Jack Monroe off Twitter

[beammeuphottie]

The latest in the ongoing saga is that JM has left Twitter after being 'hounded off'. The incident that seemed to provoke this...someone critiquing a photo of her mums roast potatoes. It just gets more and more bizarre.

To be clear, I don't like to see public pile ons and some of the abuse directed at Jack has been unpleasant. But a lot has also been reasonable, polite requests for information regarding her patreon which have largely been totally ignored. And her supporters have to be some of the most cruel people on Twitter. It seems like it's fine for JM to voice her opinion but as soon as others do the same they are called out for bullying. And ironically subjected to vile comments from her followers. Go figure.

Am I the only one who thinks she's probably best having a little Twitter break? But eventually if she's ever to redeem her reputation she needs to show some transparency regarding public donations.

Really - this is all on her.

All she needs to do is produce the evidence that the monies she has grifted been donated have gone to the cause they were specifically donated for, or at worst, to another similar cause (eg - if for Trussell Trust, and due to some unknown problem couldn't be sent there, then a similar foodbank/ homeless charity/ good cause has benefitted).

That the money donated to sue "30p Lee" (not that I have any time for him!) - a lawsuit which never materialised - was either returned or donated to charity.

That she has refunded the Patreon accounts which have requested refunds.

She claims that all is above board. This should be easy to prove, Even if she doesn't keep records, these organisations do - they are legally obligated to do so, and large donations from a single source would show up.

She claims to pay herself only a "tiny, tiny" wage - but is she limited company? Does she claim a dividend? (These are genuine questions - I honestly and truly don't know but would be interested to find out.)

If she wants the "harassment" (aka requests for the truth) to stop, all she has to do is be transparent about her incomings and outgoings.

She seem to have umpteen notebooks of appalling recipes she has devised, and frequently shows her shopping lists (with prices) when bragging about feeding 2 adults, & a teenager 3 meals a day plus snacks, not to mention the numerous friends and family that she frequently entertains - I can't believe that she hasn't kept any accounts.

She says she autistic because her GP did a questionnaire and she scored highly for autistic traits. That is not an autistic assessment.

She claims a lot of health problems @tothelefttotheleft - most, if not all, appear to be self-diagnosed. She had a period of strongly hinting (carefully not claiming outright) that she had cancer at one time.

The disrespect - no, more than disrespect - the contempt she shows for people who do have serious health conditions, and who struggle with the pain and worry on a daily basis, is hideous.

She should be ashamed, but instead she doubles down and doubles back and outright denies.

I'm going to take issue with this bit "It's very possible though that as a freelancer and possibly a poor budgeter (I'm the same) she doesn't have a consistent income and does have periods of poverty."

Probably she does have peaks and troughs of income, but I don't think she is anywhere near what normal people would call poverty any more. When you see the pictures of her house, she's nowhere near the breadline. If she's short of cash, it looks like it's because she spends it all on designer gear and tables.

Aside from the books, she has the regular income of Patreon, which if she had looked after her Patrons she could have grown, but instead she's ignored them and not fulfilled her side for months/years. But she still has 600 odd Patrons giving between £3.50 and £44 a month each - at one point she had 800ish of them. That's a decent base income. Plus she does speaking gigs at conferences and things like that.

I think she sees herself as poor because of the rich media types she compares herself to or the wealthy exes she lived with.

She may have experienced hardship in the past, but not for years, and that wouldn't be a problem, if she wasn't talking personal desperation while shaking the tin.

She could have continued and been a hopeful, aspirational figure, "bootstrapped" herself even, but she can't resist doing the pity-mes.

I'm going to take issue with this bit "It's very possible though that as a freelancer and possibly a poor budgeter (I'm the same) she doesn't have a consistent income and does have periods of poverty."

I don't mind you taking issue with it, it's only me thinking about the possibility. Sometimes people can be really terrible with money and with basic rent/fuel/council tax often coming to £2k it wouldn't surprise me if she's short - especially if better periods have been frittered and not saved.

