Janet “JudgyBitch” Bloomfield may not have mastered the fine art of public relations in the real world, but amongst those who live in imaginary worlds of their own making she is something of a PR genius.
Bloomfield, A Voice for Men’s “Director of Social Media,” was recently booted from Twitter (again) for “targeted abuse” — evidently her harassment of feminist writer Jessica Valenti, which included making up inflammatory fake quotations and attributing them to her.
Bloomfield, who once claimed (apparently at least semi-seriously) that a previous Twitter suspension was punishment for her posting a picture of a wedding cake, has responded with a petulant note to Twitter and a similarly petulant open letter to the world, insisting that she’s an innocent woman who’s been railroaded by an evil feminist cabal.
She is, of course, full of it, but she’s picked up support from several online publications popular with the reality-challenged: Alex Jones’ loopy conspiracy megasite Infowars.com, GamerGate propaganda hub The Ralph Retort, and right-wing garbage site The Gateway Pundit. She’s got her Twitter followers in a tizzy, and they are filling up my Twitter timeline with their usual brand of nonsense.
Bloomfield claims, in a Facebook posting that’s been uncritically reposted by her supporters in the imaginary-world media, that she’s a blameless victim of a “harassment campaign” inspired by, well, me.
No, really. Here’s what she wrote, apparently with a straight face:
My most recent suspension is the result of me tweeting the actual words of Guardian journalist Jessica Valenti back to her. Prompted by @davidfutrelle, a harassment campaign to report me for spam/abuse was undertaken by users who appear to be under the impression that I made up the Valenti quotes and falsely attributed them to her. This is not true.
It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to make this claim, given that Bloomfield has not only made up numerous false and inflammatory quotes she claimed were written by Valenti, but has also gone on to publicly gloat that her falsehoods were causing Valenti distress. The fake quotes were merely one egregious episode in an months-long campaign of targeted abuse directed at Valenti.
Here’s a screenshot of four fake Valenti quotes that Bloomfield tweeted last August. (I have helpfully labeled the ones that are fake; see here for details.)
More recently, Bloomfield Tweeted yet another fake Valenti quote that has been making the rounds in Men’s Rights circles for months. (The red scrawls on the screenshot are mine.)
See here for more details.
Though none of these quotes sound even remotely like anything that Valenti would ever say, many of Bloomfield’s followers had no trouble believing they were real, and in both instances the fake quotes inspired harassment and abuse directed at Valenti.
Back in August, Bloomfield seemed proud as punch that her fake quotes were causing difficulties for Valenti. In a posting on her blog (which I’ve archived here), Bloomfield gleefully wrote:
And she added, for good measure:
It’s not clear to me how Valenti having to deal with harassment caused by Bloomfield libeling her is an example of Valenti “having to own her shit,” given that the shit in question is not actually hers.
Bloomfield also pulled a similar stunt with a screenshot of an obviously fake Tweet ostensibly from GamerGate boogeywoman Anita Sarkeesian; it, too, inspired harassment against Bloomfield’s target.
Bloomfield has helped to inspire and direct campaigns of harassment against other women as well, including one school teacher she accused, with absolutely no evidence, of trying to shut down AVFM’s conference with death threats. She has also repeatedly libeled me. In all of these cases she used Twitter essentially as an amplifier of hate.
These tactics are pretty much the definition of “targeted abuse.” And “targeted abuse” is what Twitter gave as the reason for her most recent suspension, according to a screenshot that Bloomfield has herself posted on her blog.
But Bloomfield is attempting to convince the world that she’s been suspended for quoting Valenti accurately. In her posts on her suspension, she refers to one instance in which she did indeed quote Valenti more or less accurately – as if that somehow makes up for her fake quotes.
I’m no lawyer, but I’m pretty sure that Bloomfield announcing that not everything she’s said about Valenti is a malicious lie wouldn’t be much of a defense against a libel case.
But, of course, amongst her reality-challenged fans, Bloomfield’s spin has carried the day. Indeed, the headline on the Infowars post detailing Bloomfield’s imaginary victimization declares baldly that:
It seems rather telling that the theInfowars “reporter” who wrote that post touts his Bachelor’s degree in Creative Writing from Nottingham Trent University in his Infowars bio. In this case, though, he merely repeated and amplified Bloomfield’s own fictions.
