Anti-Dementors : The AD’s

[MinkyGreen]

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!

Please, if anyone DID put cheese in their coffee - now is the time to fess up. Describe the type of coffee - posh ground vs Asda instant and was it stinky blue cheese, nice brie or smartprice cheddar.

Science demands to know these things.

I'd love to know what the person who made that suggestion thinks of it now?

In the summer of 2020 i said that whatever we did it would never be good enough I said it on here and in RL.

Re masks Anyone else remember that even if we wore them we werent allowed to be unhappy and moan about it?

Pp saying exercise outside with one person was always allowed - it wasn't. Initial lockdown was stay at home. I was not allowed to meet a friend for an outside walk till May 2020, I think.

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.

Exactly and I'd have said we weathered covid pretty well in the end but it's still had massive wide ranging impacts on us.

Some of the restriction here - wales - were insane being able to go to the shop see items and not being allowed to buy but able to order on-line.

Except nobody ever suggested cheese in coffee.
What actually happened is far less exciting. A couple of posters with toddlers were worried about getting fresh milk. Somebody asked if the children ate cheese as it's an excellent source of calcium. Cue the birth of an urban myth.

I was on the early AD threads but when they descended into constant whining about how bad off a time the "ADs" were having of it compared to the rest of the UK and were absolutely infiltrated by anti vaxxers and COVID deniers I shipped out.

The irony (as has been said about the ADs on other forums) is that for a group of people purporting to be ANTI the gloom and doom they were seeing elsewhere, it had to be the most miserable joy sucking "poor us" entitled whingefest ever seen on MN.

You became a long running joke.

I remember someone genuinely asking if it was ok when they went for their daily exercise, if their son could scooter or take their pogo stick or something. Or was it not in the spirit of the rules.....
I mean..... how could people come to this?
And yeah, we did laugh at that sort of thing. Surely looking back EVERYONE knows that's bonkers thinking???

Yes I remember. We should have been GLAD to wear them.

Moreover we should have been wearing two

This "consensus scientific opinion" thing is absolutely not true and wasn't at the time. Some scientists and doctors raised concerns about lockdown at the time. Chris Whitty is now on record as saying there were no strong reasons for or against masks in schools. Patrick Vallance wasn't exactly enthusiastic about the shielding policy.

The narrative being spun by large sections of the media and by some people online was completely hysterical and made it possible and/or desirable for the government to make decisions to be seen to be tough on covid, rather than determined by science.

If the lockdown rules were driven by science then we wouldn't have had nations adopting different tacks like the supermarket rules in Wales, the hospitality rules in Scotland and people wouldn't have been shouting about a "proper lockdown like Spain" where children were kept entirely inside.

The science consensus remains an interesting one. Any science that didn’t agree with the narrative was ridiculed, with previously eminent scientists re-cast as discredited failures.

We learned a lot about human behaviours during lockdown, most of it deeply unpleasant.

personally I found the disinterest and apathy around the fact that the government were deliberately trying to scare us far more scary than the government scare tactics. I used public transport to attend my office in a major city throughout, and the early weeks were like walking through a dystopian film set.

The AD threads were a mental rescue. Knowing that I wasn’t alone was a great comfort.

It wouldn't be accepted if it were vice versa though would it!? It would be deemed hate speech

The substantial Scotch Egg meal saga

I posted on twitter at the time of the 'Is a scotch egg a substantial meal' debate that life was depressing enough without realising that there are people whose actual jobs are to sit around a table (or a screen) to come up with ideas like this and solemnly debate about it.

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

So much this. And I'm delighted some people did just that.

Thanks 😁

Given that I've made some really excellent friends out of it, I don't give a fuck.

We still talk, we still meet up. Our lives have moved on and we chat about all kinds of stuff. Women supporting women.

Wow, people still don't understand free speech.

And I always thought we locked down too hard and too long. I wanted a Sweden approach and their data is looking great. The longer this goes on, the more obvious it becomes that we could and should have handled it better.

@MrsDanversGlidesAgain

Well I can’t say - from what I’ve seen on the Covid boards - that I’ve EVER read ‘suck it up Granny killer’. And I’ve never seen a series of threads where - those who wanted to say such things - got together in a group.

From what I read on the AD thread - perhaps not all posters, but there are a fair few there ridiculing those who supported restrictions.

I was on a Covid thread, and there was a group of posters being pretty unpleasant, and making out that I was inferring things that I wasn’t or trying to twist my words. I was posting within Mumsnet guidelines. I then saw from a search that many were from this ‘anti-dementor’ group.

Bothers me as Mumsnet is a parenting forum, and people come here for advice for their families. Differs in that way from FB or Twitter. I think Mumsnet take this into account so you can report for personal insults, health misinformation etc

It wasnt just Wales Here in Braintree Essex one of our local Tesco stopped people from accessing the upper floor by putting pallets of socks and Christmas chocolate in front of the escalator. (November 2020) The fact that we had already experienced mass scale gaslighting made me pull out my phone and take a short video. I kept the staffs faces out of it. Not their bloody fault. Its on my old mobile and i dont know how to upload it. I took the video in case this event was denied later on.

Bothers me as Mumsnet is a parenting forum

It isn't though. May have been in the beginning but it certainly isn't now.

Actually, if wearing a mask caused ‘considerable distress’ it was listed as a valid reason to not wear one.

We know they don’t work, we know generally the way people wore masks made other illnesses more likely, we know they were a waste of fucking time, and were used as a visual fear reminder. I’m bloody glad I never wore a fucking mask! And yes, the thought of wearing one and the knowledge of what that particular insanity did to people makes me ‘considerably distressed).

And I’ve never seen a series of threads where - those who wanted to say such things - got together in a group

They didn’t need to get together in a group, because it was the mainstream view. It was on 99% of the threads on every single board. So one small group in a small corner of MN was hardly going to cause huge issues. It was our one place of support.

Nobody actually stood up and formed a group! That is paranoia, and more than a little bit conspiracy theorist.

Disagreements and sneering go on all the time on many MN threads every single day.

Some people agreed with lockdown and seemed to love it to the extent that they craved doom and gloom. Others didn't, and never the twain shall meet, as they say. In reality many of us fell somewhere in-between and tried to apply balance and common sense.

On here though, it did seem that balance and common sense had no place at the time.

In Wales we couldn't buy clothes, birthday cards, books, chocolate. BUT Drakeford never locked down the booze aisles . Hmmmm

Bothers me as Mumsnet is a parenting forum, and people come here for advice for their families. Differs in that way from FB or Twitter

As has been pointed out ad nauseam on the numerous 'You aren't a parent why are you on MN?' threads, this site is about a lot of things, not all of them parenting. As far as I can see what you're saying is that MN isn't being run in a way you like.

You're choosing to take offence and so you're complaining to MN and demanding that the thing causing your offence is removed?

Why not just NOT go looking for it then?

@Topseyt123

They did though. The ‘Anti-Dementors’. Several threads of it.