I find it really hard to be sympathetic to that, tho. If you spend everything on Mulberry handbags and Vivienne Westwood and expect to be able to blag off your internet following to keep you in that lifestyle when your income takes a dip, it's not a good look.

Especially for someone who makes a living talking about how to live on a budget.

She claims to be really frugal, and she's put in front of us as an example of how to live on minimal income - but she's totally unsuited to be giving that advice if she's such a poor budgeter.

Yes, we can all mismanage money. But that's not the same as living in poverty. She's spending her income frivolously and the rattling begging tins, and claiming not to be able to turn on the heating/lights/whatever.

If you spend everything on Mulberry handbags and Vivienne Westwood and expect to be able to blag off your internet following to keep you in that lifestyle when your income takes a dip, it's not a good look.

But those are INVESTMENTS!

A hedge against the NEXT TIME SHE IS IN POVERTY!!

She can SELL THEM!!! *

Do you want her to STOP BREATHING?!!!!!

*No - I don't know why she doesn't just put the money in the bank or get a few premium bonds or summat either. I expect she's TOO BUSY.

She could have just lied and said the expensive items were gifts/promos/sent by fans whatever.... Bit it appears she just spends her money could be on £10k a month and she'd still struggle

I'm not sure I'm sympathetic to that hypothesis, just putting forward an idea of why still feels to be living in poverty at times.

If you've got Tiffany earrings constantly attached to your face, Vivienne Westwood stuffed in your many sideboards (the clothes, not the lady herself, I'm not accusing Jack of abduction 😂), and you look round and go "wah I'm so poor" then you need a bloody wake-up call.

I've seen a recent tweet where she is basically saying she's had a MH relapse and is very lucky to be here still. And the constant harassment is to blame for this. Essentially the not so subtle message is that anyone who has questioned refunds, the location of her charitable donations etc is to blame for her being close to suicide.

Is it me or is that really really grim? This isn't harassment. It's important questions that she is still unable to answer. This one has actually left me speechless.

People wouldn’t need to ‘harass’ her (ask questions) if she stopped accepting donations through her personal PayPal, and used just giving for instance. The T-shirt thing could have gone direct to the charities and not through her accounts.
Then the money would always go where it is meant to though wouldn’t it?

What happened to the money she begged for legal fees, via paypal to supposedly fund her lawyer (who she crowed about always working for her for free) when she threatened to sue Lee Anderson. Someone directly asked him if her lawyer had been in touch. He hadn't.
So, that was a good scam. Money for absolutely nothing. Then again, if people are willing to pay just because she asks then they are fools in this instance.

I don't get why she's posting photos of her gorgeous house now she's been rumbled for faking poverty. Doesn't add up. She doesn't have to post fake poverty photos she could just not tweet anything.

She clearly is absolutely terrible with money. She’s had money slipping through her fingertips that most people could only dream about.
But spending vast amounts of money on designer goods and having nothing left to pay your bills with doesn’t mean you are living in poverty. It doesn’t entitle you to other peoples money, obtained through rattling your tip jar or through a patreon that you don’t provide the promised rewards for, and it certainly doesn’t mean you should hold yourself up as a face of budgeting and frugality.

I think she's got a social media addiction, if that's an actual thing.

She could just tweet recipes or something useful, of course, since that's supposedly her job?

I wonder if her reception has changed partly because of the cost of living crisis, and her audience are just a bit more impatient and worried themselves?

It’s not a gorgeous house, it’s a SHITTY BUNGALOW 😉

There are HOLES in the WALLS and CLUMPS out of the CARPETS and she's only allowed to PAINT IT WHITE.

And there is a VISIBLE DRAFT!!! 🤔

Gone again it seems?

Curiouser and curiouser . . . . 🤔🤔🤔

Ah she’s still on there, using her numerous sock accounts.

Well, that's true. 😆

Nothing to do with the accidental tweeting of her camera roll with a pic in a wetherspoons with a pint of lager in handy reach, then?