Janet Bloomfield: Unapologetic asshole. Profile picture for one of her Twitter accounts.
EDIT: Bloomfield says she found the screenshot on Facebook. Details below.
Janet Bloomfield – A Voice for Men’s compulsively lying “social media director” – is at it again.
A couple of months back, Bloomfield – who goes by JudgyBitch1 on Twitter – decided for some reason that she could best serve AVFM’s social media directing needs by straight-up libeling feminist writer Jessica Valenti – by making up inflammatory quotes and attributing them to Valenti in a series of Tweets. She later boasted in on her blog that the quotes – which she admitted she’d conjured out of thin air – had inflamed hatred of Valenti and caused her to catch “a bit of hell.”
Now Bloomfield is pulling the exact same stunt again. This time, her target is feminist cultural critic and #GamerGate bete noire Anita Sarkeesian.
On Saturday, Bloomfield tweeted an obviously doctored “screenshot” of a tweet that Sarkeesian never made.
https://twitter.com/JudgyBitch1/status/518538483405975552
Screenshot here in case she takes it down or gets tossed off Twitter again; here’s another screenshot including replies from JB’s fans.
How do we know this is fake? Well, whoever made this fake screenshot made one glaringly obvious mistake: this Tweet is way too long to be a real tweet. Twitter, as you probably know, has a strict limit on the number of characters you can use in a Tweet. 140. This fake tweet has 218.
Here’s what happened when I typed the same text into Twitter myself: as you can see, I went over the limit by 78 characters. That’s, uh, a lot.
As you can see, the “Tweet” button is disabled; it’s simply impossible to post Tweets that are too long.
Looking back through Sarkeesian’s Twitter timeline, I found the real Tweet that she posted at 2:32 PM on the 29th of September.
"Siskel and Ebert made their own 'tropes vs. women' video in 1980" via @Polygon http://t.co/5CxJxfH2YI
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) September 29, 2014
As you can see, not only does the time match, but the numbers of favorites and retweets is roughly the same as well; there have only been a handful more added since the fake screenshot was made. Whoever made the fake tweet obviously just screenshotted this real tweet and then pasted in new text using the same font used by Twitter.
The sheer incompetence is astounding.
Did Bloomfield make this Tweet herself, or did she simply pass along a fake screenshot she found somewhere else? Well, Google Images couldn’t find any other instances of this fake screenshot on the internet; Bloomfield appears to be the first person to post it. Which suggests that either she or someone she knows made it – or someone else made it and sent it to her, and she posted it on the internet without checking to see if it was real.
Given her proclivity for making up quotes and attributing them to her enemies, I’m going to take a wild guess and say that I think she had something to do with creating the fake screenshot.
EDIT: Bloomfield says she found the screenshot on Facebook, on a page called Feminist Crazy Quotes, where it seems to have first appeared. Here’s her Facebook repost of it. It’s not clear where Feminist Crazy Quotes got it, as I can’t find any other instances of the tweet on the internet using Google Image search. It’s still not clear why the supposed “social media director” of AVFM, a woman who seems to spend half her life on Twitter, would not immediately realize that the Tweet was way too long to be a real Tweet.
If you scroll down through the responses to Bloomfield’s tweet, you’ll notice that Bloomfield’s fans ate this blatant deception right up; inclined to believe the worst about Sarkeesian, they easily convinced themselves that this preposterous, overlong, literally impossible tweet was real. And Bloomfield was in the thick of it, egging on their hate.
@JudgyBitch1 @femfreq Does this twat ever NOT complain about anything? Her vagina must be dryer than California's crops this year
— Phil S. (@mistaphill) October 4, 2014
https://twitter.com/JudgyBitch1/status/518539850656784384
https://twitter.com/JudgyBitch1/status/518540314953650176
When one #GamerGater noted that the quote seemed a bit much, even for the hated Sarkeesian, another commenter pulled out the “radfem” card.
@robotno93 @JudgyBitch1 @femfreq She is radfem, welcome to the world of sick puppies, very special snowflakes.
— John Cobalt (@JohnCobalt) October 4, 2014
It goes without saying that Sarkeesian is not, in fact, a radical feminist.
When a few other tweeters pointed out the obvious – that Sarkeesian’s alleged tweet was in fact way too long to be a real tweet – Bloonfield fell back on the same “logic” she used when she was called out for making up quotes about Valenti: well, she may not have said this, but doesn’t it sound like something Sarkeesian would say?
https://twitter.com/JudgyBitch1/status/518541193169616896
No she wouldn’t. She didn’t. If she had, you wouldn’t need to use a fake screenshot to demonize her.
Amazingly, even after the tweet had been revealed to be fake, even after JB was reduced to claiming it was a “Poe” – just as she did with the fake Valenti quotes – the hatefest continued on, with dozens more tweets from JB’s peanut gallery denouncing Sarkeesian for her imaginary racism.
Here are just a few of them:
@JudgyBitch1 @femfreq Your racism is more disgusting than the anime that comes out of Japan. That's why you only cater to white women.
