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Original poster

Anti-Dementors : The AD’s

317 replies

MinkyGreen · 15/03/2023 04:40

Anti-Dementirs. These are a long running group of threads on Mumsnet.
I’ve recently been on a Covid thread and felt attacked by a group of posters for stating a consensus science view.
I then looked into who this group are - and they have formed threads called the ‘Anti-Dementors”. Dementors being those who wore masks/followed lockdown rules.
The groups they perceive as ‘dementors’ are dismissed/ridiculed as putting ‘cheese in coffee’, - or sitting in their garden with laptops during lockdown. The fact is that many were vulnerable/protecting the vulnerable.
There us also support/links to publications like ‘Unherd’ and ‘State of Fear’ which are bordering conspiracy theory territory.

While I think the discourse is important - it makes me very uneasy when people form ‘echo chambers’ and ridicule/attack/make snide comments in a group towards those with opposing views.

I look forward to your response!

OP posts:
Original poster
MinkyGreen · 15/03/2023 14:12

I’m not going to get into semantics. The inference is there. It would be derived from the same - probably Latin source word. Demented/dementors - they are words designed to insult and ridicule and belittle others.

OP posts:
JenniferBooth · 15/03/2023 14:14

OP i had a suspicion that you were the one who got the A State Of Fear threads pulled. Now im damn sure of it.

MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 15/03/2023 14:14

Demented/dementors - they are words designed to insult and ridicule and belittle others

Covidiots
Granny killers
Anti-vaxxers
Far right conspiracy theorists

And those aren't?

Original poster
MinkyGreen · 15/03/2023 14:15

I’m trying to imagine a similar situation IRL, in a school - or in a workplace. Where someone forms a group where they can gang together and ridicule people they disagree with.

There’s a word for that.

OP posts:
DanceMonster · 15/03/2023 14:15

MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 15/03/2023 14:14

Demented/dementors - they are words designed to insult and ridicule and belittle others

Covidiots
Granny killers
Anti-vaxxers
Far right conspiracy theorists

And those aren't?

Quite.

Boomboom22 · 15/03/2023 14:16

No op, the original thread was about joy suckers wwho took the rules far too far and constantly accused others who did follow the actual rules of being deliberate murderers. Dementor as in the creatures in Harry Potter that such life. Not demented at all and not the same route.
You are bring disingenuous, it was the ads who were sidelined and abused not the other way around. You only need to look a a few threads from the time to see that.

MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 15/03/2023 14:16

MinkyGreen · 15/03/2023 14:15

I’m trying to imagine a similar situation IRL, in a school - or in a workplace. Where someone forms a group where they can gang together and ridicule people they disagree with.

There’s a word for that.

There is indeed. And in 2020-2021 this site saw a lot of it directed at people who didn't 100% accept the narrative.

Boomboom22 · 15/03/2023 14:18

MinkyGreen · 15/03/2023 14:15

I’m trying to imagine a similar situation IRL, in a school - or in a workplace. Where someone forms a group where they can gang together and ridicule people they disagree with.

There’s a word for that.

Yes, the dementors did that, they were bullies. The ads were the ones being bullied and in a school environment would be protected.

JenniferBooth · 15/03/2023 14:18

Being called an anti vaxxer when you have had the vaccine. WTF was that about It wouldnt work for anything else.....ok lets give it a try. Im child free by choice but im a mum. See how ludicrous it was.

DanceMonster · 15/03/2023 14:19

MinkyGreen · 15/03/2023 14:15

I’m trying to imagine a similar situation IRL, in a school - or in a workplace. Where someone forms a group where they can gang together and ridicule people they disagree with.

There’s a word for that.

The whole point is that anyone who expressed any negative feeling towards the lockdown measures was immediately pounced on, called deniers, covidiots, granny killers etc. The AD threads were started in response to that. It was a tiny corner of MN where people could discuss their struggles without being accused of not caring about vulnerable people.

Boomboom22 · 15/03/2023 14:19

I think op is very upset that all the data seems to suggest lockdowns were the wrong move.

