The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Is #FreeBleeding a Hoax?
UPDATE: Hoax Came From 4chan

Posted on | February 1, 2014 | 44 Comments

Old newsroom saying: “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.” So when Brandon Morse, Kim Jossfolk and others called attention to the #FreeBleeding hashtag yesterday, my skepticism was aroused. Not even feminists can be this crazy, can they?

The first thing I discovered was that the accounts most involved in this — @Roaring_Womyn and @dontjudgme3333 — were recently created and had few followers. In other words, these weren’t long-term Twitter users, which is your first clue that they’re trolls. Next, tracing the #FreeBleeding hashtag to its earliest use, I discovered an October 2011 “Funny or Die” video.

Those are fairly strong indications of a hoax. The term “free bleeding” refers to a real phenomenon, discussed here by a vendor of environmental-friendly menstrual products, and here in a 2004 post at the “All About My Vagina” site. However, there is no indication that this “Tampons-Are-Male-Oppression” message had any organic existence prior to the suspicious appearance of @Roaring_Womyn and @dontjudgme3333, and so it’s obviously some kind of hoax.

The real question: Whose hoax is it? Two alternative theories:

  1. Conservative hoax — Seeking to exploit the irrationality and credulity of the Women’s Studies/Gender Theory crowd, conservatives create this #FreeBleeding nonsense in the expectation that feminist ideologues will pick it up and run with it. Once it becomes the subject of a lunatic essay at Feministing, the hoax is revealed: “Ha ha ha! Stupid feminists!”
  2. Liberal hoax — Trying to score another “War on Women” victory, liberals create an offensive message, hoping to elicit misogynist comments from right-wingers. If they can get a reaction from Erick Erickson — or better yet, a Twitchy thread — then the hoaxers reveal the truth: “Ha ha ha! Stupid wingnuts!”

In exposing the hoax now, I understand the risk of accidentally busting an attempted O’Keefean sting by “our” side, but the danger that this could be a liberal hoax — and that my friends might be sucked into it and embarrassed — was sufficient to outweigh that risk. So if it turns out that @Roaring_Womyn and @dontjudgme3333 were actually my friends (is that you, Iowahawk?), I’m sorry. Better luck next time.

UPDATE: My skeptical hunch was correct. Daily Dot explains that the “Operation FreeBleeding” hoax began on the 4chan boards.

UPDATE II: Welcome, Instapundit readers!

 

Category: Feminism

Comments

44 Responses to “Is #FreeBleeding a Hoax?
UPDATE: Hoax Came From 4chan”

  1. JeffS
    February 1st, 2014 @ 12:13 pm

    Le sigh.

    It’s getting harder and harder to parody the left, in all their irrational glory.

  2. La Pucelle
    February 1st, 2014 @ 12:15 pm

    The handle @dontjudgment3333 suggests a left-wing hoaxer, since the whole “DON’T JUDGE ME ZOMG!!!!1!1!” isn’t typically mocked by the right. (At least, not that I’ve noticed) But it’s occasionally mocked by those few leftists with an actual sense of humor who also understand that there is indeed an event horizon of ridiculousness. (They’re the ones who coined the term “Oppression Olympics” when their ridiculousness tolerance threshold was reached) He/she/they is/are also probably young, roughly around college age, and constantly exposed to the totalitarian PC culture and river of received words and ideas. There’s a familiarity with today’s cutting edge lunacy that’s difficult to find anywhere else.

    If that’s the case, the hoaxers are probably not doing it for our benefit, but falling back on the only shame culture they’re (somewhat) permitted. Since “SHAME IS BAD MMKAY”, they can only mock it anonymously and through over-the-top, obvious parody, since the left seems to enjoy embracing increasingly insane “causes” per the slippery slope that false “tolerance” cascades into. The good news is that if they are indeed left-wing, they usually swing rightward once they realise that the left is in the terminal stages of insanity and incapable of being cured in the current culture.

    Of course, it could also be someone from 4chan or Anonymous having fun at the expense of the mentally ill and not necessarily political. And if it’s one of ours, it’s someone who has contact with college-age young adults who report back what sort of nuttiness they’re being exposed to.

  3. Stogie Chomper
    February 1st, 2014 @ 12:15 pm

    Oh beans. I was hoping this free bleeding movement was real. I just tweeted my support for the Sacred Phallus and its Holy Penetration, and my outrage to the Evil Matriarchy who opposes it. I also embraced the aversion to unnatural tampons, and stated that we should also rid ourselves of unnatural toilet paper, with the hashtag #freecrapping.

    Oh well, maybe some feminist will read it and be p.o.’d. One can only hope.

  4. La Pucelle
    February 1st, 2014 @ 12:17 pm

    Regretfully, the “unnatural toilet paper” has a serious following among greenies.

    The left is almost beyond parody now thanks to pathological “tolerance”.

