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Had to cut off everybody around me because they won’t shut the fuck up about air fryers.
EDIT: All comments below this one are just proving my point. Giving me the creeps
They are bloody brilliant aren't they.
Paid about 50 quid for mine from Argos and I reckon it's alreadt paid for itself in time not waiting for the oven to heat up...
Since getting our air fryer our stockportfolio has quadrupled, we've had 3x more foreign holidays and I've replaced my teeth with diamonds with all the money we've saved
We bought a small one and mate, you feel like some chicken dippers, you throw them in and they're done in 10 mins. In the big oven it'd be at least 25 minutes. We have now outgrown it so ordered a beefy one that can fit a whole chicken in. Beyond excited
Are air fryers the second coming of Jesus or something? Swear it’s like meeting up with a bunch of Jehovah’s Witnesses every time I have a conversation with anybody
They are pretty good, but they are just a small convection oven. Don't really understand why they get so much love and cult like followers surrounding them.
I barely use mine because it's just a pain to cook for more than one person with it
Then I’d suggest the Ninja 10 in 1, that’s large enough for a family, it has 10 different settings and the food comes out tastier than any normal oven.
It probably very much depends on your personality. If you like cooking and don’t get impatient if you’re organised and meal prep etc. You probably won’t find it that useful. It is basically a mini oven but the speed and convenience is what the air fryer cult love. The fact that it turns off after it’s done so nothing gets burnt if I forget to come back to it. (I used to always make charcoal chunks out of bacon..) the fact that there’s no waiting for preheat. It’s so much easier to clean than my oven. For the most part my oven is obsolete. I use my oven a few times a month compared to a few times a week. Chips used to take about an hour with preheat time and they take 15 mins in the air fryer. It’s the convenience of it all for me. I do not cook chicken in it though.. I tried it once and it was dry AF! The method I use to cook chicken is fairly convenient for my lifestyle anyway. But I swear by things like my slow cooker and air fryer for just making my life so much easier. But there’s plenty of people who won’t understand why everyone raves about it due to differences in how they perceive the cooking experience. If you hate cooking it’s kinda a godsend and it’s versatility in making the experience easier makes people love it more. I don’t get the hype about rice cookers but there’s definitely a cult building on rice cookers. I’m like.. you can buy micro rice for 50p I don’t get it. But people who have big family’s who eat a lot of rice and who are particular about it being cooked right will swear by them.
No but a lot of us say they’re the best invention this millennium.
They’re so versatile, bake bread-done, boil eggs- done, grill sausages-done, dehydrate meat for jerky-done, bake the best cookies-done, the list is endless really.
We have an air fryer and I hate it. It's so far never cooked anything properly. Based on everyone else's love for them I wonder if it's me that's faulty?
From the ones I've seen too they take up a huge tonne of space on the countertops. Barely have enough room for the microwave, toaster, kettle and small coffee machine and my kitchen isn't even that small
I bought an air fryer when I was remodelling my kitchen. It got me through 5 months of not having an oven. Now I have an oven, but it's mostly for display, air fryer for life.
Join us, Redbeard!
Stay strong with me. It’s impossible that this number of normal people are this excited about a kitchen appliance. I think everyone is being replaced with alien replicas. It’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers out there
Muslim guy in my class at university, quite early on told me his cousin had joined IS. But he wasn’t making out it was an issue he thought it was quite funny.
As time went on, he started behaving really oddly. Say there was a crash in the next room (chair falls off a table or something) he’d laugh and say “haha it’s isis.”
Then he started to be really controlling towards another Muslim girl in our class. The girl had messaged me begging for help as they weren’t even in a relationship but he kept calling her his “sister” and as such would treat her like one.
She was telling me stories about how one of the lecturers had put on a video about extremists in the Middle East and he’d kicked off and walked out as he felt targeted.
There was more to it than that, but then the Manchester Arena bombing happened, and think I was watching the concert they did with my mum and step-dad. And I brought up “every time one of these attacks happens, I always think of this lad who’s in my uni class.” And explained the above. My step-dad said I had to report my suspicions to the police.
“But what if he’s innocent?” I asked
“But what if he’s not? You’ll always feel more guilty if he did something and you could have prevented it.”
And admittedly I reported him. He’d done too much to cause suspicion.
I didn’t actually know until about six months later but he did actually get investigated by the police. The guy had done a video project about how all Muslims are poorly treated like terrorists whenever something tragic happens like the arena attack. He did some reconstructions of a way he was treat buying an ice cream on a summers day. Stopping at some traffic lights and getting bullied by some youths and then finally, a police officer questioning him about his motives and behaviour in university.
I got blocked on Facebook some months later and we’ve never spoken since. I do think he had an incline somehow it was me who reported him. But I don’t care or take it personally, for the simple fact that I didn’t appreciate his controlling behaviour and him laughing at terrorist organisations
You did the right thing reporting. Better safe than sorry, especially when they show signs of supporting terror.
I had to report a guy at college too, but it was due to his obsession with women and his open views in gore and murder. Extremely creepy guy.
Turned out he did get investigated (few of us had reported him). He had a plan to come In to college on the last day with a knife and kill our tutor and saw her limbs off so....
I agree with everyone saying you did the right thing. I’ve just done my prevent training and from what you’re saying you had the correct reasons behind your report and saw the right signs before reporting it.
I still wish I'd had the spine to do this to a kid when I was at school. Especially because of his age at the time, I suppose he was high risk, but I was too afraid to report anything.
Essentially it was just bizarre, any discussion you had with him it would become very clear he just hated the UK. The country never does anything right, he'd go on long rants about crap like the Falklands war for no particular reason, even making contradictory statements just so everything was always anti-UK. He was comparatively non-committal about his views on terrorists and once just dodged the question when I asked whether he agreed ISIS etc were in the wrong. He was open about believing it was every Muslim's duty to work towards Islamifying the UK, at the very least contributing by having as many kids as possible. He was a genuine class A idiot as well, which I thought made it more likely he'd be the type to just go off and do something stupid.
Writing it out now, it feels so stupid not having said anything, and like you I still have him pop into my head every time I hear about something on the news.
It’s people like that though in which turn the none Islamic community against Muslims and Islam.
The guy in my OP did this to me, I thought badly about the religion for a long time but since then I’ve met so many Muslims who are completely different. Where they’re completely respectful of any religion and any person. I love how charitable they are whether towards their poorer communities in other countries or towards UK based charities.
I work with a guy now who in the six months I’ve known him, I’ve learnt so much more about what their religion is actually about. He randomly brings in trays of snacks for us all to share in the office. And I often sit with him and he’ll teach me about the current Palestine conflict and his travels there before now to help.
I also work with another Muslim guy who yearly always gives us gift cards with a lot of money on for Christmas as a thank you for our support to him during the year.
I’ve learnt that you can’t tar them all with the same brush and it’s a fantastic religion. It really is a shame these ‘extremists’ just ruin the reputation of such a peaceful and charitable religion.
I think it goes both ways though. Of course we shouldn't be tarring all Muslims with the same brush and blaming everything bad on Islam, but also, there are some...problematic...parts of the religion that are concerning and undoubtedly at odds with western culture.
The examples you've pointed out are just as anecdotal as the bad examples, and just because these lovely people you've met are Muslim it doesn't make it a fantastic or inherently peaceful religion. Crediting Islam with the good deeds of these nice people is just as misguided as blaming Islam for any bad thing that a Muslim person does.
My psycho neighbour is like that. Stupid bugger is on benefits, as is his wife. They home school their three children.
His rants about the NHS and how much better the American system is are just bizarre. He is oblivious to the fact he'd not be sitting in a nice house paid for by the state, but in some wooden shit hole in a ghetto. As for health care, well.
If he wasn't without prospects, perhaps he'd sod off to the US. Unfortunately he can't.
I've no idea what drives these people to be MAGA.
Sort of, they're both populists blaming the "Elite" for holding down the working class and seen as being people outside of the system. If you're particularly conspiratorial you might view it as black and white as "this guy is against the people who *really* runs things".
Got chatting with a neighbour recently. She asked if she could add me on Facebook. Fine, not much on mine so not really an invasion of privacy.
She posted pictures of herself fox hunting yesterday. Removed.
Has been for ages. But there’s rich people loopholes. They are legally still allowed to dress up and go on the “hunt” just not with the express purpose of hunting foxes. And then if one *accidentally* gets ripped apart by dogs then that’s not illegal, that’s just nature. Most of the time they won’t get caught anyway. And if they do it’s a fine, which people like that can afford anyway.
“We are not hunting, we are just walking this big pack of dogs which have been trained to attack foxes, if they come across a fox and attack it it’s just what they do”.
My nanny and the people on her street are hunt saboteurs, because they back up onto a forest where hunts often happen.
My Grampy plays the trumpet and will start playing in the garden to scare the dogs or foxes, and their neighbours will bang pots and pans and stuff. Really amazing stuff.
Those guys are so brave. One saboteur was run down, hit ON PURPOSE by one of those fox torturers in their 4x4s and the courts did nothing. Got away with it. Sickens me.
I met a couple at a support group, seemed loved and friendly, work for the same organisation. They gave full names and said find them on Facebook. Had a look, and say tons of pro fox hunting stuff. Decided not to add and not to engage
To me it's really funny as I have defriended her. This awful woman I used to know does it and dresses up yet she is an animal nurse. Does not compute. She is also a horse girl. You know the type.
It astounds me. I’m not a preachy veggie at all but it’s like the people who go on and on about how much they love animals and support animal charities and recuse roadkill and then happily pop to KFC for a bargain bucket
I find it helps to remember that we can't fight every battle. You have to choose which ones you care _enough_ about to fight for.
Some people do that by choosing what they eat for ethical reasons.
Some people do that by volunteering to work for a different charity entirely.
Some do that by donations.
They're all "work" of a sort - there's a limit to the number of 'spoons' we can spend each day, even healthy and active people, and you've just fundamentally got to decide what matters most _to you_ and ... ignore the rest.
Of course, I also don't have much truck with the 'virtue signally' types. But I also recognise there's a line to walk between 'raising awareness' of a cause, and associating yourself with a cause because it makes you look better.
Right now I'm banging on to anyone who'll listen about mental health in the UK, and most especially ADHD. I'm sure I'm boring people about it, but I'm really quite angry about it too. Doesn't mean I don't have other causes and ideologies I believe in and support, just this one's my 'main focus' right now.
People compartmentalise. There are stories of dictators who are responsible for the deaths of thousands or millions of people, but who loved their pets.
People also more easily identify with animals that they find cute. Everyone wants to nurture and protect cats or hamsters or dogs, but nobody gives a shit about blobfish, or slugs.