Speaking of which, Bloomfield also claims that “[m]y account has never tweeted abuse.” This is also patent bullshit.
Her peculiar wording may be a way to elide the fact that she used the official Twitter account for A Voice for Men’s conference last summer to call a bunch of people “whores.”
But the fact is she used her now-suspended @JudgyBitch1 Twitter account to post stuff much worse than this. In addition to abusive tweets directed at Valenti (like this salacious one), she also told one rape survivor [TRIGGER WARNING]
Bloomfield’s attempts to portray herself as the innocent victim of a witchhunt are especially ironic, given how carefully she’s cultivated her “mean girl” image. She attacks feminists – mostly women – with the malicious glee of a born bully, and mocks those who point out her lies and cruelty, using this picture as the profile pic for one of her Twitter accounts.
On her blog, which is often worse than her Twitter account ever was, she blamed the underage victims of Jimmy Savile’s sexual predations for exploiting him, and declared the 16-year-old victim of gang rape in Steubenville a “dumb whore.”
The woman who calls herself “Judgy Bitch” now finds herself being judged for her vindictive, bullying behavior, and doesn’t much like it.
NOTE: If anyone has screenshots of other abusive tweets from JB that I have missed, please email me with them or post them in the comments below; I may want to add more to the post or use them for a followup post.
This is a bitch. Janet Bloomfield is just a piece of human scum. No way does she rate as a bitch.
http://cdn.cutestpaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/l-Mother-dog-sitting-with-her-cute-puppies.jpg
@itsabeast I think you hit the nail on head with that. She has no conscience and neither does Paul Elam!
After your last post on this woman, I went and had a look at her blog. She mentions:
1. trying to get work as a professor of business. After some excitement – people think she’s brilliant! – she suddenly goes quiet on this ambition.
2. working on a PhD. Job offers galore! Really hard stuff! Then she goes quiet.
3. working on a novel. Gets agent! Agent really excited! Then plug gets pulled.
She’s clearly trying to be a bigwig in some field of endeavour. So far, writing vile tweets is the only thing that’s working for her.
I’m kind of hoping Bloomfield gets sued. It’d be completely justified.
bodycrimes: Or its possible that she’s making all of it up, seeing as she is a proven compulsive liar.
Miss Andry: that would be heavenly justice. Along with Paul Elam for his trick White Ribbon site.
I think the online harassment of feminists is her job at AVFM. It is a form of public relations I suppose in that it is indeed public and though the relations are bad no good awful and every way horrible for the target, it works for them to have a woman do it.
A (probable) JB tweet mentioned on David’s Twitter:
https://twitter.com/ArdReign/status/550483774824136704
… What? I don’t think even Glenn Beck’s blackboard could make a connection between New Years’ and feminism. Not even getting into the “Rape hoax” bit in case it makes me puke on the keyboard.
I think this woman is mentally ill. What else could explain the obsessive vindictiveness?
Assholishness. That’s what explains her behavior. Mental illness doesn’t make you act like that.
Abuse is not the result of mental illness. It is the result of a world view.
You can learn more about it in Lundy Bancroft’s book Why Does He DO That. While it mainly focuses on male abusers the information about styles and tactics is applicable to all abusers.
@kmcorby
I’m really really tired of people linking senseless abuse with mental illness. 9/10 it’s without evidence. Please don’t do that again, because the facts are that mentally ill people are way way more likely to hurt themselves than hurt others, and are also more likely to BE hurt by others.
Meanwhile there are sane people in this world who abuse because they like doing it. Nothing else. There are some truly sick and evil people out there and mental illness has nothing to do with their behaviour, their choice of rotten attitude does.
I emailed David about the Manbook thing too after I saw it on Jezebel. I didn’t realize it was Peter-Andrew: Nolan though.
@M the Social Justice Ranger: The only connection I can think of is that rape culture and patriarchy make feminists sad, so the fact that we’re happy about New Years means that we were lying about rape and patriarchy, because it is impossible to be happy about some things and sad/angry about other things? I don’t think JB understands how emotions work.
It’s totally crazy to blame evil on mental illness. (C wat I did there?)
Even when my anxiety disorder made me almost suicidal, I still had enough empathy to care that taking my own life would hurt my family. Janet Bloomfield is just a terrible human being and I hope someone sues her ass off.
By job, does she actually get paid anything by AVFM? The way I understood it, Elam gives titles out to lots of regular contributors so they can feel important but he is the only one who actually gets to spend the donation money.