  5. rmnixondeceased
    February 1st, 2014 @ 12:49 pm

    Natural toilet paper for ‘green’ libs and feminists (but I repeat myself):

  6. Is #FreeBleeding a Hoax? UPDATE: Hoax Came From 4chan : The Other McCain | Dead Citizen's Rights Society
    February 1st, 2014 @ 12:57 pm

    […] Is #FreeBleeding a Hoax? UPDATE: Hoax Came From 4chan : The Other McCain. […]

  7. ThomasD
    February 1st, 2014 @ 1:15 pm

    Yeah, your alternating theories clearly left out the “assholes will be assholes” option.

  8. ThomasD
    February 1st, 2014 @ 1:17 pm

    Leaves of three, bright and shiny, not for my heinie…

  9. M. Thompson
    February 1st, 2014 @ 1:17 pm

    The insanity of when a hoax looks like something that a fringe movement would say.

  10. Katie Scarlet
    February 1st, 2014 @ 1:38 pm

    Some folks have way too much time on their hands.

  11. rmnixondeceased
    February 1st, 2014 @ 1:47 pm

    Leaves of three
    bright and shiny
    keep them away
    from my heinie.
    Fixed the meter for you …

  12. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    February 1st, 2014 @ 2:40 pm

    It is a pretty funny parody, if it is real it is even funnier.

  13. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    February 1st, 2014 @ 2:41 pm

    I actually learned this lesson as a young heifer. I did not use poison ivy as toilet paper, but I touched some and then…disaster.

  14. Cube
    February 1st, 2014 @ 2:59 pm

    Exactly. Useful people working to benefit themselves and others don’t usually stoop to this kind of garbage. Even as a hoax, it came from a seriously disturbed mind.

  15. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    February 1st, 2014 @ 3:04 pm

    Jeff D reminds us how Prince Charles once wanted to be a tampon…

    We can look on the bright side of this hoax, the dream survives!

  16. Stogie Chomper
    February 1st, 2014 @ 3:08 pm

    Me too. It took forever to get rid of itchy rash.

  17. Stogie Chomper
    February 1st, 2014 @ 3:10 pm

    I always have time for sarcasm against leftist nonsense.

  18. La Pucelle
    February 1st, 2014 @ 3:43 pm

    Walked barefoot through poison oak for the first and last time. That made for some interesting times.

  19. richard mcenroe
    February 1st, 2014 @ 3:50 pm

    Play on their field, you can’t be scared to get a little of their mud on you.

  20. K-Bob
    February 1st, 2014 @ 3:51 pm

    The self-fisting movement will be devastated at this news.

  21. richard mcenroe
    February 1st, 2014 @ 3:51 pm

    My fee-yancy and I have a running joke going between us about the difference between “women’s mysteries” and “too much information”…

  22. richard mcenroe
    February 1st, 2014 @ 3:53 pm

    One other hand, use that stuff and you’ll REALLY improve your time on the road march back to barracks.
    Uh, somebody told me that…

  23. Adjoran
    February 1st, 2014 @ 3:57 pm

    You think it’s a hoax because some MAN says it’s a hoax?

    Until we hear from the Sacred Gaian Sisterhood of Wymyn, I say, “Bleed on, sister!” as I gently guide them away from the light-colored couch (in a totally nonpaternalistic way).

    I keep trying to remember Edith Prickley’s one-woman show of self-discovery from SCTV, it was called “I’m Thinking For Myself, I’ve Got My Head Screwed On Straight, And No Guy Is Gonna Tell Me It Ain’t” or something to that effect. It was profound.

    Ah, yes, the Golden Age of Estrogen – before you could easily purchase ball gags on the interwebs.

  24. David Thompson
    February 1st, 2014 @ 5:29 pm

    Robert,

    However, there is no indication that this “Tampons-Are-Male-Oppression” message had any organic existence prior to the suspicious appearance of @Roaring_Womyn and@dontjudgme3333, and so it’s obviously some kind of hoax.

    It does, however, extend a theme aired by, among others, Sharra Vostral, an Associate Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Illinois. Ms Vostral writes,

    These ubiquitous yet invisible technologies provide women with the means to hide their periods, but the history of embedded politics in menstrual technologies reveals that they can be used both as artefacts of control and empowering tools of change.

    Quite why
    the humble tampon should constitute an “artefact of control,” i.e., a tool of dastardly patriarchal oppression, isn’t made clear. She does, however, tells us,

    Though menstrual hygiene
    technologies have been used and construed as personal and private, and even at times secretive, these hidden artefacts function in a similar way as visible artefacts because they help to represent the body as something else: not bleeding. The importance of this is that the representation is both outward and inward. The act of technological passing presents an
    altered external identity, but also requires the technological user to agree to a sort of temporal amnesia.

