This author’s bigoted not-stalgia for ‘Virginia Woolf’s London’ got her dragged into next year – 24 capital responses
Whatever else you can say about American author and conspiracy theorist, Naomi Wolf, and people say a lot of things about her, she’s certainly provided the world with plenty of comic relief, or at least comedy-adjacent cringe.
In 2019, when she was a guest on BBC Radio 3’s ‘Free Thinking’, while discussing her book Outrages: Sex, Censorship, and the Criminalization of Love, it became horribly apparent that a key conclusion about the treatment of gay men in the 1870s had been based on her utter misunderstanding of a historic legal term.
Everyone listen to Naomi Wolf realize on live radio that the historical thesis of the book she's there to promote is based on her misunderstanding a legal term pic.twitter.com/a3tB77g3c1
— Edmund Hochreiter (@thymetikon) May 23, 2019
In pre-Musk times, she was suspended from the platform then known as Twitter for hot takes like this …
Thanks, @Twitter, for finally suspending Naomi Wolf for spreading harmful and floridly delusional anti-vax disinformation.
(Was this the tweet that pushed Twitter over the edge?) pic.twitter.com/DDytd5rBGj— Peach Resist ️️⚧️ (@PeachResist) June 5, 2021
And this …
Before she left, Naomi Wolf left us with one of the funniest tweets in the history of this garbage site. pic.twitter.com/KgCrE1b2o3
— Mike Beauvais (@MikeBeauvais) June 5, 2021
There was also the time she let her 5G-phobia persuade her that 1970s Belfast was calm, still and peaceful.
In that same spirit of Facebook nostalgia porn, in response to a long post unfavourably comparing London to Tallinn and Helsinki, she lost all hope of ever getting a job with VisitEngland.
The collective facepalm was visible from space, and these reactions said it all.
1.
if you want a hint of Virginia Woolf's London, go to fucking Bloomsbury. And wipe your chin, you're drooling again, you swivel eyed bigot.
— Sarah Phelps (@PhelpsieSarah) June 11, 2024
2.
Sounds like she hasn't been in London in about 300 years https://t.co/BePh9gE9Ay
— Karl Sharro (@KarlreMarks) June 11, 2024
3.
Uh-oh. Naomi’s posting cringe again, https://t.co/g4WwNMi3nC
— Dara Ó Briain (@daraobriain) June 11, 2024
4.
Sounds like you’re in your head, not London.
— Dom Joly (@domjoly) June 11, 2024
5.
Wolf is unburdened by a tether to reality.
I fucking love London. It’s got everything, more nationalities than any other place on earth, I know the names of all our neighbours, and our community is vibrant. The food is OUTSTANDING. This place fucking rocks. https://t.co/PU706Tx0rV
— Dr Adam Rutherford (@AdamRutherford) June 11, 2024
6.
I am in London for the first time in 5 years. Unrecognizable. Grotesque huge modern buildings looming over historic neighborhoods. No sign of British culture except for vestigial pubs. Towering galleries where once were fields. People sleeping, living on the street. Tragic. pic.twitter.com/dueLSoCqwT
— FourthDrawerDown #MDANT (@itaintwhywhywhy) June 11, 2024
7.
London has become one of the greatest cities on earth, period https://t.co/eDtW56fiA6
— Jim Pickard (@PickardJE) June 11, 2024
8.
Touch grass Naomi.
— Dr Janaway (@drjanaway) June 11, 2024
9.
I have lived in London for most of my life and can confirm that this well known wingnut is talking total nonsense. Her idea of London seems to have come from Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins and was about as realistic in 2019 as it is now https://t.co/iTJJ0DCoU4
— Rory Cellan-Jones (@ruskin147) June 11, 2024
10.
She's right. This is London 5 years ago pic.twitter.com/5eLflIvMvX
— John Rain (@ItsJohnRain) June 11, 2024
11.
Oh do get stuffed. I am in Hammersmith and it’s blooming lovely today.
— Be More Barbara (@BeMoreBarbara) June 11, 2024
12.
She’s spot on!
This is me in London last week. disgusting! https://t.co/RCwyh6TQJX pic.twitter.com/Xgyk1Vc4oe
— Rob B (@RobBfromDerby) June 11, 2024