Original poster
MinkyGreen · 15/03/2023 14:22

@MrsDanversGlidesAgain

But is it right to form a group where you sneer at others and assume they are ‘in their garden on a laptop’? With no acknowledgement they too MIGHT have been in a highly desperate situation?

OP posts:
cymylog · 15/03/2023 14:23

I posted on the Anti-D threads during lockdown - different username - after being attacked for having concerns about my GCSE child who wasn't being given work - despite me making clear it was a my children's school issue.

We followed all the rules have all been vaccinated and had family in high risk categories but had concerns that rest of MN wasn't allowing to be expressed.

I did stop posting as I felt they did go a bit fringe for a minute, rest of MN got better and things got more normal.

I haven't seen a thread from them for ages - so I really don't see how they are a huge concern now.

However I've always found MN very good at deleting anything that crosses their talk guidelines so if you have complaint other than not everyone had same opinion as me you can easily report.

JenniferBooth · 15/03/2023 14:23

You looked into who this group are? Really How did you do that OP

DanceMonster · 15/03/2023 14:24

JenniferBooth · 15/03/2023 14:23

You looked into who this group are? Really How did you do that OP

Yes im interested in this too. Who exactly are we OP?

WestwardHo1 · 15/03/2023 14:26

MinkyGreen · 15/03/2023 14:12

I’m not going to get into semantics. The inference is there. It would be derived from the same - probably Latin source word. Demented/dementors - they are words designed to insult and ridicule and belittle others.

Sorry but you're completely wrong by on this.

Dementors are a well known "thing". If you didn't know about them, that's no no one else's fault

Knullrufs · 15/03/2023 14:26

I was on the AD threads for a bit, under a different username. <waves at BogRoll, Worldgonecrazy and others>

Genuinely saved my sanity. Lockdown was very, very hard on me. The AD threads were genuinely helpful, welcoming and supportive. There was very little ridiculing going on.

OP you've either missed the nuance massively, or you're being highly disingenuous.

You're also doing it over two years after the AD threads were last frequently trending in Active. It's a bit like popping up and saying that you don't think Nick Clegg makes a very good deputy PM. Whatever side of the debate you fell on in 2020 and 2021, the shit's been well and truly shat, squire.

justasking111 · 15/03/2023 14:27

I recall one occasion. A security guard for Morrisons wouldn't let in an elderly couple in front of me. One person shopping only. I stepped in when I saw how distressed the husband was. Turns out his wife had dementia he couldn't leave her home alone. He didn't own a computer re shopping online. The security guard apologised and let them into the supermarket.

I make no apologies for my intervention that day

WestwardHo1 · 15/03/2023 14:27

MinkyGreen · 15/03/2023 14:22

@MrsDanversGlidesAgain

But is it right to form a group where you sneer at others and assume they are ‘in their garden on a laptop’? With no acknowledgement they too MIGHT have been in a highly desperate situation?

But they didn't do that either. It was a support group for those of us who were struggling.

If it did include an element of ridicule, so what? No one is above having the piss taken out of them. It's a democracy after all.

MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 15/03/2023 14:27

MinkyGreen · 15/03/2023 14:22

@MrsDanversGlidesAgain

But is it right to form a group where you sneer at others and assume they are ‘in their garden on a laptop’? With no acknowledgement they too MIGHT have been in a highly desperate situation?

I assumed that they weren't breaking any MN rules (which as they weren't pulled I presume is the case). Is it right that there was little if any acknowledgement from the Covid cheerleaders that the people who they abused and bullied might have been in a highly desperate situation? it was obvious from some posts that people actually were desperate and on a lot of threads there was no acknowledgement of that. Just 'suck it up' and 'would you rather be on a ventilator, granny killer?'

Why are you so concerned about this all of a sudden and about what's 'right'? a lot of things get posted on here that someone will think isn't right, but who's to be the judge?

CoffeeWithCheese · 15/03/2023 14:31

OK - we were called the anti-dementors and it originated (and I hate to burst the OP's hate-bubble where they've decided better than those who coined the term) from the Harry Potter books after a thread where someone expressed that they were being really emotionally worn down by those who would take any glimmer of joy and absolutely flip it around to the depths of Covid doom - in some kind of fucked-up Monty Python Three Yorkshiremen sketch type of the way.