    At which point it becomes easier to see why
    an estimated 98% of humanities scholarship goes uncited or unread.

  25. RKae
    February 1st, 2014 @ 5:55 pm

    This all puts me in the mind of an old Kids in the Hall monologue: “Dave Foley has a good attitude toward menstruation.”

  26. ThomasD
    February 1st, 2014 @ 7:09 pm

    Thanks, that was one part of jr. high English I truly hated.

  27. concern00
    February 2nd, 2014 @ 2:00 am

    I am sure we’ve all gagged over that vaginal knitting episode, so this really isn’t a bridge too far for liberal minds.

    (you’ve been warned)
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2518107/Vaginal-knitter-artist-Casey-Jenkins-makes-scarf-wool-stored-inside-vagina.html

  28. Arkuy The Great
    February 2nd, 2014 @ 10:48 am

    Now I’ve got “Battle of Kukamonga” echoing in my head. Thanks a lot!

  29. koblog
    February 2nd, 2014 @ 11:08 am

    Is this some sort of anti-gay Boy Scout trash? What do you have against shiny leaves of three? They have feelings too!

  30. teapartydoc
    February 2nd, 2014 @ 11:45 am

    The vagina jumped the shark and got bitten. Now it’s bleeding as much as a liberal’s heart.

  31. Buffalobob
    February 2nd, 2014 @ 12:32 pm

    Many years there was an add in a magazine, I believe it was Mother Earth, or Mother Jones, that showed a picture of a young hippy girl standing in a pristine mountain stream. The product was a menstrual sponge, the add stated that by using the sponge you saved the environment by being able to reuse it just by washing it out in the pure stream water. For the hell of it I just Goggled it and by God they still sell it, progs and hippies are funny.

  32. Badger Pundit
    February 2nd, 2014 @ 12:33 pm

    Great piece, especially in demonstrating that when presented with a facially ridiculous new meme bearing on feminism, it’s impossible to tell whether it’s a hoax merely by examining its CONTENT.

    For example, if a year ago you asked me whether actual feminists would ever publicly call themselves “#AbortionBitches” on Twitter, I would have said no. But then you uncovered Sarah Alcid and her cohort, who call themselves exactly that:
    http://thebadger14.wordpress.com/2013/08/20/perfectly-normal/

    It almost seems like there’s an arm’s race among feminists (and other progressives) so use ever-more ridiculous tactics to publicize their message, which makes it ever-more difficult to distinguish between actual new memes and hoaxes.

  33. radioone
    February 2nd, 2014 @ 3:38 pm

    Prince Charles IS a tampon.

  34. not a liberal
    February 2nd, 2014 @ 6:41 pm

    I’ve heard stories of certain tribes in Africa sending their wymyn to a “period hut” for just this reason. I’m starting to think they might be true.

  35. Watch and Laugh: 2014 Super Bowl Ads and Weekend Links
    February 2nd, 2014 @ 8:31 pm

    […] Other McCain has many good blog posts up including this one by Stacy on “Is #FreeBleeding a Hoax? UPDATE: Hoax Came From […]

  36. Conservatronic
    February 2nd, 2014 @ 10:29 pm

    Radfem wouldn’t be so easy (and fun!) to troll if it were not already so crazy.

  37. TTC`
    February 3rd, 2014 @ 1:02 am

    Sadly, it’s a real thing, but not one very widely embraced by the feminists It’s pretty much a radical thing. They have menstrual activists now…smh

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/07/09/how-our-menstruation-fearing-culture-keep-periods-invisible.html
    http://jezebel.com/not-everything-is-a-feminist-issue-for-chrissakes-719187978
    http://jezebel.com/5372984/bloody-hell-menstrual-activists-make-periods-public

  38. DavidKramer
    February 3rd, 2014 @ 7:34 am

    How does Mawitha wearing tampon earrings fit into all of this?

  39. Bandit Keena
    February 3rd, 2014 @ 7:46 am

    Move back to the moonhut

  40. hmschlmom
    February 5th, 2014 @ 8:12 pm

    TMI…

  41. JenB
    February 5th, 2014 @ 9:24 pm

    After seeing the lovely video of the Columbia feminists getting freaky with each other, raw eggs and a dead chicken to fight “gender tension” (whatever the hell that is) in the library, this free bleeding thing seems rather believable. Nothing would surprise me from them. Today they threw blood soaked panties of the archbishop of Madrid. Really is this free bleeding so far fetched? I mean, I get this is probably a hoax, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the hoax turned into a reality with these people.

  42. Leucisticraccoon
    February 5th, 2014 @ 11:08 pm

    What if, through this hoax, feminists actually start practicing free-bleeding? And what started out as a hoax turns into a real thing?

  43. Chris Stone
    February 6th, 2014 @ 2:03 pm

    Bunch’a lezbots create a fake ideology. I’m shocked.

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