Morrisons, barely speaking, because DH doesn't want to be there, but daren't refuse The Po... The Po knows DH doesn't want to be there, but neither does she, and why should he enjoy himself... The Po chooses a pink jersey top with a few sequins on the collar...she knows it looks cheap, and it's wont be flattering, but she's heard that a work collegue is having a BBQ that afternoon, and she's hoping they might get a text inviting them over...they go home...DH slouches on the wannabe fancy sofa...the DCs fight... The Po tries on her new top, realises it looks shit...she checks her phone, no invite...checks phone later...no invite... The Po makes tea, and argues with DH for not helping...she checks phone one last time, no invite... The Po starts to grind her teeth, and logs onto MN...*

All of that, ALL OF IT, is a sneer about material wealth, salary, house size, sofa type (?), clothes, area and then a swipe at bland husbands and mediocre kids.

It was cunty and you shoudl take ownership of that. Don't try and dress it up as something it's not.

It's not "Everyone" who wants to make labels for people and identify groups, FloatyBeatie. The vast majority of MNers want to take each thread on its merits and each individual poster on their merits, and each individual post on its merits. Most MNers don't have hate lists and vendettas. Who in their right mind has got time for that?

Northern I take your point - if poster y expressed as you did good but we don't know why x said it ( maybe they have a fear of clowns, their father died of a clown induced heart attack) so when poster z then turns up to lead an attack on poster x which remains just within the chat rules, it's out of order. And that DOES sometimes happen.

To me this all reads like some proto-high-school jostling for position, sorting-everyone-in-to-cliques exercise.

Someone once described me as beige and frustrated; he was charismatic, popular, and had sparkle, alright. Fortunately for my self esteem, he was also an enormously deluded tosser who could have given Walter Mitty a run for his money

Do people really feel bullied? Really, properly bullied? Or do people leap in to defend people from what they perceive as bullying? And other people say they are being bullied when they are actually being disagreed with? I've been ganged up on, and it wasn't pleasant- but I could always turn the IPad off if I wanted to. I can only remember one comment which has stayed with me however much I try to forget it- does it go deep for a lot of people?