I am guessing that her efforts are worth a tax write off even if he doe not pay her since he has registered his grift as a 501c3. Or did he not? Am I mistaken about that?
OMG, so sorry about anyone she knows in RL. She’s an evil sh*t, no doubt about it.
Having spent a number of years working with people who had a mental illness (which is pretty darn prevalent, BTW), they were just people. People who were good, bad, and everything in between, just like people who get pneumonia, or people who have strokes, or people who aren’t even sick at all. Sometimes people with a chronic illness might be crankier sometimes than they might otherwise be (and sometimes the opposite, or no change at all), but I can’t say I’d blame them if they are. I’m cranky sometimes, and all I have is arthritis.
I don’t know why people like to “other” evil people, as though they couldn’t possible be held accountable for it; why not just call them evil? Evil doesn’t have to be some big grand thing, it can be a banal bully, just like JB.
I DO wonder why she does it – for the lulz? Because ‘Janet Bloomfield’ must be perfectly aware that if she ever lets her real name slip, there goes her chance of any kind of career. Unless she thinks she can parlay this silliness into an Ann Coulter-style career?
The problem Ms ‘Bloomfield’ will face, of course, is that Coulter is more than just a vile mouth. She’s a vile mouth with a fairly substantial CV, as hard to believe as it is. What’s JudgyBitch got, apart from some notoriety in a dark corner of the web?
The core strategy for modern reactionary politics seems to be “A lie, if repeated loudly enough, trumps the truth.”
Linux, please don’t use sexist slurs here. It’s against the comments policy, and also it’s pretty rude.
Fred the Dog: Ironically enough I’ve just finished watching Se7en on TV, and the reason why people like to “other” evil? As John Doe said, it’s more comfortable.
@ wordspinner – Yes, this is pretty classic gaslighting. If she could successfully hide the evidence of her original libels, rather than just try to establish plausible deniability, it would be a textbook example.
Everyone should see the original 1944 Gaslight movie (keep your eye out for the 19-year-old Angela Lansbury!). Improved technology aside, it gives perfect examples of mind game techniques that are still in use today. I swear, it should be a training movie for spotting red flags for emotional abuse.
I feel sorry for anyone who has to spend time around her, her kids especially.
Yeah, the novel, professorship, business, etc. all sound as made up as the “quotes” she attributed to Valenti. She claims to be a “professional” PR rep as if calling women whores on the internet is a legitimate job and one she is good at. She’s just another howling asshat on Twitter who frequents a hate site and rattles on about people she despises for no reason on her shitty blog. She isn’t well acquainted with the truth.
For someone who claims to find contentment in her life as a homemaker, she sure seems to want people to believe she does something else with her time. As shitty as she is at everything else she claims to be awesome at, I have serious misgivings about her skills in that area too.
This is a woman who used baking a simple little cake as a reason to insult other people’s baking, as if she had some special abilities in the kitchen. The cake she was so proud of was fugly. Then again, she likes to insult other women’s appearances (rape victims even. For the love of…) and damn. That not a road she should go down.
Two words: hay hair
I doubt there is anything she does that isn’t tainted by her ugly attitude. The only thing that seems to giver her any jollies at all is being as nasty and dishonest as possible. Why does she go out of her way to harm women who have been raped and to direct as much harassment as possible onto other women? Why does she tell so many lies? Is it jealousy that other women really are getting degrees, writing books and having careers? Is it because if she can’t be happy she doesn’t want anyone else to be either? Is it because as a completely unexceptional and not terribly bright person she feels this is the only way she can feel validation? Does she enjoy the power it gives her over angry men when she sics them on other women like pet dogs by lying to them? Does she think she’s pulling one over on them and that makes her clever? Does she think fooling and manipulating idiots makes her a mastermind? Is making the puppets dance the only entertainment she gets?
Honestly, I think she just gets her kicks being abusive and only from being abusive. I wouldn’t want to take a walk around that woman’s mind. I have a feeling it would be like dipping a toe in the Bog of Eternal Stench. I’d never feel clean again.
Damn, @Lea. That take down is *BRILLIANT.*
http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/2013/03/joker.gif
Sunnysombrera, you’re probably right. Othering evil then allows one to ignore the evil within, instead of trying to find those impulses and refocus that energy some other way.