Are people getting meaner?

[Anonymous]

Also OP, I’ve become emboldened in telling people that I will not be spoken to in a discourteous manner - and my part time job is working with the public. This includes no four letter words, no expletives or our conversation will end.

In local youth sports, I have witnessed the youth soccer coach be kicked out of the facility for inappropriate display of anger/screaming.

A local youth volunteer basketball commissioner had a belligerent father show up on his front porch demanding answers and making threats.

My own DH got a nasty email tirade from a mom upset her DD9 didn’t get selected for an all star team.

My teen DS refereed only beginning level girls basketball because much older and boys = irate, shouty dads.

Police have been called to adult league games. My DH used to play.

[Anonymous]

I serve on a private school board and have for over a decade. In the last 2 years, I’ve felt a huge shift in our conversations. People have gone from being collegial team players focused on generosity and service, to speaking nastily about financial aid recipients, teachers, etc. And I don’t mean the tone of the room overall- individuals have changed. They’ve also started being greedy and stingy all at once. It’s been a shocking turn and has really changes how we work. No surprise that our work has become stagnant and bogged down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. People are stressed and are in survivalist mode.

And gaming whatever support systems to maximize their resources even if they don't need it. It's like during COVID when people felt the need to buy a year's worth of toilet paper.

I think that was when a lot of people just gave themselves permission to become greedy and mean. I have several friends I know through clubs with expensive monthly memberships. Friends are fabulously well-off, but bragged at the time that they plead hardship to pause their monthly dues so they wouldn’t have to pay for a closed club. Meanwhile the rest of us were carrying the cost of it and sustained it through the closures. I think it divided us into people who turned toward each other and people who turned away.

[Anonymous]

Remember the whole #cancelculture complaining...I have come to believe it was people wanting to express their supremacist, racist, mean thoughts and beliefs. They may have become "emboldened" but I never realized how pervasive they were in the population.

[Anonymous]

I blame social media.


People do not understand how toxic social media really is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only the first story is a sign of the times, OP.

I'm a foreigner waiting for my green card, and I am NOT traveling outside the US right now, because I don't need to. But I know plenty of foreigners working in the US who need to travel internationally for work, on diplomatic visas and other types of visas. They're not going to refuse to go just because they're afraid, that's not how it works! So yes, the employee has to go if they can't fulfill a job requirement.

Crazy parents at sports events have always existed.

Me again. To be clear, I was referring to the unfair detentions imposed on British, French, German citizens with legal paperwork or legal visa waivers, and no known history of any terrorist activities. Foreigners are legitimately worried right now when they cross a US border!!! But if you need to do so for work, you do it.

If you're referring to a US person who doesn't wish to travel internationally, then that's ridiculous. They're not going to be harassed abroad just because they're American.

This person was a foreigner with a green card. They were not white, but rather from a country that is on the visa ban list.

I do feel terrible. It was not even necessary for this person to go. I actually covered their work for them, which wasn't a problem at all.

Another thing -- we know a lot of federal workers. I keep running into people who are just don't care and don't feel bad. I was talking with a mom in a group of four other women. Our kids are good friends. She mentioned she and her husband were both caught up in the firings in conversation, wasn't fishing or anything just responding when people asked how you are. She walked off and every other woman in the group began crap talking her! Saying she was fishing for sympathy, talking about how lazy government workers are, this had to be done, etc.! Which is wild, because she really wasn't! She was very factual.

Wow, your neighbors and friends suck!

[Anonymous]

yes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's due to the internet. Anonymous posters get comfortable being mean to others. Probably carries over to non-internet, non-anonymous interactions.

This is also my thought.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's due to the internet. Anonymous posters get comfortable being mean to others. Probably carries over to non-internet, non-anonymous interactions.

It’s social media, not the wider “internet.”

People shop, find jobs, buy houses, book vacations, etc - all on “the internet,” and all without meanness.

Social media is where the meanness happens.

Social media is more toxic than we know.

[Anonymous]

Fish rots from the head. Look at our leadership, it's as simple as that!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know, but there is something weird in the air.

I volunteer with my church in a food pantry. We provide kind of a drive through food bag of groceries (staples) and families drive through. Sometimes we get lucky and get meat or seasonal fruits and veggies, but again, this is staples, canned food. Vegetables, beans, rice, cereal, powdered milk, etc.

I was telling my two neighbors (different houses in the cul-de-sac) about it when she asked me where I was heading with groceries leaving my house (I collect food and replenish the pantry with others). They were downright mean! Called people who seek charity leeches and lazy bums. They told me I was wasting my time trying to do this because "these illegals are getting kicked out and the rest of them are just trash anyway." I was shocked. I mean, we are, like, pretty well off. This is a neighborhood where homes run over 1.5 million in Fairfax.

Second story, I was at work, and we had a meeting with another colleague who said she was PIPing an employee who refused to fly internationally for a conference. Someone tried to explain why this person might be worried, and she blew it off and said she was being dramatic. I know this employee, worked with her, and she's wonderful! I log in today and see the employee is gone. I felt terrible.

Third story, my husband coaches a sports team and it's small kids. And two men got in a literal fist fight over soccer.

Is there something in the water? What is going on here?

People see POTUS being mean, vengeful and narcissistic - they take his cues

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know, but there is something weird in the air.

I volunteer with my church in a food pantry. We provide kind of a drive through food bag of groceries (staples) and families drive through. Sometimes we get lucky and get meat or seasonal fruits and veggies, but again, this is staples, canned food. Vegetables, beans, rice, cereal, powdered milk, etc.

I was telling my two neighbors (different houses in the cul-de-sac) about it when she asked me where I was heading with groceries leaving my house (I collect food and replenish the pantry with others). They were downright mean! Called people who seek charity leeches and lazy bums. They told me I was wasting my time trying to do this because "these illegals are getting kicked out and the rest of them are just trash anyway." I was shocked. I mean, we are, like, pretty well off. This is a neighborhood where homes run over 1.5 million in Fairfax.

Second story, I was at work, and we had a meeting with another colleague who said she was PIPing an employee who refused to fly internationally for a conference. Someone tried to explain why this person might be worried, and she blew it off and said she was being dramatic. I know this employee, worked with her, and she's wonderful! I log in today and see the employee is gone. I felt terrible.

Third story, my husband coaches a sports team and it's small kids. And two men got in a literal fist fight over soccer.

Is there something in the water? What is going on here?

People see POTUS being mean, vengeful and narcissistic - they take his cues

Nah. People see social media. 24/7.

Social media was around B4 t-rump. Social is where the meanness comes from.

[Anonymous]

Yes, people are getting meaner. Just look at things people post here. So many people just tear each other down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. People are stressed and are in survivalist mode.

And gaming whatever support systems to maximize their resources even if they don't need it. It's like during COVID when people felt the need to buy a year's worth of toilet paper.

I think that was when a lot of people just gave themselves permission to become greedy and mean. I have several friends I know through clubs with expensive monthly memberships. Friends are fabulously well-off, but bragged at the time that they plead hardship to pause their monthly dues so they wouldn’t have to pay for a closed club. Meanwhile the rest of us were carrying the cost of it and sustained it through the closures. I think it divided us into people who turned toward each other and people who turned away.

Yes, the min-maxers are extremely annoying.

[Anonymous]

People are nuts, but when you move to a Trumpy place, you can expect people to be absolutely out of their minds nowadays.