— Pepper (@GintaxAlviss) October 4, 2014
@JudgyBitch1 @femfreq Obviously Anita who has constantly made racist statements about Japan. But a white woman like her oppresses minorities
— Pepper (@GintaxAlviss) October 4, 2014
@JudgyBitch1 @JustLaurenB I don't like anime personally but i have to just say it. She's a cunt…….
— Jesuit spy (@Ryang115) October 5, 2014
@JustLaurenB @Ryang115 @JudgyBitch1 That is like Hitler saying to the Polish you don't have a culture. Its basically it.
— zubr (@bio_nils) October 5, 2014
@DarkCityUK @JustLaurenB @JudgyBitch1 I believe even if she didint tweet that she probably thinks that way.
— Jesuit spy (@Ryang115) October 5, 2014
@JudgyBitch1 Gee, its almost like she wants to be criticized for her ignorance, just so she can call it "harassment": http://t.co/7ltBxaM6Ev
— Diogenes (@DioWallachia) October 5, 2014
One more prudent Tweeter suggested that Bloomfield might want to take down the blatantly fake screenshot, if only to protect herself.
@Swoodlyboop @JudgyBitch1 That's not real. Too many characters. I'd pull it down or she'll use it against you.
— Santa Phoenix (@PhoenixCE) October 5, 2014
Ironically, while going back through Sarkeesian’s timeline to see if I could find the Tweet that was used in the screenshot, I ran across this:
For those asking my @xoxo talk should be online soon. In it I discuss how defamation, libel and slander are often deployed to harass women.
— Feminist Frequency (@femfreq) October 1, 2014
And while most the overwhelming majority of this defamation comes from angry men, some of it comes from angry women – like Janet Bloomfield — who are every bit as dishonest and abusive as their male counterparts.
@Mnemosyne
Yeah, I’ve heard pretty bad things about the Crystal thread, although apparently it’s mostly the “anime fans are not very good at critical art discussion” stuff that usually occurs there than people making dumb complaints about feminism/apologism for noted sexist elements.
Also, if we’re talking abut animu against janet, I vote for Utena, even if most of the stuff in there that she would decry would go completely over her head.
(she’d still get really mad though)
It’s also possible that whoever initially faked the tweet simply went into the HTML of the page and changed the text content. I just went to Janet’s twitter page and easily altered the text of her most recent tweet (the one about Jlaw’s nudes) in about thirty seconds by using the console in Chrome:
proxieme:
Plus occasional silly male characters. Misandry!
Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata are my favorite filmmakers ever. I just went to see Takahata’s final movie, which is about as feminist as you can get interpreting a medieval tale:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tale_of_Princess_Kaguya_%28film%29
A. Noyd:
Both one of the best and one of the least evil villains 🙂
@GrannyGamer1
Ah, another concern troll. Haven’t seen one of those in, like, seven and a half minutes or so.
I couldn’t quite decide on a response that would capture all of the ”WTF” I experienced while reading this comment, so here’s all four I came up with. Enjoy the bonus content!
1) Yes, it is utterly impossible to both help women and bring to light, deconstruct and mock misogynistic beliefs that help perpetuate sexism and discrimination in society. It can’t be done. A choice is mandatory. No middle ground.
2) Having fun while dealing with terrible people with their terrible beliefs is doing feminism wrong! Why aren’t we doing our best to perpetuate the common misconception of feminists as humorless free speech hating hysterics? Where is our sense of not challenging stereotypes? Verily, feminism has lost its way.
3) Where are these ”scarce energy and resources” you’re talking about? Feminism could sure use some of those, seeing that the philosophy of feminism does indeed not possess vast resources such as gold mines or oil fields. Anyway, what does that even mean? How is laughing at stupid reactionaries and their ridiculous ideology “wasting resources”? You’re making no sense.
4) A single blog on the internet does, indeed, represent all of feminism and its discourse. Feminists doing something else besides spending literally all of their free time volunteering is a sign of feminism’s failure. Wehuntedthemammoth.com is the true and only face of modern feminism. Building a community where people feel safe is wrong as long as even one person is suffering in the world, which is why a rational person should never even try to change the world, only sit at home playing Minecraft like a good citizen.
These were just a few I came up with. I’m sure there are many more. And yes, this post was a bit on the sarcasm heavy side, in case you were wondering.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go do something more valuable to waste precious feminist energy and resources on. Like playing Minecraft, which is, apparently, much more noble and useful a task than pointing out flaws in the misogynistic mindset.
@davidknewton:
Welcome! Have you had your Welcome Package yet?
http://artistryforfeminismandkittens.wordpress.com/the-official-man-boobz-complimentary-welcome-package/
@A. Noyd
When I wrote that, no, I had not. Of course that changes everything, and I apologize
MRAs are, at various points, causing, abetting and promoting the suffering of real women.
@Policy of Madness
No worries.