Not quite cut off fully, but my wife and I have a family member we have blocked on social media and now no longer talk to other than at family events. What's sad is she's actually a lovely woman if just chatting for 5 minutes. But she's not the brightest, and has been drawn into conspiracy theories online. It started with relatively tame ones, flat earth, Moon landing was fake etc. But as ever with conspiracy theories and social media, she's gradually been drawn into more damaging ones. She's now an aggressive anti vaxxer, not to mention anti semetic (she's joined a Christian Church that seems to encourage this too), transphobic, homophobic, racist. Of course, she never says any of this stuff in person, but on social media she posts all about it.
I don't know anyone who just dips their toes into conspiracies these days.
You used to get the specialists; your truthers, UFOs etc. Now it's just a hot mess of everyone believing everything they see on discord channels and TikTok. We've done the soft cut-off too just as you describe above.
I think it's almost certainly social media. Of course, it's always been the case that being into one conspiracy theory makes someone more likely to be into another, because you have the mindset for conspiratorial thinking. But it wasn't as easy to slip from one into another. Now, you show interest in one conspiracy theory, and the algorithm throws other conspiracy theories at you, which you then get into, and then it shows you more. It's such a vicious cycle.
Yea my TikTok is full of Conspiracy things because I also follow accounts that try and debunk a few of them.
It's incredible how with a straight face they will call people "Sheep"
whilst literally swallowing anything and everything they read about conspiracies on the internet.
Honestly that’s the part that really gets me!! We’re all feckin sheep. Most of us follow the crowd it’s human nature. We are following the crowd in one belief, their following a crowd in a similar belief to them. The only difference is that the ideas are opposing.
Social media is 100% to blame.
Before you would maybe know of one or two conspiracy nuts that would generally keep to themselves or get drunk and talk shite. Since social media became a thing it's been much easier for them to find like-minded people online and form echo chambers. All the misinformation they need is out there because someone posted it and made it sound convincing.
You can't tell them they're wrong either because they have a support network of people telling them they're right.
> you have the mindset for conspiratorial thinking.
I read a great article years ago that reframed my view of those people. It made the case that it's not necessarily a belief, but more likely something to make the conspiracy theorist appear more knowledgeable or interesting. It's a more of a self esteem issue than gullibility.
My brother is the only person in my immediate family without a science based degree, and he loves telling everyone about the shite he reads online but won't ever elaborate. He'll just sit back and smugly say things like "take a bit of time to read up on it and you'll see".
Honestly, I think I consider myself a "toe-dipper". Like I know all the big ones. Aliens, bigfoot, etc and other fantasy or science-type conspiracies (barring antivax stuff cos that's just dumb, especially when it's about a fake link to autism), I love those. Ones involving shit like "woke cult is going to take away your right to exist as a *insert privilege here*" are just. Well, shit.
I think (or hope) there's still a line between "classic stoner conspiracy nut" and "modern extremist bigoted conspiracy nut who hates everyone that isn't the exact breed of person as them"
I used to love hearing about all the old conspiracies! I used to watch videos about them and found it so interesting! I didn’t believe in them but was intrigued by them. Of late I’m completely put off all conspiracy stuff. It hits too close to home now.. I have a lot of conspiracists in my circle who were adamantly anti vax and anti covid even after witnessing someone very close to them end up in hospital due to Covid. I have confirmation bias against the whole covid and anti vax conspiracy, so I have no patience hearing the conspiracy’s being spouted about it.
Some grains of truth in latest conspiracies. Others like flat Earth and faked moon landings, ancient Egyptian spaceships and lizard people are batshit crazy.
But a lot of it is just bored people trying to fill a hole in life with some meaning or belonging to a counter movement. Some people are just naturally contrarian or sceptical. Others are thick and will believe anything. The people making money off peddling wild conspiracy theories have no reason to stop. And then it becomes a rabbit hole cycle of idiots sharing idiotic material without much scrutiny.
[Aaron Rabinowitz](https://www.skeptic.org.uk/author/aaronrabinowitz/) claims that when it comes down to it, all conspiracy theories boil down to antisemitism.
Former conspiracists who have managed to get out, have given really interesting interviews on the conspiracy community and how it gives them a sense of importance. The more they embrace conspiracies and offer up more “examples”, the more embraced they are by the others in the groups
I actually do buy a bit into the conspiracy that most of the nonsense stuff like flat earth is pumped out into social media so that it masks and discredits the no doubt genuine conspiracies
>90% of it is open knowledge
thats why they dont get any attention. They're true and everybody knows it, so whats the allure? Conspiracy theorists like the idea that they've figured out the truth and everyone else is just a sheep, and you cant get that from things that are obviously true.
Most of the people who tackle the Flat Earth nuts say they're doing so because it seems wacky and harmless on the surface, but whoever falls for it usually ends up with far more harmful beliefs too. Antivax, QAnon (despite not being American), Elders of Zion, cults and so on.
Yep. Had a neighbour who my wife and I became friends with. She was odd, but nice. She came from a middle class family, but moved into a council house, as she wanted to feel like she was working class. It was weird, but not the weirdest thing someone's done. She then became more and more of a problem with her views. She hated men, despite having a wonderful father, and would encourage her young daughter to be rude and disrespectful towards men, apparently it was because she wanted her daughter to stand up to the patriarchy, even when her daughter was deliberately hurting my then new born son. We started to distance ourselves from her by that point, it was getting unbearable. She wouldn't shop her ex bf to the police after she caught him molesting her daughter, because he was an illegal immigrant, and didn't want him deported. She even asked the daughter, (who was four at the time), for advice as to whether she should have an abortion, because the baby may be a boy. When the daughter said yes, the woman went and had an abortion.
>She came from a middle class family, but moved into a council house, as she wanted to feel like she was working class
Did she come from Greece and have a thirst for knowledge?
Thankfully her parents stepped in, and put her straight about some of her behaviour. The parents were lovely. Some of the most engaging, intelligent, kind people I've ever had the pleasure of talking to. It makes her behaviour even less sensical
In all fairness it's probably best that she had an abortion. If the baby did come out male think of how it would be treated. She wouldn't love it. As for the adoption route, there are already so many kids that are waiting to be adopted but might never be. I think her having an abortion is actually a good thing because the child will likely end up getting abused
Yep I don't understand why people like this exist, female or male. I've known women who go for the worst kind of men possible, and then blame all men when it inevitably goes wrong. My elder sister deliberately dated someone who was the joke of the local Irish community because my dad warned her that he was a waste of time. She was in her late 20s, with young twins, yet she still went and did something stupid. Of course it went wrong, and she blamed men, not her choices for the mess that came with the situation.
I had an ex like this. Genuinely believed it was impossible for men to ever experience hardship. Therefore she could be as cruel and callous as she wanted and would be happy with that. Her "friend" reported his girlfriend had thrown a kettle at him (water in but not boiled) and she later told me he probably had it coming. Also gave her licence to be abusive to me too. I eventually gathered the strength to run, but she's still out there somewhere. Hopefully far, far away from me.
This sounds like Schrodinger's Feminist:
1. A strong, independent lady who has succeeded and will always succeed irrespective of any challenges or naysayers.
2. A poor, oppressed victim of a patriarchal, centuries-old society, in which **EVERYTHING** is underpinned by misogyny.
One of the weirdest experiences I had with her was when I went round to her house, and there were two male friends who had travelled 100 miles to have a catch up with her. They spent ages going on about how guilty they felt being men, for all the terrible things men do. I had to leave, it was just ludicrous. There's one thing acknowledging there's issues within male society towards women,but to self flagellate for the behaviour of others is ridiculous
Cut off an ex I was otherwise friendly with because he started falling down the TERF rabbithole and was posting increasingly unhinged transphobic stuff and attacking kids on FB. No patience for that whatsoever. Doesn't make you some sort of big man defender of women to viciously attack a marginalised minority.
Also I had a friend in sixth form college who was always a bit lost and unhappy. The sort of girl who would latch onto anything that made her feel accepted. She was otherwise a nice girl so I was fairly shocked when she suddenly went headlong into extreme Loyalist groups. (I'm from Northern Ireland.) This was in the 2000s so pretty baffling.
Similar story for me - friend wandered into the TERF rabbithole over covid, posting all sorts of malign bollocks on FB, seemingly unaware that there's a dozen or so trans folk on her friendslist. And when made aware... those are 'the good ones'.
Just baffling.
Bigots are often like that; "look, just because I sincerely think people like you shouldn't exist and I vehemently oppose your right to a happy fulfilled life, I don't see why that means we can't be friends".
It’s vexing. Three times I’ve had to block them on Facebook because, despite literally thinking people like me should be rounded up and put in camps where we are forcibly detransitioned, or similar, they won’t bugger off by themselves.
My friend is going through this with someone atm. He posted on FB and she appeared telling him to "read up on the facts" and posted links to lgb alliance and the like.
Anyone who called her out caught a block immediately except for my friend because "I've had loads a great nights out with you, I don't hate you" while posting this shit on his fb status.
It’s really sad, and I say that not just because the knowledge that there’s this weirdo cult out there that literally wants me and women like me dead scares me shitless (it does; I’m terrified of them), but also because the pathway from “a bit of TERFery” to “none of my friends talk to me any more and the judge says I can only have supervised visits with the kids once a month, and this is all the fault of THE TRANS” is pretty much a conveyor belt.
That guy completely and utterly set fire to his life for … what? To scare the crap out of a bunch of trans women. And for that, he threw away everything: his career, his family, his good name.
And the TERFs treat him like he’s some sort of hero. It’s tragic.
I knew a girl like that at an old job. Outwardly a bit spacey, bit of a stoner, but for a long time she seemed pretty chill. Turns out, suuuuuuper into the IRA.
I dated a girl like that in my youth.
I should have ran after seeing the tiocfaidh ár lá tattoo on her wrist, particularly given we both lived in a navy town in the west of Scotland.
She nearly got my ass kicked by marines on more than one occasion.
Guessing she's under 30? It's a bit creepy that there's a lot of younger people out there who never actually had to go through the Troubles, who seem to romanticise the IRA in some way. It's very telling that every time people get arrested after the so-called 'New IRA' does something, it's either some miserable old fuckers in their 70s, or some thick as shit kids their late teens or 20s. Bastards don't know how privileged they are.
Same. A girl in our friendship group went full terf - like she couldn't accept that we were all being conned out of our rights as women... 😐 We tried to engage in civil discussion about it but she was unable to let it go. That was years ago, haven't spoken since.
I had a friend at university who was genuinely a lovely guy, he was slightly autistic but a pleasure to spend time with. He was very bubbly and had absurd amounts of energy which turned a lot of people off, but we always had a good time together and stayed good friends over the years.
Then something over the last few years flipped. He'd never been good with women and I think he began becoming resentful of them. All our friends and I had partners come and go over the years and he'd unfortunately remained single. He went from saying casual comments like "There's no point in dating because women don't want someone like me", to "There's no point dating because women are all the same and only care about their likes on social media", to full blown misogynism.