So "oh we did our home learning in the garden today because I'm sick of the house" would be turned around into a tirrade of how dare you go out into the garden, don't you know there's a pandemic on and people are dying and what if Doris is on the other side of the hedge over at number 57 and you might be incubating covid and breathing and kill her and then she'll never get to cuddle little unborn Daisy at her 28th birthday party get together. Someone commented that it felt like every glimmer of (even covid-"allowed") joy was being sucked out of the world by some on here - like the Dementors in Harry Potter - and THAT is where the term came from.

The linguistic origins of where JK Rowling took the term from is totally different to where the origins came from on MN which was very firmly from those residents of Azkaban.

Off the top of my head we were called:
Granny killers
Covidiots
Anti Vaxxers (for the record - I had the first two jabs and I still suffer from vaccine side effects, which I'm fairly resigned to - someone somewhere's going to get hit with the shitty side effect stick of anything - I just fought for the right not to be mandated to have any more and make things worse)
Right wing Trump supporting loons - that one came up a fair bit - quite how someone in the middle of the UK is meant to be a Trump supporter is interesting
I believe we were also accused of being on the payroll of UsForThem at one point and therefore would be uber rich right-wing extremists (skint, left wing, sorry to disappoint)

We also diversified into mooncup logistics, dodgy shaped vegetables, soup recipes (have a corking smokey bacon and vine tomato one that DH does now incidentally), strategies for going to Tesco and sitting reading a book in the carpark pretending the queue was horrid so as to get a bit of space alone... and lots of other sidelines to the granny slaughter. I don't quite know why we never got accused of grandad slaughter - it was always the grannies.

And yep, I take the piss openly over the suggestion of putting cheese in coffee because it was bloody ridiculous and I've not got round to thinking of a different username yet or bored enough to get round to do it.

We had ONE THREAD going - replaced when it hit nearly full - you had an entire sub forum and took over most of the site. @MNHQ @HopeMumsnet come on sort this out cos this is bloody bullying.

Topseyt123 · 15/03/2023 14:31

JenniferBooth · 15/03/2023 14:23

You looked into who this group are? Really How did you do that OP

Yes, I have wondered that. OP has made it sound like some sort of shadowy secret society or clan. It wasn't at all and I don't think any of us had any idea that it would be considered as such.

It was just some of us trying to keep a sense of perspective and sanity while others poured out their bile, invented their own rules and put cheese in their coffee.

Perhaps OPis seeing a conspiracy where there was none.

bookworm14 · 15/03/2023 14:32

When I posted on MN in the height of the first lockdown, in desperation because I was so worried about the effect of school closures on my child, I was told that her mental health difficulties must be my fault. Those with concerns were told that we just couldn’t be bothered to look after our own kids, that a total lack of in-person socialisation has no negative effects, that things were far worse for kids in the Second World War, and that school closures would have no effect on kids’ development. The AD threads were a lifeline for those of us who could see with our own eyes the damage being done but were told by the rest of the site that we were making it up.

MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 15/03/2023 14:33

I don't quite know why we never got accused of grandad slaughter - it was always the grannies

I asked this a few times elsewhere. Apparen'ty grandads are immune and I think this would be a fruitful subject for scientific enquiry - why grandads don't get covid and grannies do.

CoffeeWithCheese · 15/03/2023 14:33

WestwardHo1 · 15/03/2023 14:27

But they didn't do that either. It was a support group for those of us who were struggling.

If it did include an element of ridicule, so what? No one is above having the piss taken out of them. It's a democracy after all.

Show quote history

Some of the stuff that went on was so fucking ridiculous it would be a failure of being British NOT to poke fun at it. The substantial Scotch Egg meal saga... the having the time of your life sat in the Weatherspoons carpark in the pissing rain... some of the hilarious 2m social distancing measures where the virus was like a particularly shitty chess piece that could only travel horizontally and not up and down...

There were periods where it was only laughing about the stupidity of some of it that got many of us OUT of the other side of it. I came close to suicide and I'm not the only one.

Swipe left for the next trending thread