I don’t mind if others are satisfied without analyzing the contents of the fake tweet. It’s relevant to me because my hobby is reading in Japanese, and as a fan of anime, I would like to read more light novels. These (along with adult visual novels) are becoming the basis for an increasing number of anime. But more and more of them are written by otaku giving form to their fantasies—fantasies which are deeply sexist and do promote rape culture. Like how the hero must always humiliate the female characters by seeing them naked or getting a glimpse of their panties or groping their breasts “accidentally.” Or like how they are generally portrayed as being there for the “nice guy” Gary Stu hero to choose from. (Often, they literally fall from the sky.) They end up doting on the hero in grotesquely unrealistic ways (even if they started out hating him a few chapters earlier) and deferring to his wisdom in everything. Most of them hold extremely traditional values towards relationships and gender roles, and they’re required to express a virginal innocence that gets violated at regular intervals throughout the series (which somehow doesn’t ever lead to character development).
I could go on forever, but the point is, you can bet that MRAs and other Sarkeesian-haters favor this kind of otaku-oriented anime and want to protect it, and that’s no doubt what whoever wrote the fake tweet had in mind. They probably wanted to portray feminist criticism of anime as extremist overreaction to innocent media, but their creation, while hyperbolic and over-broad, is not nearly as far off the mark as they surely intended.
Jenny
?1
I think I got it
Yes! I fixed it!
Of course, there’s no retraction just…’ well she would say that’, or ‘she thinks it!’
scumbaggery 101.
Thanks, Anarchonist – it’s been great so far seeing an Internet community that’s actually nice to one another 🙂 It was only very recently brought to my attention that using words like ‘crazy’ to describe violent, wrong-headed people was problematic for those who were genuinely mentally ill, and I’m slightly paranoid that I might have used the word incorrectly here already!
I’m looking forward to keeping up with discussion – I’ve been aware of increasing hostility from GamerGate and the like for some time, and having reasonable people around makes it so much easier to cope with mentally.
Thanks, Anarchonist – it’s been great so far seeing an Internet community that’s actually nice to one another 🙂 It was only very recently brought to my attention that using words like ‘crazy’ to describe violent, wrong-headed people was problematic for those who were genuinely mentally ill, and I’m slightly paranoid that I might have used the word incorrectly here already!
I’m looking forward to keeping up with discussion – I’ve been aware of increasing hostility from GamerGate and the like for some time, and having reasonable people around makes it so much easier to cope with mentally.
@davidknewton
It is kind of nice to find a group of people that generally tries to support one another isn’t it? I know I’ve made the error of using ableist terms here a few times, as long as you’re genuinely apologetic when it’s pointed out and try to keep from repeating it most of the regulars here tend to be understanding.
Also welcome and such.
Ah, @judgybitch1. She made some snarky, uneducated, off-point remark on one of my posts once. I promptly blocked her. I had no idea she was famous for this! I feel privileged to have had the chance to block someone so vile. 😀
I’ve tried to explain JB to my hubby, and he refuses to believe that she is a real person.
So I guess to AVFM, PR Director means ‘the person who posts controversial shit on social media, true or not’ because hey, any attention is good attention?
@Davidknewton!
Always good to have another David around. Have a Welcome Package!
🙂
Yes, we Mentally-Interesting peeps have enough stigmatization going on without being equated with abusive asshats… ;p
Wow, I had a very strange idea…probably the product of too much caffeine and too little sleep.
…Someone start a twitter account that claims to be Bloomfield… then tweet kittens, puppies, flowers and uplifting bons mots.
Maybe several people…
If I started one and called it HappyBitch or FriendlyBitch do you think she’d literally explode in rage?
cassandra – you should, and have a suitable avatar.
Or this!
This one has nothing to do with anything, but at least it shows it’s not just kitties who have a thing for sitting in undersized garden pots!
Aw, cute puppies. Here, have a lemur in return.
OMG amazing lemur antics! That’s taken “bouncing off the walls” to a whole new level, in every sense.
JanetBlomfeld was not taken on Twitter. Operative word being was
“scuse me, Bloomfeld
Oh, jeez! I may have to sign back up to Twitter, just to watch the show!
Will prolly start unicorn fart deluge tomorrow, tonight I let my brain be one with the oatmeal…Transcendental vegetation…
Get ready for some tempermental argumentation!
I remember when judgybitch commented on Slate, back in the day when Slate still allowed comments. It was pretty much what you’d expect, but one day, she commented on the issue of school districts that prohibit parents from sending foods to school containing peanuts or peanut products.
Hoo-boy.
She so furiously foamed at the mouth about peanut allergies being the problem of people who have them, so hatefully protesting the minor inconvenience of only giving her kids peanut-free snacks, a creepy thought occurred to me: without that no-peanut policy, judgybitch would be putting peanuts in EVERYTHING she sends to school, and probably smearing her kids in peanut oil, too, just so she could stick it to those kids who have peanut allergies and their “entitled” parents. Because what good is having unfettered access to stuff that can put another child in an ICU unless you get to use it and thereby show you are superior or something? You know, misogyny is one thing. I am convinced that it’s reflexive for a lot of people who have merely been conditioned that it’s normal and don’t know any better. But lamenting that you can’t poison a bunch of kids? That’s just straight-up as evil as it gets. She isn’t stupid, she isn’t misguided, she isn’t deformed by her middle-class neighborss disdain for her stayathomemomness or whatever; she is just fucking evil. She hates people, pure and simple. Misogyny is just a subset of that overwhelming hatred; organized misogyny is an outlet for it.