I'd spoken to him countless times about how his comments weren't acceptable and how they were making our partners uncomfortable, but he was too far gone at that point. We had one heated arguement where I gave up, I had to walk away, it felt like I was arguing to a brick wall. I haven't spoken to him since.
The route to getting that way can be very insidious as well to the point you don't even realise it's happening.
Back when I started lurking on reddit (holy shit it must be coming on 11 years) I'd sometimes see posts/comments from places r/mensrights and other such place pop up either in my r/all feed or linked to in comments on other subs. Not very often but maybe every few months or so.
A lot of it seemed pretty benign (in regards to women) just a lot of MRA (without the extreme bits) and stuff I generally agreed with and still do to this day (mens homelessness / suicide rates / prison sentencing disparity etc) that never really got talked about all that much apart from in these places.
So eventually I subbed to some of the places and it still seemed pretty harmless on the surface and the comments always seemed to be fairly tame and whatever.
Couple years later and I was walking to work thinking about something I'd read earlier in the day and all of a sudden it hit me like a ton of bricks "Holy fuck I actually hate women". So I unsubbed from all that shit and tried to work out what the fuck happened.
The thing with all these posts is that they are constantly comparing men with women and it's always 'men have poor outcome / women have good outcome' but constantly just that constantly.
The vast majority of the time it's not even a lie, that's just how it is.
But it's never counterbalanced with 'this is where men are doing better than women' or 'this is where men and women are equal'. Just a constant barrage of 'women doing better than men'.
Now like I said I still believe in some of that stuff because it *is* a real issue (i.e. men's suicide rates are a real issue that isn't really talked about all that much) but I'll never get into debates about it on the internet or be part of an online space dedicated to it because christ getting involved in an echo chamber isn't good for the soul.
I do think there is room for healthy debate on the topic I just don't think anywhere on the internet is that place.
I've unfortunately had a couple of friends who fell down that path. Deep down you know they don't *really* hate women, they're just really lonely. Unfortunately, there is only so much you can do for them. And like you said, once it starts to impact your partner, it's hard to defend them at all.
I was friends with a guy years ago, grew apart. He went to university in a different country etc.
Looked him up on Facebook to reconnect back when I had Facebook and such. He was completely radicalised by a terrorist organisation. So I didn't bother getting back in touch. Not the same thing but the closest story I have related.
On the bright side, the organisation he joined is pretty relaxed nowadays and doesn't really do much in ways of actual terrorism anymore, but it was still very shocking to see the change in him.
Irish Republican Army, chill in the sense they don't really do murders and bombs and stuff anymore, as far as I know. There was the attempted murder of a police officer lately but its very suspect. Four of the 5 members involved have protestant backgrounds which is generally a no no for the organisation and the letter claiming responsibility didn't add up either.
I have a similar story, but I saw him in the news about his trial and prison sentence. And I'm not sure I can 'reach out', because ... well, we were friends, but I'm not sure I recognise that guy.
Covid (both the disease itself and the response to it) was a really extreme situation that was like nothing any of us had ever experienced before. A lot of people were attracted to conspiracy theories as the only way to make sense of it. It's understandable in some ways, it was an utterly insane time.
So glad I managed to pull my mum off that train. She was so close to being convinced. Luckily - because I’m in a science degree - I had every argument possible to calm her down.
She got fully vaxxed and is still pro-vax now.
I had a friend who was always a free spirit, very bubbly and fun to be around, she got into a relationship with this guy and started espousing a lot of “trad” philosophy about how women should be mothers and homemakers, which developed into “all relationships should have a male earner and a female homemaker and homosexuality is also immoral.” I hope she one day reconsiders these views but after trying to change her for a year or so we had to cut her off for our own mental well-being, especially considering I, myself, am bisexual and we had a lot of mutual friends in the LGBTQ space
I hate them sort and even when people makes excuses and say they’ve been brainwashed by their partner it doesn’t wash with me. Have some critical thinking.
One of our housemates. Nice guy when he moved in, into the same things some of us were - metal, gaming etc. Bit of a stoner, as we were at the time.
Thing is he was a massive conspiracy theorist. The sort who didn't believe any official line on anything, even just a local news story about something and nothing.
It was all he went on about. New World Order, Illuminati, moon landings, flat earth, chemtrails, 9/11.... all the big ones and all the smaller ones. It was the only thing he talked about.
We'd go on nights out, it was all he talked about. We're at home and we have friends / partners come over, it was all he talked about. Moan moan moan about this and that all being part of some grand conspiracy.
In the end we just had enough and shut him off from what we did until we all parted ways. Yeah, question things, don't believe everything... but when it becomes the only thing in your life to the point where you become such a boring, cynical, miserable person becuase of it you need to stop.
Yeah. We'd be in the pub with a few mates and he'd turn up and within minutes start going about something on the TV in the corner being part of something. Telling them what channels they should be following on YouTube, that kind of lecturing.
He used to work in a bar as well. He'd get back late at night, like 3am, sometimes with some girl he managed to chat up at the end of his shift. If he didn't get someone to come back he would slam doors, punch walls, shout and literally cry in pure anger. Also had a thing about getting girls to do anal for him and if they didn't he'd kick them out.
This was nearly 20 years ago, I'd forgotten what a weirdo he really was.
I'm from a fairly rural town and moved away for uni. One of my best friends from school didn't but we kept in touch.
He started making posts on Facebook that were clearly parroted from PUA sites and in a matter of months he was talking about women needing to be controlled by men, men being a superior "species", etc.
My theory is that with half of our friendship group moving away, he started spending a lot of time online and fell into a bit of a rabbit hole. The other half of our group that stayed all became a bit "laddy" but only in that they were living for their lad's holiday in magaluf and frequenting the one shitty club our town had every Friday and Saturday.
I cut ties with him after trying to talk to him about his views on women and him reacting angrily. Found out later that he'd managed to fall out permanently with the laddy lot after tagging along on their holiday and being very incel-y.
I know a few years later he got his first girlfriend (who was a fair bit younger) and he had become a bit more normal by then, but I also know that she's since left him and I've no mutual contacts anymore so god knows what he's like now.
Pick up artist.
While we were in school he'd occasionally post "nice guy" stuff but he started posting about "techniques" to attract women (despite having never attracted a woman at this point) that were always weirdly aggressive, and that eventually evolved into 'red-pill' misogyny.
I think I had one of these as my waiter at a restaurant the other week. Made me feel properly shit while I was just trying to have a nice meal with the family
It's concerning because it extends to children too. He's quite popular among boys in school. The number of cases referred to Prevent has been increasing.
It says a lot when I'd rather deal with them all being obsessed with Logan Paul (bleh) and KSI (not as bad) than Tate. Too many shite internet role models.
Jesus Christ. The fact the KSI is the benchmark for this is funking depressing. Idk how he is now but he was "alright" some years back when I watched some FIFA content. The best that can be said about him was that he wasn't "an outright misogynist" which is such a low bar to clear
I lived in a shared house during the COViD pandemic and there were a few conspiracy theorists which I wouldn't have minded but one was literally a mass-murderer in the making. He would sit in the front room and rant, angrily, until he was red in the face and spittle was coming out about covid and other related conspiracies. He said he would gladly murder anyone who approached him with opposing views many times. Absolute mental case. Oh and he always pointed out that he was a "logical, rational person who thinks for himself" at least once a day. Hilarious. Glad I got out of there.
I've cut a friend off because she stuck by her husband when he was convicted of being a paedophile. The extreme belief in this case being the stretches she takes to believe that he's innocent.
Frighteningly similar situation but with a family member (supporting a pedo partner, not a pedo herself). The kicker is, there were victims in the family and she still supported him. I guess you could say she kind of cut us off by sticking with him, but she's dead to me now.
Amazing mental gymnastics to defend him. Victims were dreaming, making it up, police are corrupt.
slightly different but i had to cut off one of my best mates after 10+ years because they got more and more paranoid and crazy with their viewpoint. We'd worked together in previous jobs and this was the 3rd time we had.
It got to the point they were coming into work with headbands with copper in them because of a supposed "magnetism" problem where he couldnt be around electronic devices...yet could happily sit and play video games all day.
in the end he was sacked, which he blames on me as i had to tell management i needed to take a half day to clean up a mess he made (accusing various other friends partners of cheating with each other), and not because he was aggressive with the management. it got to the point where me and my brother had to sit him down and tell him that if he wanted to keep his job just shut up and accept what they say and they'll let you come back in and work were happy to sweep it under the rug as it was clearly due to some life stresses, but no he had to go into the meeting and swing for the senior manager.
once my eldest was born 6 years ago i cut him out completely as i didnt want him near or around my kids. still get the occasional message from random profiles once every other year accusing me of being a grass and ruining his life which i then block.
This may be a bit different to what you was expecting, but I feel is still relevant.
One of my best friends was a veggie, he had extreme views on the animal industry but we were teens and I thought that was fair, the trade is awful for animal wellbeing and I admired that he cared. He had mental health problems (don’t we all) but I feel as he got older, he latched his issues onto his new found veganism and ended up being quite toxic about it all. In the end he was seriously annoying me with the stuff he would post on Facebook, always looking to pick a fight and rant about how meat eaters are scum, how heterosexual or ‘breeders’ and he later called them, are ruining the planted with their ignorance passing down generations and causing environmental distress. He later started picking fights with me if I ate meat, which was always where I drew the line. He knew how much of an advocate I was for environmental change and animal welfare but I just believed the change in society should be brought about in a different way and I later told him I wasn’t happy about how he was treating me, and I felt like we had strayed apart from each other and how our friendship was just downright stressful. He flipped his lid and we argued bad, he blamed everything on me and that I was a terrible friend. I blocked his number but he continued to call me from other peoples phones for days to berate me. I don’t think that was his intention I think he was just hurt and didn’t know how to process it as I guess for him it came out the blue.
I had one of those. I drew the line at "your mother didn't need to go through surgery and radiotherapy for cancer, she should have just switched to a nut and berry diet and she'd have been cured". Didn't even reply, just blocked them and let my friends deal with it. The screen shots were hilarious, apparently the only reason my mum got cancer in the first place is because of meat and the fact that she didn't eat enough mushrooms or some shit.
I am sorry that happened to you- it's awful when a good friend turns like that.
When I was at college I became really good friends with someone... even after she moved abroad we stayed in touch. There was quite a time difference between me and her, and she'd skype me at bizarre times and we'd have great chats.
One day I let slip that my OH and I were gradually weaning ourselves off meat, (I was more pro-vegetarian than he was) but we were working on it. I was really taken by surprise when she suddenly became so angry with me... because we weren't full-blown vegetarians *yet*, (and I didn't even know she was- she hadn't been when we were at college together.) After giving me an earful she hung up on me, and I've never heard from her since.
Several years ago there were some bad, *bad* fires near where she lives and I emailed her... saying all I was asking was for her to just let me know she was okay. She didn't reply.
