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!

Bothers me as Mumsnet is a parenting forum, and people come here for advice for their families

Yes, and many of us on the AD threads had children who were struggling massively with lockdowns/school closures. Those threads were the only place where we could discuss those issues without being told our children lacked resilience, or that their issues were caused by our poor parenting. I remember being told that my child was ‘weird’ for loving school and struggling with being home all the time, and that ‘normal children who love their parents’ would relish being home schooled.

It’s ethos would be based on it being a parenting forum - hence a more robust way to report offensive posts. Certainly more so than a lot of social media.

It was honestly so difficult to find anywhere to discuss worries about how children were coping.
The AD threads were the only place to go.
Its not a hate group, its a support group. You've got it wrong

Nice, real nice.

If we're on the subject of taking offence, I could take offence at your disableist comment.

And FYI lanyards weren't like blue badges. You didn't apply for one, you just printed one off.

And no, I didn't get one. I just stopped wearing a mask at Christmas 21, when my anxiety was off the scale and it hit me like a sledgehammer that it was all performative bollocks. Not a soul ever challenged me so I concluded people didn't care anyway.

I could report your post and demand that it's removed, but actually I'd rather let it remain visible.

Oh I see someone else has.

well luckily for you, no one forced you to seek out the thread and read them. You had the other 99.9% of MN to enjoy!

@EmmaEmerald
The original wording
"During the emergency period, no person may participate in a gathering in a public place of more than two people except—"

Then the exceptions

When Johnson made the announcement ( I bothered to watch them at this point) I rechecked to make sure I wasn't going mad one it was available! The wording was not altered.
There was a similar allowance in German law. I remember reading newspaper articles about it before ours came in.

www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/350/regulation/7/2020-03-26

Quite WHY this is an issue for the OP two years later is completely beyond me.

Just not a ‘parenting forum’ for those of us who wanted advice regarding our children who had huge issues with school closures/lockdowns. We were hounded off the main boards by those telling us we needed to teach our children resilience.

Is "starting a thread on MN" now classed as "forming a group"?

@DanceMonster

My children did too. One in particular. But if people were being insulting to that degree - then it should be challenged. It needs to be a discourse with empathy on both sides.

Not threads being formed in an attempt to dismiss others as ‘dementors’ or sitting in their garden on a laptop. It’s the latter comment there - that I find particularly insulting. Suggesting it was ‘fun’ or ‘easy’.
Or to pounce on someone on a Covid thread assuming that person was doing just that because they stated an opposing view.

No. It was just a silly name and a bit of fun. Because so many on here at the time seemed to have had a sense of humour bypass, and were you possibly one of those?

You really have gone looking for something to take offence at, and have bizarrely hit on threads that are two or more years old.

I don't quite see what OP's problem is, apart from 'OMG they were horrid to us in a few threads' hurtyfeelz. After the events of the last few years there's a lot of posters on here who could justifiably claim that. Many covid threads were utterly foul towards even mild dissent, especially when masks became mandatory. Funny how that's being skated over.

Apparently so. What should we call this group that the OP has started this afternoon? 🙄😁

So you’re insulted by one comment. Well… all I can say to that is that no one has the right to not be offended.
I was offended by many, many comments at that time. Not least the one that I mentioned upthread… that if my children were normal and loved me they’d be happy to be at home with me 24/7. Why should your hurt feelings take precedence over mine?

@Topseyt123

’Silly and a bit of fun’.

While I was dealing with a loved one who was bleeding out in the toilet and trying to get her in a hospital overwhelmed by Covid.

There's many ongoing chats thread after thread... WAG, a group pushed out of another forum, the specialist topics are full of them, Telly Addicts, Housekeeping, Exercise.

I'm sure MNHQ were kept looking at AD threads regularly as many posters didn't like AD non-conformity to the authorised groupthink of the time and regularly reported posts. Few were pulled. Only one thread was deleted as a TAAT as in its early stages after the previous completed thread it did discuss another thread. AD threads tended to look far less like swiss cheese than most Covid related discussions.

There have been other Covid oriented long running chats such as Covid Lungs too.

It just seems daft to complain now about a thread that's been running since last autumn and is only the second one in 18m. Seems pretty easy to ignore to me.

"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."

Dont know about other forums but I agree there is some truth in this.
No reason to delete the threads though

@CryingAtTheDiscotheque

But from what I’ve seen - the ‘fun’ comes from ridiculing others.

But households weren't permitted to mix and there were no bubbles

so what legal basis would I have had for meeting someone outside? Nothing fits those exceptions? I actually said to my sister that we should register a business at Companies House in order to be able to see each other.

thanks for the link, that's really useful. But I still can't see how I could have legally met someone outside for a walk. isn't 6b is the relevant clause here?

www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2020/350/regulation/6/2020-03-26

I've no objection to being proved wrong btw. I didn't know anyone who was willing to meet anyway. (The real thing that covered me was mental health emergency, which my doctor could confirm as I've been in treatment for years).

With all respect (and I’m sorry for your situation), does that mean a group of people who didn’t know who you are couldn’t make unrelated jokes on an online forum? None of the comments were aimed at you personally, we don’t know who you are.

And that’s a valid opinion to have. The joy of the threads is that those who didn’t feel supported by them, or find any use in them, didn’t have to read them. Our ‘whinging entitlement’ was all kept to one thread.

There is no monopoly on that. Plenty of us had to deal with sick and even dying relatives during the pandemic.

I had to deal with a dying father in lockdown and then with his lockdown funeral. None of it COVID related. The AD threads were still sanity savers for me.

Oh FGS

I had to call ambulances twice for mum in lockdown and she refused hospital admission for one of them

two of her friend died after being refused entry to hospitals and they died of Covid.

the threads were a great relief to me while dealing with that sort of thing.

did you buy shares in MN? Is it actually owned by you? I guess if we get shut down again, we'll know the answer.

OP - I'm sorry that you had to deal with that but a) it wasn't a personal attack on individuals and b) your comment suggests that because horrid or distressing things happen to someone then no-one can ever post anything that isn't serious and laden with doom. I've seen this on various boards - 'who cares about your x, y or z, don't you know children are starving/people are dying in Ukraine!' type comments.

Covid was awful. In many and various ways it was awful for everyone. I'm just grateful some posters tried to leaven that lump a bit.