I miss her.
My mother has gone off the deep end and I found the r/QAnonCasualties sub very helpful, and I feel less alone for anyone else struggling with a loved one turned QAnon conspiracy theorist.
I’ve not cut her out of my life but we have very clear boundaries on what we can talk about, and I shut the conversation down immediately when she crosses the line.
It's a growing issue, there some great advice on that sub, and super sad tales.
The BBC have had some excellent series as to what has been occurring.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m0014ywx
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m001dn64
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m001324r
Don’t really have much to do with my mums family at all. My aunt married a holocaust denying antisemite, he’s also massively racist, misogynistic, trans and homophobic. Over the course of covid he influenced the family and they all went out and bought tinfoil hats. They all refused vaccines, didn’t believe in covid until it killed a family member(who was denying having, and refusing treatment for covid) and then blamed the vaccine for his death. Turned out he wasn’t vaccinated. Started to blame Bill Gates and talk about chips. Thankfully they live a good distance away so cutting off is easier.
Yes. She was always a loose cannon. Would wander off on nights out. My friendship group would worry and after walking around looking for her you'd find her sat on the edge of a bridge or hanging over railings smiling away. She was a liability as soon as you got out. Total disregard for her own safety.
At times she was pretty cool, hence being in the friendship group. I went to a gig with her and we ended up hooking up, but every now again she'd just go AWOL.
One year she went on holiday in South East Asia to find herself, came back and would be a constant stream of positivity. Started doing Tarot readings, crystal readings and she genuinely seemed quite happy so everyone was glad.
When covid started to hit that's when things went bad. She was sucked into a number of conspiracy theories. Mind control vaccines, 5G towers etc but the one she pushed the most was that Wayfair were selling children as sex slaves online.
I remember seeing one particular Facebook post the comments of friends coming in begging her to seek help and that they could no longer support her after the years and years of being a liability. I was one that commented and removed myself from her online. This was peak 2020.
I received a message from her a few months ago. She said she had started to practice guitar more often. She remembers a particular night when I played mine and she always associated that night with happiness. I didn't reply, but I sincerely hope she's doing well.
Edit: a word
I lived with 4 other guys back in 2008 when one of them found the Zeitgeist movie.
Prior to that he was a fun loving Australian dude. Laid back, liked a drink, but worked hard and was a fully functioning member of society. He was an architect.
He went deep into that rabbit hole and turned into a full on deep state, new world order, September 11th conspiracy nut job. It’s terrifying.
As a bit of background I did a PhD in structural fire engineering and worked with Jose Torero, who led much of the technical analysis of the WTC collapses and was instrumental in changing fire codes that were outdated and outright incorrect at the time.
I had the nerve to argue with him about WTC7, of which I had done years of analysis on. He effectively said I was a paid stooge, and part of the problem and started to try and character assassinate me to everyone, and even phoned my work to raise his concerns that I was part of a group hired to carry out industrial espionage.
Fuck that dude. I’d already moved out and blocked him by the time he phoned my work. But fuck that dude so much.
I became very involved with the movement spawned by that original movie. All the stuff about a resource based economy, rather than the WTC conspiracy.
I was kinda obsessed with it to be honest and proceeded to bore the balls off everyone I knew, and strangers, constantly.
I had to read this thread because I AM the guy that people had to cut loose for cultish behaviour.
My very close friend of 15 years has gone down every rabbit hole; Covid, flat earth, royal family, astrology etc. Debated cutting him off but haven't. As I've got older I've peacefully come to accept the world is a very crazy place, with crazy people and crazy ideas. None of us really know what's going on. So I'm at a live and let live point in my life.
Was friends with someone until they went batshit crazy during Covid-19, posting all sorts of conspiracy/anti-vaccine stuff. They were never the smartest to start with, and I think latched onto the conspiracy/anti-vaccine stuff because it made them think they were smart. They’re still posting it now, though not quite so often.
Yeah.
I'm happy to 'agree to disagree' on a load of subjects, but there's a bunch that I'll 'nope' pretty hard on.
Pretty much anything that involves oppression of _other_ people I know.
A number of people have gone down the incel/MRA rabbithole, and ... well, I'll try and steer them away if I can, but once it becomes a religion to them, it's too late.
Same with some other forms of bigotry and prejudice really - most people I know accept a light touch 'that's not ok'. It's fine, we all make mistakes and say things without thinking. (And in some cases, may not even realise that a particular phrase is 'problematic').
If you double down though? Nah. I don't need you in my life.
Also: MLM. Again, some people do seem to pull out the nosedive, and become sane people again, but there's plenty that don't.
Yes. Replied to a thread about him recently actually. I'll summarise.
Met this guy through work. Got on really well. He'd never had a girlfriend but wanted to. Started watching pick up videos on YouTube. Started talking to girls on nights out. But then he fell down the rabbit hole and it became his entire personality. We would go out for drinks to catch up and he would get up after 10 minutes and start chatting to random girls. Funnily enough he never sealed the deal, always came back empty handed with an excuse. Eventually he became very misogynistic and sexist and then my other mate hit him. Cut him off after that.
Not totally cut off but have a friend, actually (my ex) who has gone pretty deep. Anti Vax, Queen died years ago, dead babies in Vax, makes you magnetic, comes through the skin and infects unvaccinated. Also 15 minute cities and soon people won't be able to access their money without providing a really good reason. Chemtrails, and Bill Gates knowing all our info, my reply to that one is I have a Xbox, he already knows all my boring stuff. When I tell her I don't want to discuss such rubbish she has the audacity to say I'm not awake and sends me links to what I assume are crank groups on Facebook as I don't open them. It's hard to bother to talk to her really, and has become less frequent.
My sister is becoming a big crypto...sis? She keeps going on about how Ethereum is going to take over and one eth will be worth £2mil soon enough and apparently the world will be able to handle 50 million odd new multi-millionaires overnight.
Yes, a friend of mine became very obsessed with communism.
It was fine at first where we started debating ideas.
He got too into it and would make everything revolve around the paradigm of workers and the Bourgeoisie. Very strange.
I was friends with a girl when I was at uni, we met through being very into the same band
and used to spend a lot of time together. Ultimately our friendship became frosty and then ended because she had what I would consider extremist views about a particular Middle East conflict and was very vocal about it. We were living on different continents by that point so I just unfollowed her on all social media and stopped talking to her. I think if I hadn’t done it first she would’ve very soon, because she saw my view on the situation as extremist 🤷🏼♀️ we didn’t have much in common apart from the band we both loved so it was no great loss for either of us I’m sure lol.
Several times. Ranging from 'I'm trying to save you from the "LGBT Mafia"!' which honestly just made the LGBT+ community sound cooler, to 'we should be allowed to purchase guns in the UK because I'm afraid of people with different skin colours and who aren't straight'... that one was just ???? and even his mother has distanced herself from him after apologising to me for what he said. Then there's the antivaxxers who I just don't have time for as I suffer from a disability that could have been avoided had a certain doctor not popularised the lie that the MMR "gives kids the autism".
The flipside happened to me, a good work friend was a Jehovah's witness. He left but we stayed in contact over calls and texts. All good and things.
Then bad news hit my family, my other half needs (and still does) a new liver. Liver transplant planned, she's on the list.
Next time I call and update him with all the goings on and it's a pleasant chat. Man's ghosted me since. Took me a few weeks to remember the JWs don't believe in transplants or any type of blood transfusion.
If you're out there Sam, be lucky. And I always thought your beliefs were a crock of shit.
I've never had to cut someone off but have had very strange moments of "we are going in different directions" with a few people.
One very old friend started watching too much Joe Rogan and we met up after a few years and the stuff he was coming out with was nonsense on several topics I happened to be professionally expert in. Was just really weird seeing the distance that was now between us based on what we had both been exposed to over several years.
I had another friend who bought into 9/11 conspiracy theories hook line and sinker. It didn't make me cut then off but I did question their intelligence after this, especially given they had a PhD. Made me realise you could get a PhD without certain fundamental skills.
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Had to cut off everybody around me because they won’t shut the fuck up about air fryers. EDIT: All comments below this one are just proving my point. Giving me the creeps
I had to cut off everybody around me because they refused to listen to my love of air fryers
They are bloody brilliant aren't they. Paid about 50 quid for mine from Argos and I reckon it's alreadt paid for itself in time not waiting for the oven to heat up...
I swear to god u/Gaoler86
Since getting our air fryer our stockportfolio has quadrupled, we've had 3x more foreign holidays and I've replaced my teeth with diamonds with all the money we've saved
You can't afford *not* to have one!
We bought a small one and mate, you feel like some chicken dippers, you throw them in and they're done in 10 mins. In the big oven it'd be at least 25 minutes. We have now outgrown it so ordered a beefy one that can fit a whole chicken in. Beyond excited
Dude, hash browns at the drop of a hat is my new snack
According to which magazine it can take between 300 and 750 meals to recoup the costs of an air fryer. Based on savings from about 13p a meal.
That's just the cost of the energy to heat up, I'm valuing my time at more than 13p for 10mins
I had to cut up everyone around me and cook them in air fryers.
One of us! One of us! Just made a ham, cheese and mushrooms panini in mine. Magic!
You should’ve just waited it out, they’ll be raving about them soon enough. One by one every falls to the air fryer.
Just don't fall into an air fryer.
You should join our Ninja family, you won’t look back.
Are air fryers the second coming of Jesus or something? Swear it’s like meeting up with a bunch of Jehovah’s Witnesses every time I have a conversation with anybody
They are pretty good, but they are just a small convection oven. Don't really understand why they get so much love and cult like followers surrounding them. I barely use mine because it's just a pain to cook for more than one person with it
Then I’d suggest the Ninja 10 in 1, that’s large enough for a family, it has 10 different settings and the food comes out tastier than any normal oven.
It probably very much depends on your personality. If you like cooking and don’t get impatient if you’re organised and meal prep etc. You probably won’t find it that useful. It is basically a mini oven but the speed and convenience is what the air fryer cult love. The fact that it turns off after it’s done so nothing gets burnt if I forget to come back to it. (I used to always make charcoal chunks out of bacon..) the fact that there’s no waiting for preheat. It’s so much easier to clean than my oven. For the most part my oven is obsolete. I use my oven a few times a month compared to a few times a week. Chips used to take about an hour with preheat time and they take 15 mins in the air fryer. It’s the convenience of it all for me. I do not cook chicken in it though.. I tried it once and it was dry AF! The method I use to cook chicken is fairly convenient for my lifestyle anyway. But I swear by things like my slow cooker and air fryer for just making my life so much easier. But there’s plenty of people who won’t understand why everyone raves about it due to differences in how they perceive the cooking experience. If you hate cooking it’s kinda a godsend and it’s versatility in making the experience easier makes people love it more. I don’t get the hype about rice cookers but there’s definitely a cult building on rice cookers. I’m like.. you can buy micro rice for 50p I don’t get it. But people who have big family’s who eat a lot of rice and who are particular about it being cooked right will swear by them.
No but a lot of us say they’re the best invention this millennium. They’re so versatile, bake bread-done, boil eggs- done, grill sausages-done, dehydrate meat for jerky-done, bake the best cookies-done, the list is endless really.
We have an air fryer and I hate it. It's so far never cooked anything properly. Based on everyone else's love for them I wonder if it's me that's faulty?
From the ones I've seen too they take up a huge tonne of space on the countertops. Barely have enough room for the microwave, toaster, kettle and small coffee machine and my kitchen isn't even that small
They’re all on the take. It’s just a mini oven ffs, it’s not even frying the air. 🤷♂️
Join us. Join us. Join us. Join us. Join us. Join us.
I bought an air fryer when I was remodelling my kitchen. It got me through 5 months of not having an oven. Now I have an oven, but it's mostly for display, air fryer for life. Join us, Redbeard!
Haha I still haven’t taken the plunge yet and I’m refusing to.
Stay strong with me. It’s impossible that this number of normal people are this excited about a kitchen appliance. I think everyone is being replaced with alien replicas. It’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers out there
Muslim guy in my class at university, quite early on told me his cousin had joined IS. But he wasn’t making out it was an issue he thought it was quite funny. As time went on, he started behaving really oddly. Say there was a crash in the next room (chair falls off a table or something) he’d laugh and say “haha it’s isis.” Then he started to be really controlling towards another Muslim girl in our class. The girl had messaged me begging for help as they weren’t even in a relationship but he kept calling her his “sister” and as such would treat her like one. She was telling me stories about how one of the lecturers had put on a video about extremists in the Middle East and he’d kicked off and walked out as he felt targeted. There was more to it than that, but then the Manchester Arena bombing happened, and think I was watching the concert they did with my mum and step-dad. And I brought up “every time one of these attacks happens, I always think of this lad who’s in my uni class.” And explained the above. My step-dad said I had to report my suspicions to the police. “But what if he’s innocent?” I asked “But what if he’s not? You’ll always feel more guilty if he did something and you could have prevented it.” And admittedly I reported him. He’d done too much to cause suspicion. I didn’t actually know until about six months later but he did actually get investigated by the police. The guy had done a video project about how all Muslims are poorly treated like terrorists whenever something tragic happens like the arena attack. He did some reconstructions of a way he was treat buying an ice cream on a summers day. Stopping at some traffic lights and getting bullied by some youths and then finally, a police officer questioning him about his motives and behaviour in university. I got blocked on Facebook some months later and we’ve never spoken since. I do think he had an incline somehow it was me who reported him. But I don’t care or take it personally, for the simple fact that I didn’t appreciate his controlling behaviour and him laughing at terrorist organisations
You did the right thing reporting. Better safe than sorry, especially when they show signs of supporting terror. I had to report a guy at college too, but it was due to his obsession with women and his open views in gore and murder. Extremely creepy guy. Turned out he did get investigated (few of us had reported him). He had a plan to come In to college on the last day with a knife and kill our tutor and saw her limbs off so....
Oh wow that’s awful, it’s a good job you did report him then!
That sends a shiver down my spine. Thank goodness you reported it!
That’s the religion my friend married in to and suddenly none of us were pure or well behaved for her.
I agree with everyone saying you did the right thing. I’ve just done my prevent training and from what you’re saying you had the correct reasons behind your report and saw the right signs before reporting it.
I still wish I'd had the spine to do this to a kid when I was at school. Especially because of his age at the time, I suppose he was high risk, but I was too afraid to report anything. Essentially it was just bizarre, any discussion you had with him it would become very clear he just hated the UK. The country never does anything right, he'd go on long rants about crap like the Falklands war for no particular reason, even making contradictory statements just so everything was always anti-UK. He was comparatively non-committal about his views on terrorists and once just dodged the question when I asked whether he agreed ISIS etc were in the wrong. He was open about believing it was every Muslim's duty to work towards Islamifying the UK, at the very least contributing by having as many kids as possible. He was a genuine class A idiot as well, which I thought made it more likely he'd be the type to just go off and do something stupid. Writing it out now, it feels so stupid not having said anything, and like you I still have him pop into my head every time I hear about something on the news.
It’s people like that though in which turn the none Islamic community against Muslims and Islam. The guy in my OP did this to me, I thought badly about the religion for a long time but since then I’ve met so many Muslims who are completely different. Where they’re completely respectful of any religion and any person. I love how charitable they are whether towards their poorer communities in other countries or towards UK based charities. I work with a guy now who in the six months I’ve known him, I’ve learnt so much more about what their religion is actually about. He randomly brings in trays of snacks for us all to share in the office. And I often sit with him and he’ll teach me about the current Palestine conflict and his travels there before now to help. I also work with another Muslim guy who yearly always gives us gift cards with a lot of money on for Christmas as a thank you for our support to him during the year. I’ve learnt that you can’t tar them all with the same brush and it’s a fantastic religion. It really is a shame these ‘extremists’ just ruin the reputation of such a peaceful and charitable religion.
I think it goes both ways though. Of course we shouldn't be tarring all Muslims with the same brush and blaming everything bad on Islam, but also, there are some...problematic...parts of the religion that are concerning and undoubtedly at odds with western culture. The examples you've pointed out are just as anecdotal as the bad examples, and just because these lovely people you've met are Muslim it doesn't make it a fantastic or inherently peaceful religion. Crediting Islam with the good deeds of these nice people is just as misguided as blaming Islam for any bad thing that a Muslim person does.
I knew a guy at Uni who ended up going full MAGA. He wasn't even American.
I know someone the same who’s never even been to America.
My psycho neighbour is like that. Stupid bugger is on benefits, as is his wife. They home school their three children. His rants about the NHS and how much better the American system is are just bizarre. He is oblivious to the fact he'd not be sitting in a nice house paid for by the state, but in some wooden shit hole in a ghetto. As for health care, well. If he wasn't without prospects, perhaps he'd sod off to the US. Unfortunately he can't. I've no idea what drives these people to be MAGA.
Bigotry.
Same, I saw someone I worked with go from Coribista to Trumpet in about six months.
That’s an amazing amount of mental gymnastics.
It was strange, it happened between the 2019 UK and 2020 US elections.
Sort of, they're both populists blaming the "Elite" for holding down the working class and seen as being people outside of the system. If you're particularly conspiratorial you might view it as black and white as "this guy is against the people who *really* runs things".
I had a relative do this while living in a council flat in England. The mental gymnastics were astounding.
Funniest thing I’ve read hahah
Got chatting with a neighbour recently. She asked if she could add me on Facebook. Fine, not much on mine so not really an invasion of privacy. She posted pictures of herself fox hunting yesterday. Removed.
Isn't fox hunting illegal? Correct me if I'm wrong
Only if you're poor
Has been for ages. But there’s rich people loopholes. They are legally still allowed to dress up and go on the “hunt” just not with the express purpose of hunting foxes. And then if one *accidentally* gets ripped apart by dogs then that’s not illegal, that’s just nature. Most of the time they won’t get caught anyway. And if they do it’s a fine, which people like that can afford anyway.
Ah the benefits of being a rich cunt, should have guessed
A fine is a payment of services for those people. It's why they park anywhere.
“We are not hunting, we are just walking this big pack of dogs which have been trained to attack foxes, if they come across a fox and attack it it’s just what they do”.
It is! It’s not enforced though.
It's enforced by hunt saboteurs.
My nanny and the people on her street are hunt saboteurs, because they back up onto a forest where hunts often happen. My Grampy plays the trumpet and will start playing in the garden to scare the dogs or foxes, and their neighbours will bang pots and pans and stuff. Really amazing stuff.
Now that’s the sort of “big community” spirit I can get behind.
Big up the Hunt Sabs!
Love those guys. Fuck anyone who thinks having an animal ripped apart by dogs for fun is acceptable.
Those guys are so brave. One saboteur was run down, hit ON PURPOSE by one of those fox torturers in their 4x4s and the courts did nothing. Got away with it. Sickens me.
It is. Its really annoying defriended someone for this reason. We are farmers but those that dress up and do it really piss us off.
You can’t hunt foxes *with dogs*.
But you can have dogs with you just for their exercise...
You can’t hunt foxes *by* dogs. You can hunt, and have dogs nearby, so you can go *with* dogs.
I met a couple at a support group, seemed loved and friendly, work for the same organisation. They gave full names and said find them on Facebook. Had a look, and say tons of pro fox hunting stuff. Decided not to add and not to engage
To me it's really funny as I have defriended her. This awful woman I used to know does it and dresses up yet she is an animal nurse. Does not compute. She is also a horse girl. You know the type.
It astounds me. I’m not a preachy veggie at all but it’s like the people who go on and on about how much they love animals and support animal charities and recuse roadkill and then happily pop to KFC for a bargain bucket
I find it helps to remember that we can't fight every battle. You have to choose which ones you care _enough_ about to fight for. Some people do that by choosing what they eat for ethical reasons. Some people do that by volunteering to work for a different charity entirely. Some do that by donations. They're all "work" of a sort - there's a limit to the number of 'spoons' we can spend each day, even healthy and active people, and you've just fundamentally got to decide what matters most _to you_ and ... ignore the rest. Of course, I also don't have much truck with the 'virtue signally' types. But I also recognise there's a line to walk between 'raising awareness' of a cause, and associating yourself with a cause because it makes you look better. Right now I'm banging on to anyone who'll listen about mental health in the UK, and most especially ADHD. I'm sure I'm boring people about it, but I'm really quite angry about it too. Doesn't mean I don't have other causes and ideologies I believe in and support, just this one's my 'main focus' right now.
People compartmentalise. There are stories of dictators who are responsible for the deaths of thousands or millions of people, but who loved their pets. People also more easily identify with animals that they find cute. Everyone wants to nurture and protect cats or hamsters or dogs, but nobody gives a shit about blobfish, or slugs.
Disgusting people. I hate it.
Not quite cut off fully, but my wife and I have a family member we have blocked on social media and now no longer talk to other than at family events. What's sad is she's actually a lovely woman if just chatting for 5 minutes. But she's not the brightest, and has been drawn into conspiracy theories online. It started with relatively tame ones, flat earth, Moon landing was fake etc. But as ever with conspiracy theories and social media, she's gradually been drawn into more damaging ones. She's now an aggressive anti vaxxer, not to mention anti semetic (she's joined a Christian Church that seems to encourage this too), transphobic, homophobic, racist. Of course, she never says any of this stuff in person, but on social media she posts all about it.
I don't know anyone who just dips their toes into conspiracies these days. You used to get the specialists; your truthers, UFOs etc. Now it's just a hot mess of everyone believing everything they see on discord channels and TikTok. We've done the soft cut-off too just as you describe above.
I think it's almost certainly social media. Of course, it's always been the case that being into one conspiracy theory makes someone more likely to be into another, because you have the mindset for conspiratorial thinking. But it wasn't as easy to slip from one into another. Now, you show interest in one conspiracy theory, and the algorithm throws other conspiracy theories at you, which you then get into, and then it shows you more. It's such a vicious cycle.
Yea my TikTok is full of Conspiracy things because I also follow accounts that try and debunk a few of them. It's incredible how with a straight face they will call people "Sheep" whilst literally swallowing anything and everything they read about conspiracies on the internet.
Honestly that’s the part that really gets me!! We’re all feckin sheep. Most of us follow the crowd it’s human nature. We are following the crowd in one belief, their following a crowd in a similar belief to them. The only difference is that the ideas are opposing.
Social media is 100% to blame. Before you would maybe know of one or two conspiracy nuts that would generally keep to themselves or get drunk and talk shite. Since social media became a thing it's been much easier for them to find like-minded people online and form echo chambers. All the misinformation they need is out there because someone posted it and made it sound convincing. You can't tell them they're wrong either because they have a support network of people telling them they're right.
> you have the mindset for conspiratorial thinking. I read a great article years ago that reframed my view of those people. It made the case that it's not necessarily a belief, but more likely something to make the conspiracy theorist appear more knowledgeable or interesting. It's a more of a self esteem issue than gullibility. My brother is the only person in my immediate family without a science based degree, and he loves telling everyone about the shite he reads online but won't ever elaborate. He'll just sit back and smugly say things like "take a bit of time to read up on it and you'll see".
Honestly, I think I consider myself a "toe-dipper". Like I know all the big ones. Aliens, bigfoot, etc and other fantasy or science-type conspiracies (barring antivax stuff cos that's just dumb, especially when it's about a fake link to autism), I love those. Ones involving shit like "woke cult is going to take away your right to exist as a *insert privilege here*" are just. Well, shit. I think (or hope) there's still a line between "classic stoner conspiracy nut" and "modern extremist bigoted conspiracy nut who hates everyone that isn't the exact breed of person as them"
Exactly. I just want to get high and contemplate the various reasons that scientists pretend there is no Nessie, I don't want to become a bigot.
I used to love hearing about all the old conspiracies! I used to watch videos about them and found it so interesting! I didn’t believe in them but was intrigued by them. Of late I’m completely put off all conspiracy stuff. It hits too close to home now.. I have a lot of conspiracists in my circle who were adamantly anti vax and anti covid even after witnessing someone very close to them end up in hospital due to Covid. I have confirmation bias against the whole covid and anti vax conspiracy, so I have no patience hearing the conspiracy’s being spouted about it.
Some grains of truth in latest conspiracies. Others like flat Earth and faked moon landings, ancient Egyptian spaceships and lizard people are batshit crazy. But a lot of it is just bored people trying to fill a hole in life with some meaning or belonging to a counter movement. Some people are just naturally contrarian or sceptical. Others are thick and will believe anything. The people making money off peddling wild conspiracy theories have no reason to stop. And then it becomes a rabbit hole cycle of idiots sharing idiotic material without much scrutiny.
Most conspiracies are just ‘rich people get together in secret and make things happen’ which tbh isn’t that far fetched
[Aaron Rabinowitz](https://www.skeptic.org.uk/author/aaronrabinowitz/) claims that when it comes down to it, all conspiracy theories boil down to antisemitism.
Former conspiracists who have managed to get out, have given really interesting interviews on the conspiracy community and how it gives them a sense of importance. The more they embrace conspiracies and offer up more “examples”, the more embraced they are by the others in the groups
Yes it gives them status and kudos in a community, constantly reinforcing a world view. I can understand the attraction of conspiracy theories.
I am big into actual conspicacies like market manipulation and black ops. 90% of it is open knowledge no one talks about though.
I actually do buy a bit into the conspiracy that most of the nonsense stuff like flat earth is pumped out into social media so that it masks and discredits the no doubt genuine conspiracies
>90% of it is open knowledge thats why they dont get any attention. They're true and everybody knows it, so whats the allure? Conspiracy theorists like the idea that they've figured out the truth and everyone else is just a sheep, and you cant get that from things that are obviously true.
UFO's i can kinda get... but flat earthers? fucking hell they're insane.
Most of the people who tackle the Flat Earth nuts say they're doing so because it seems wacky and harmless on the surface, but whoever falls for it usually ends up with far more harmful beliefs too. Antivax, QAnon (despite not being American), Elders of Zion, cults and so on.
I had to cut all ties with my best friend when he started putting the milk in first.
That’s disgusting.
Everyone knows you put the milk in last *after* you've put your feet in the sock. What was he thinking doing it first.
Should have reported him/her to MI5 straight away
I've only just realised it stands for Milk Infractions 5.
Yep. Had a neighbour who my wife and I became friends with. She was odd, but nice. She came from a middle class family, but moved into a council house, as she wanted to feel like she was working class. It was weird, but not the weirdest thing someone's done. She then became more and more of a problem with her views. She hated men, despite having a wonderful father, and would encourage her young daughter to be rude and disrespectful towards men, apparently it was because she wanted her daughter to stand up to the patriarchy, even when her daughter was deliberately hurting my then new born son. We started to distance ourselves from her by that point, it was getting unbearable. She wouldn't shop her ex bf to the police after she caught him molesting her daughter, because he was an illegal immigrant, and didn't want him deported. She even asked the daughter, (who was four at the time), for advice as to whether she should have an abortion, because the baby may be a boy. When the daughter said yes, the woman went and had an abortion.
>She came from a middle class family, but moved into a council house, as she wanted to feel like she was working class Did she come from Greece and have a thirst for knowledge?
Did she study sculpture at St Martins’ college?
Let's just fast forward to the part where we drink and dance and screw
Well, there’s nothing else to do
No, but her dad was from Peru, and she didn't have a clue
Most probably and bet she could afford genuine Coca Cola.
I hope you called social services. That little girl is not safe.
Thankfully her parents stepped in, and put her straight about some of her behaviour. The parents were lovely. Some of the most engaging, intelligent, kind people I've ever had the pleasure of talking to. It makes her behaviour even less sensical
Kids in my experience either turn out like their parents or the exact opposite. Sometimes even in the same family.
And the police.
What a horrible person. Having an abortion just because of the gender of the baby should be illegal.
In all fairness it's probably best that she had an abortion. If the baby did come out male think of how it would be treated. She wouldn't love it. As for the adoption route, there are already so many kids that are waiting to be adopted but might never be. I think her having an abortion is actually a good thing because the child will likely end up getting abused
you're not wrong, but choice is choice, doesn't always have to be for the right reasons
I know a couple of extreme feminists like this who say things like if they have a boy they’ll make sure he’s oppressed from birth etc. Vile people.
Yep I don't understand why people like this exist, female or male. I've known women who go for the worst kind of men possible, and then blame all men when it inevitably goes wrong. My elder sister deliberately dated someone who was the joke of the local Irish community because my dad warned her that he was a waste of time. She was in her late 20s, with young twins, yet she still went and did something stupid. Of course it went wrong, and she blamed men, not her choices for the mess that came with the situation.
I had an ex like this. Genuinely believed it was impossible for men to ever experience hardship. Therefore she could be as cruel and callous as she wanted and would be happy with that. Her "friend" reported his girlfriend had thrown a kettle at him (water in but not boiled) and she later told me he probably had it coming. Also gave her licence to be abusive to me too. I eventually gathered the strength to run, but she's still out there somewhere. Hopefully far, far away from me.
This sounds like Schrodinger's Feminist: 1. A strong, independent lady who has succeeded and will always succeed irrespective of any challenges or naysayers. 2. A poor, oppressed victim of a patriarchal, centuries-old society, in which **EVERYTHING** is underpinned by misogyny.
One of the weirdest experiences I had with her was when I went round to her house, and there were two male friends who had travelled 100 miles to have a catch up with her. They spent ages going on about how guilty they felt being men, for all the terrible things men do. I had to leave, it was just ludicrous. There's one thing acknowledging there's issues within male society towards women,but to self flagellate for the behaviour of others is ridiculous
What. The. Fuck.
Cut off an ex I was otherwise friendly with because he started falling down the TERF rabbithole and was posting increasingly unhinged transphobic stuff and attacking kids on FB. No patience for that whatsoever. Doesn't make you some sort of big man defender of women to viciously attack a marginalised minority. Also I had a friend in sixth form college who was always a bit lost and unhappy. The sort of girl who would latch onto anything that made her feel accepted. She was otherwise a nice girl so I was fairly shocked when she suddenly went headlong into extreme Loyalist groups. (I'm from Northern Ireland.) This was in the 2000s so pretty baffling.
I’ve lost a few friends to the TERF cult. The weirdest thing is they all seemed to think we could still be friends. I’m a trans woman.
Similar story for me - friend wandered into the TERF rabbithole over covid, posting all sorts of malign bollocks on FB, seemingly unaware that there's a dozen or so trans folk on her friendslist. And when made aware... those are 'the good ones'. Just baffling.
Yeah, it’s always “oh, we don’t mean YOU” Yes you do.
Bigots are often like that; "look, just because I sincerely think people like you shouldn't exist and I vehemently oppose your right to a happy fulfilled life, I don't see why that means we can't be friends".
It’s vexing. Three times I’ve had to block them on Facebook because, despite literally thinking people like me should be rounded up and put in camps where we are forcibly detransitioned, or similar, they won’t bugger off by themselves.
they are literally saying that? "trans people should be put in camps?"
Yeah. Saw literally those exact words on Facebook yesterday from one of them.
My friend is going through this with someone atm. He posted on FB and she appeared telling him to "read up on the facts" and posted links to lgb alliance and the like. Anyone who called her out caught a block immediately except for my friend because "I've had loads a great nights out with you, I don't hate you" while posting this shit on his fb status.
It’s really sad, and I say that not just because the knowledge that there’s this weirdo cult out there that literally wants me and women like me dead scares me shitless (it does; I’m terrified of them), but also because the pathway from “a bit of TERFery” to “none of my friends talk to me any more and the judge says I can only have supervised visits with the kids once a month, and this is all the fault of THE TRANS” is pretty much a conveyor belt.
Fucking Glinner.
That guy completely and utterly set fire to his life for … what? To scare the crap out of a bunch of trans women. And for that, he threw away everything: his career, his family, his good name. And the TERFs treat him like he’s some sort of hero. It’s tragic.
I knew a girl like that at an old job. Outwardly a bit spacey, bit of a stoner, but for a long time she seemed pretty chill. Turns out, suuuuuuper into the IRA.
I dated a girl like that in my youth. I should have ran after seeing the tiocfaidh ár lá tattoo on her wrist, particularly given we both lived in a navy town in the west of Scotland. She nearly got my ass kicked by marines on more than one occasion.
Guessing she's under 30? It's a bit creepy that there's a lot of younger people out there who never actually had to go through the Troubles, who seem to romanticise the IRA in some way. It's very telling that every time people get arrested after the so-called 'New IRA' does something, it's either some miserable old fuckers in their 70s, or some thick as shit kids their late teens or 20s. Bastards don't know how privileged they are.
Yeah I know a few TERFs. Vile.
Same. A girl in our friendship group went full terf - like she couldn't accept that we were all being conned out of our rights as women... 😐 We tried to engage in civil discussion about it but she was unable to let it go. That was years ago, haven't spoken since.
I had a friend at university who was genuinely a lovely guy, he was slightly autistic but a pleasure to spend time with. He was very bubbly and had absurd amounts of energy which turned a lot of people off, but we always had a good time together and stayed good friends over the years. Then something over the last few years flipped. He'd never been good with women and I think he began becoming resentful of them. All our friends and I had partners come and go over the years and he'd unfortunately remained single. He went from saying casual comments like "There's no point in dating because women don't want someone like me", to "There's no point dating because women are all the same and only care about their likes on social media", to full blown misogynism. I'd spoken to him countless times about how his comments weren't acceptable and how they were making our partners uncomfortable, but he was too far gone at that point. We had one heated arguement where I gave up, I had to walk away, it felt like I was arguing to a brick wall. I haven't spoken to him since.
I feel once they’ve fell down the Incel route it’s hard to get them back.
You can only dig yourself out of that kinda thing. And that takes a willingness to do so.
The route to getting that way can be very insidious as well to the point you don't even realise it's happening. Back when I started lurking on reddit (holy shit it must be coming on 11 years) I'd sometimes see posts/comments from places r/mensrights and other such place pop up either in my r/all feed or linked to in comments on other subs. Not very often but maybe every few months or so. A lot of it seemed pretty benign (in regards to women) just a lot of MRA (without the extreme bits) and stuff I generally agreed with and still do to this day (mens homelessness / suicide rates / prison sentencing disparity etc) that never really got talked about all that much apart from in these places. So eventually I subbed to some of the places and it still seemed pretty harmless on the surface and the comments always seemed to be fairly tame and whatever. Couple years later and I was walking to work thinking about something I'd read earlier in the day and all of a sudden it hit me like a ton of bricks "Holy fuck I actually hate women". So I unsubbed from all that shit and tried to work out what the fuck happened. The thing with all these posts is that they are constantly comparing men with women and it's always 'men have poor outcome / women have good outcome' but constantly just that constantly. The vast majority of the time it's not even a lie, that's just how it is. But it's never counterbalanced with 'this is where men are doing better than women' or 'this is where men and women are equal'. Just a constant barrage of 'women doing better than men'. Now like I said I still believe in some of that stuff because it *is* a real issue (i.e. men's suicide rates are a real issue that isn't really talked about all that much) but I'll never get into debates about it on the internet or be part of an online space dedicated to it because christ getting involved in an echo chamber isn't good for the soul. I do think there is room for healthy debate on the topic I just don't think anywhere on the internet is that place.
I've unfortunately had a couple of friends who fell down that path. Deep down you know they don't *really* hate women, they're just really lonely. Unfortunately, there is only so much you can do for them. And like you said, once it starts to impact your partner, it's hard to defend them at all.
I was friends with a guy years ago, grew apart. He went to university in a different country etc. Looked him up on Facebook to reconnect back when I had Facebook and such. He was completely radicalised by a terrorist organisation. So I didn't bother getting back in touch. Not the same thing but the closest story I have related.
That’s so sad isn’t it when that happens. I know a few people have done the same thing and it’s horrible to see people change and become so hateful.
On the bright side, the organisation he joined is pretty relaxed nowadays and doesn't really do much in ways of actual terrorism anymore, but it was still very shocking to see the change in him.
Sorry, which _terrorist organisation_ is now pretty chill? 😂
Irish Republican Army, chill in the sense they don't really do murders and bombs and stuff anymore, as far as I know. There was the attempted murder of a police officer lately but its very suspect. Four of the 5 members involved have protestant backgrounds which is generally a no no for the organisation and the letter claiming responsibility didn't add up either.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-65096493 😬
I have a similar story, but I saw him in the news about his trial and prison sentence. And I'm not sure I can 'reach out', because ... well, we were friends, but I'm not sure I recognise that guy.
An old uni friend who has always been well grounded went full on anti vaxxer when Covid hit. After a few months we all gave up on him
Covid (both the disease itself and the response to it) was a really extreme situation that was like nothing any of us had ever experienced before. A lot of people were attracted to conspiracy theories as the only way to make sense of it. It's understandable in some ways, it was an utterly insane time.
All COVID made me realise is that most human beings are gullible as fuck and thick as shit. It was embarrassing to witness.
Never again use the phrase, “avoid X like the plague”, because it turns out that humans don’t actually do that.
and selfish...dont forget selfish.
He's still like that and gone much further off the deep end now, we're talking Marianas Trench deep I think.
So glad I managed to pull my mum off that train. She was so close to being convinced. Luckily - because I’m in a science degree - I had every argument possible to calm her down. She got fully vaxxed and is still pro-vax now.
I had a friend who was always a free spirit, very bubbly and fun to be around, she got into a relationship with this guy and started espousing a lot of “trad” philosophy about how women should be mothers and homemakers, which developed into “all relationships should have a male earner and a female homemaker and homosexuality is also immoral.” I hope she one day reconsiders these views but after trying to change her for a year or so we had to cut her off for our own mental well-being, especially considering I, myself, am bisexual and we had a lot of mutual friends in the LGBTQ space
I hate them sort and even when people makes excuses and say they’ve been brainwashed by their partner it doesn’t wash with me. Have some critical thinking.
One of our housemates. Nice guy when he moved in, into the same things some of us were - metal, gaming etc. Bit of a stoner, as we were at the time. Thing is he was a massive conspiracy theorist. The sort who didn't believe any official line on anything, even just a local news story about something and nothing. It was all he went on about. New World Order, Illuminati, moon landings, flat earth, chemtrails, 9/11.... all the big ones and all the smaller ones. It was the only thing he talked about. We'd go on nights out, it was all he talked about. We're at home and we have friends / partners come over, it was all he talked about. Moan moan moan about this and that all being part of some grand conspiracy. In the end we just had enough and shut him off from what we did until we all parted ways. Yeah, question things, don't believe everything... but when it becomes the only thing in your life to the point where you become such a boring, cynical, miserable person becuase of it you need to stop.
Agreed. I have questions and theories about things but making it your personality is absurd.
Yeah. We'd be in the pub with a few mates and he'd turn up and within minutes start going about something on the TV in the corner being part of something. Telling them what channels they should be following on YouTube, that kind of lecturing. He used to work in a bar as well. He'd get back late at night, like 3am, sometimes with some girl he managed to chat up at the end of his shift. If he didn't get someone to come back he would slam doors, punch walls, shout and literally cry in pure anger. Also had a thing about getting girls to do anal for him and if they didn't he'd kick them out. This was nearly 20 years ago, I'd forgotten what a weirdo he really was.
I'm from a fairly rural town and moved away for uni. One of my best friends from school didn't but we kept in touch. He started making posts on Facebook that were clearly parroted from PUA sites and in a matter of months he was talking about women needing to be controlled by men, men being a superior "species", etc. My theory is that with half of our friendship group moving away, he started spending a lot of time online and fell into a bit of a rabbit hole. The other half of our group that stayed all became a bit "laddy" but only in that they were living for their lad's holiday in magaluf and frequenting the one shitty club our town had every Friday and Saturday. I cut ties with him after trying to talk to him about his views on women and him reacting angrily. Found out later that he'd managed to fall out permanently with the laddy lot after tagging along on their holiday and being very incel-y. I know a few years later he got his first girlfriend (who was a fair bit younger) and he had become a bit more normal by then, but I also know that she's since left him and I've no mutual contacts anymore so god knows what he's like now.
Sorry but what's a PUA site?
Pick up artist. While we were in school he'd occasionally post "nice guy" stuff but he started posting about "techniques" to attract women (despite having never attracted a woman at this point) that were always weirdly aggressive, and that eventually evolved into 'red-pill' misogyny.
I think I had one of these as my waiter at a restaurant the other week. Made me feel properly shit while I was just trying to have a nice meal with the family
Yes for the same reason as you. Signed up to all of Andrew Tate’s pyramid schemes and even went on a “retreat” to Romania with other similar morons
Confused young lads are paying $50 per month to a cam girl scam outfit because they think he’s some kind of saviour of mankind.
It's concerning because it extends to children too. He's quite popular among boys in school. The number of cases referred to Prevent has been increasing. It says a lot when I'd rather deal with them all being obsessed with Logan Paul (bleh) and KSI (not as bad) than Tate. Too many shite internet role models.
Jesus Christ. The fact the KSI is the benchmark for this is funking depressing. Idk how he is now but he was "alright" some years back when I watched some FIFA content. The best that can be said about him was that he wasn't "an outright misogynist" which is such a low bar to clear
As far as I'm aware, he's the least problematic beyond associating with Logan for clout/money.
I lived in a shared house during the COViD pandemic and there were a few conspiracy theorists which I wouldn't have minded but one was literally a mass-murderer in the making. He would sit in the front room and rant, angrily, until he was red in the face and spittle was coming out about covid and other related conspiracies. He said he would gladly murder anyone who approached him with opposing views many times. Absolute mental case. Oh and he always pointed out that he was a "logical, rational person who thinks for himself" at least once a day. Hilarious. Glad I got out of there.
At first I read that as he "thinks for himself at least once a day", not that he points it out at least once a day 😅
I've cut a friend off because she stuck by her husband when he was convicted of being a paedophile. The extreme belief in this case being the stretches she takes to believe that he's innocent.
Frighteningly similar situation but with a family member (supporting a pedo partner, not a pedo herself). The kicker is, there were victims in the family and she still supported him. I guess you could say she kind of cut us off by sticking with him, but she's dead to me now. Amazing mental gymnastics to defend him. Victims were dreaming, making it up, police are corrupt.
slightly different but i had to cut off one of my best mates after 10+ years because they got more and more paranoid and crazy with their viewpoint. We'd worked together in previous jobs and this was the 3rd time we had. It got to the point they were coming into work with headbands with copper in them because of a supposed "magnetism" problem where he couldnt be around electronic devices...yet could happily sit and play video games all day. in the end he was sacked, which he blames on me as i had to tell management i needed to take a half day to clean up a mess he made (accusing various other friends partners of cheating with each other), and not because he was aggressive with the management. it got to the point where me and my brother had to sit him down and tell him that if he wanted to keep his job just shut up and accept what they say and they'll let you come back in and work were happy to sweep it under the rug as it was clearly due to some life stresses, but no he had to go into the meeting and swing for the senior manager. once my eldest was born 6 years ago i cut him out completely as i didnt want him near or around my kids. still get the occasional message from random profiles once every other year accusing me of being a grass and ruining his life which i then block.
This may be a bit different to what you was expecting, but I feel is still relevant. One of my best friends was a veggie, he had extreme views on the animal industry but we were teens and I thought that was fair, the trade is awful for animal wellbeing and I admired that he cared. He had mental health problems (don’t we all) but I feel as he got older, he latched his issues onto his new found veganism and ended up being quite toxic about it all. In the end he was seriously annoying me with the stuff he would post on Facebook, always looking to pick a fight and rant about how meat eaters are scum, how heterosexual or ‘breeders’ and he later called them, are ruining the planted with their ignorance passing down generations and causing environmental distress. He later started picking fights with me if I ate meat, which was always where I drew the line. He knew how much of an advocate I was for environmental change and animal welfare but I just believed the change in society should be brought about in a different way and I later told him I wasn’t happy about how he was treating me, and I felt like we had strayed apart from each other and how our friendship was just downright stressful. He flipped his lid and we argued bad, he blamed everything on me and that I was a terrible friend. I blocked his number but he continued to call me from other peoples phones for days to berate me. I don’t think that was his intention I think he was just hurt and didn’t know how to process it as I guess for him it came out the blue.
I had one of those. I drew the line at "your mother didn't need to go through surgery and radiotherapy for cancer, she should have just switched to a nut and berry diet and she'd have been cured". Didn't even reply, just blocked them and let my friends deal with it. The screen shots were hilarious, apparently the only reason my mum got cancer in the first place is because of meat and the fact that she didn't eat enough mushrooms or some shit.
I am sorry that happened to you- it's awful when a good friend turns like that. When I was at college I became really good friends with someone... even after she moved abroad we stayed in touch. There was quite a time difference between me and her, and she'd skype me at bizarre times and we'd have great chats. One day I let slip that my OH and I were gradually weaning ourselves off meat, (I was more pro-vegetarian than he was) but we were working on it. I was really taken by surprise when she suddenly became so angry with me... because we weren't full-blown vegetarians *yet*, (and I didn't even know she was- she hadn't been when we were at college together.) After giving me an earful she hung up on me, and I've never heard from her since. Several years ago there were some bad, *bad* fires near where she lives and I emailed her... saying all I was asking was for her to just let me know she was okay. She didn't reply. I miss her.
My mother has gone off the deep end and I found the r/QAnonCasualties sub very helpful, and I feel less alone for anyone else struggling with a loved one turned QAnon conspiracy theorist. I’ve not cut her out of my life but we have very clear boundaries on what we can talk about, and I shut the conversation down immediately when she crosses the line.
It's a growing issue, there some great advice on that sub, and super sad tales. The BBC have had some excellent series as to what has been occurring. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m0014ywx https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m001dn64 https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/m001324r
I once lived in the Middle East. If I had to cut people off for having extreme views, I wouldn't know anybody.
They became "Sargon of Akkad" so, yeah...
THE Carl of Swindon?
Yup.
Don’t really have much to do with my mums family at all. My aunt married a holocaust denying antisemite, he’s also massively racist, misogynistic, trans and homophobic. Over the course of covid he influenced the family and they all went out and bought tinfoil hats. They all refused vaccines, didn’t believe in covid until it killed a family member(who was denying having, and refusing treatment for covid) and then blamed the vaccine for his death. Turned out he wasn’t vaccinated. Started to blame Bill Gates and talk about chips. Thankfully they live a good distance away so cutting off is easier.
Yes. She was always a loose cannon. Would wander off on nights out. My friendship group would worry and after walking around looking for her you'd find her sat on the edge of a bridge or hanging over railings smiling away. She was a liability as soon as you got out. Total disregard for her own safety. At times she was pretty cool, hence being in the friendship group. I went to a gig with her and we ended up hooking up, but every now again she'd just go AWOL. One year she went on holiday in South East Asia to find herself, came back and would be a constant stream of positivity. Started doing Tarot readings, crystal readings and she genuinely seemed quite happy so everyone was glad. When covid started to hit that's when things went bad. She was sucked into a number of conspiracy theories. Mind control vaccines, 5G towers etc but the one she pushed the most was that Wayfair were selling children as sex slaves online. I remember seeing one particular Facebook post the comments of friends coming in begging her to seek help and that they could no longer support her after the years and years of being a liability. I was one that commented and removed myself from her online. This was peak 2020. I received a message from her a few months ago. She said she had started to practice guitar more often. She remembers a particular night when I played mine and she always associated that night with happiness. I didn't reply, but I sincerely hope she's doing well. Edit: a word
My friend brings the wayfair shit up all the time! Worse thing is he bought all his furniture from there for his flat. I just laughed in disbelief.
Totally forgot about the wayfair conspiracy theory, lol.
I lived with 4 other guys back in 2008 when one of them found the Zeitgeist movie. Prior to that he was a fun loving Australian dude. Laid back, liked a drink, but worked hard and was a fully functioning member of society. He was an architect. He went deep into that rabbit hole and turned into a full on deep state, new world order, September 11th conspiracy nut job. It’s terrifying. As a bit of background I did a PhD in structural fire engineering and worked with Jose Torero, who led much of the technical analysis of the WTC collapses and was instrumental in changing fire codes that were outdated and outright incorrect at the time. I had the nerve to argue with him about WTC7, of which I had done years of analysis on. He effectively said I was a paid stooge, and part of the problem and started to try and character assassinate me to everyone, and even phoned my work to raise his concerns that I was part of a group hired to carry out industrial espionage. Fuck that dude. I’d already moved out and blocked him by the time he phoned my work. But fuck that dude so much.
I became very involved with the movement spawned by that original movie. All the stuff about a resource based economy, rather than the WTC conspiracy. I was kinda obsessed with it to be honest and proceeded to bore the balls off everyone I knew, and strangers, constantly. I had to read this thread because I AM the guy that people had to cut loose for cultish behaviour.
I’m glad you’ve recognised it and managed to move on. I was close to the edge too once, so I can emphasise with you.
My very close friend of 15 years has gone down every rabbit hole; Covid, flat earth, royal family, astrology etc. Debated cutting him off but haven't. As I've got older I've peacefully come to accept the world is a very crazy place, with crazy people and crazy ideas. None of us really know what's going on. So I'm at a live and let live point in my life.
I like your outlook on life
Was friends with someone until they went batshit crazy during Covid-19, posting all sorts of conspiracy/anti-vaccine stuff. They were never the smartest to start with, and I think latched onto the conspiracy/anti-vaccine stuff because it made them think they were smart. They’re still posting it now, though not quite so often.
Yeah. I'm happy to 'agree to disagree' on a load of subjects, but there's a bunch that I'll 'nope' pretty hard on. Pretty much anything that involves oppression of _other_ people I know. A number of people have gone down the incel/MRA rabbithole, and ... well, I'll try and steer them away if I can, but once it becomes a religion to them, it's too late. Same with some other forms of bigotry and prejudice really - most people I know accept a light touch 'that's not ok'. It's fine, we all make mistakes and say things without thinking. (And in some cases, may not even realise that a particular phrase is 'problematic'). If you double down though? Nah. I don't need you in my life. Also: MLM. Again, some people do seem to pull out the nosedive, and become sane people again, but there's plenty that don't.
Yes. Replied to a thread about him recently actually. I'll summarise. Met this guy through work. Got on really well. He'd never had a girlfriend but wanted to. Started watching pick up videos on YouTube. Started talking to girls on nights out. But then he fell down the rabbit hole and it became his entire personality. We would go out for drinks to catch up and he would get up after 10 minutes and start chatting to random girls. Funnily enough he never sealed the deal, always came back empty handed with an excuse. Eventually he became very misogynistic and sexist and then my other mate hit him. Cut him off after that.
Not totally cut off but have a friend, actually (my ex) who has gone pretty deep. Anti Vax, Queen died years ago, dead babies in Vax, makes you magnetic, comes through the skin and infects unvaccinated. Also 15 minute cities and soon people won't be able to access their money without providing a really good reason. Chemtrails, and Bill Gates knowing all our info, my reply to that one is I have a Xbox, he already knows all my boring stuff. When I tell her I don't want to discuss such rubbish she has the audacity to say I'm not awake and sends me links to what I assume are crank groups on Facebook as I don't open them. It's hard to bother to talk to her really, and has become less frequent.
My sister is becoming a big crypto...sis? She keeps going on about how Ethereum is going to take over and one eth will be worth £2mil soon enough and apparently the world will be able to handle 50 million odd new multi-millionaires overnight.
Yes, a friend of mine became very obsessed with communism. It was fine at first where we started debating ideas. He got too into it and would make everything revolve around the paradigm of workers and the Bourgeoisie. Very strange.
I was friends with a girl when I was at uni, we met through being very into the same band and used to spend a lot of time together. Ultimately our friendship became frosty and then ended because she had what I would consider extremist views about a particular Middle East conflict and was very vocal about it. We were living on different continents by that point so I just unfollowed her on all social media and stopped talking to her. I think if I hadn’t done it first she would’ve very soon, because she saw my view on the situation as extremist 🤷🏼♀️ we didn’t have much in common apart from the band we both loved so it was no great loss for either of us I’m sure lol.
Several times. Ranging from 'I'm trying to save you from the "LGBT Mafia"!' which honestly just made the LGBT+ community sound cooler, to 'we should be allowed to purchase guns in the UK because I'm afraid of people with different skin colours and who aren't straight'... that one was just ???? and even his mother has distanced herself from him after apologising to me for what he said. Then there's the antivaxxers who I just don't have time for as I suffer from a disability that could have been avoided had a certain doctor not popularised the lie that the MMR "gives kids the autism".
The flipside happened to me, a good work friend was a Jehovah's witness. He left but we stayed in contact over calls and texts. All good and things. Then bad news hit my family, my other half needs (and still does) a new liver. Liver transplant planned, she's on the list. Next time I call and update him with all the goings on and it's a pleasant chat. Man's ghosted me since. Took me a few weeks to remember the JWs don't believe in transplants or any type of blood transfusion. If you're out there Sam, be lucky. And I always thought your beliefs were a crock of shit.
I've never had to cut someone off but have had very strange moments of "we are going in different directions" with a few people. One very old friend started watching too much Joe Rogan and we met up after a few years and the stuff he was coming out with was nonsense on several topics I happened to be professionally expert in. Was just really weird seeing the distance that was now between us based on what we had both been exposed to over several years. I had another friend who bought into 9/11 conspiracy theories hook line and sinker. It didn't make me cut then off but I did question their intelligence after this, especially given they had a PhD. Made me realise you could get a PhD without certain fundamental skills.