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The thing with boycotts is that it’s such an online thing. You can proclaim a product or an author the product funds to be problematic morally, call to boycott it to support some cause, and most people are indeed going to join the boycott then post about it on social media, do the moral song-and-dance to join the cause.
In reality, the vast majority of those people aren’t invested in the product or the world and wouldn’t have bought anything from it, boycott or not. It’s much harder to say no to things when you’re actually invested into them, meaning boycotts aren’t likely to influence those people. With that in mind, you now have a bunch of free advertisement for the product in a sense that it won’t leave the public consciousness, a bunch of people not interested in the product doing their “activism” and a bunch of fans of the product fighting the boycotters (as seen with Hogwarts Legacy for instance).
I haven’t read or watched or played a single product from JK Rowling’s catalogue, but I’ve seen this happen time and time again with other media or companies such as the infamous Blizzard.
Not me. I own the books and I loved them. Very relatable, among other things. I very much looked forward to a new video game of the series, but the harmful rhetoric of Rowling’s post easily outweighed my personal interest. I’d have bought Hogwarts Legacy but now I wouldn’t even want to “download” it. Same with Blizzard’s performative Overwatch Pride event that was not available for the countries that need it most. That caused me, a longtime Overwatch player, to uninstall the game for good.
was this made by chipflake, or was his characters just superimposed onto it by a third party?
https://bsky.app/profile/chipflake.com/post/3lqmfnpoqcs22 It was made by him, I found it on a few of his socials
That was literally my first thought. Really wasn’t expecting to see chipflake here of all places.
Literally never bought anything Harry Potter or from JK (my parents read me the books and took me to see 2 or 3 of the films idk) and I’m super glad. JK Rowling sucks and tbh Harry Potter is mid af
trans rights are human rights ❤️ 🤘
As someone who grew up on HP, there are way better books in the same genre out there anyway. The hype of Harry Potter is all just marketing from Warner Bros (they own most of the rights on merchandise).
If you want an actually good children’s/YA story about a young person learning magic and becoming the hero, try the Tiffany Aching subseries of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels. They are much better written than HP.
Also, “A Wizard of Earthsea” by Ursula Le Guin.
Such a good recommendation. Love that series and author!
Skyward by Brandon Sanderson
Bonus: the young hero learns magic AND pilots a starfighter
Since we’re on the topic; what irked me the most about HP is that it feels like a glorification of the aristocracy.
The very idea that individuals born from great families are destined to influence the course of the world while the plebs rot in helpless ignorance is basically what’s wrong with the world. The magic school is clearly an allegory of these fucking ancient private colleges you get to go to if you’re born with status. The whole setup is a privilege fantasy.
This is especially grand considering actual witchcraft was a way to frame, demonize and ultimately neutralize ordinary women’s knowledge and influence, for the sake of tightening the clergy and the nobility’s grip on the layperson.
That’s a problem with many “choosen one” stories, see Star Wars. Only someone coming from the right bloodline can change things, everyone else is just an accessory.
Of course HP takes this to eleven, after all it traces actual British society of recent and past times.
Tell that to all the potter head tragics who are definitely members of Hufflepuff and not in gryphindor.
(Nothing pisses them off more than telling them they give off big Hufflepuff energy)
Harry Potter’s books lost my interest after I found about JK Rowling’s garbage character.
Don’t even pirate it!
Harry Potter isn’t even good.
Harry Potter and the Transphobic Shrew
Removed by mod
Ironically it’s my trans sister that has had the most trouble with this. I love her to bits but I don’t know how her brain works sometimes.
Most of the people talking about Harry Potter and perpetuating its relevancy are trans people ironically
Nope it’s the average person still financially supporting JK Rowling by watching Fantastic Beasts and playing Hogwarts Legacy. We’re boycotting that stuff.
I don’t even think the average person plays Minecraft, the most popular game ever.
How do you figure that?
Anecdotally I see far far more posts and comments like the OP than I do people just talking about HP.
Kinda the opposite experience from me. I have heard it brought at the local brewery several times, and have even been asked directly what I thought of it as a non-binary person. Granted, that last one was with some regulars and they were legitimately asking if they should get their HP tattoo covered, but still
I literally have not seen anything Harry Potter related outside of trans discussion since the release of that video game and 95% of what I saw about it was not to buy it because of jk.
It’s probably just that you’re not the target market for Harry Potter anymore and the only part of HP that’s still relevant to you is JKR and her transphobia.
HBO and their parent company Warner Bros are making a big deal out of their upcoming TV show. They own the rights to the films and merchandise and HP is a cash cow for them. They flopped with the Fantastic Beasts series, so you can bet there is going to be a push to try to cash in on nostalgia and novelty with the Harry Potter series.
You have not seen anything about the coming show, the universal Epic HP area and attraction, the theater play or the pop up events that they do in some cities every once in a while?
I think he has a point. In the last few years I only remember the release of Hogwarts Legacy which was related to Harry Potter. Never heard of a show, pop up events etc.
But the calls for boycott I see at least once a week here on Lemmy.
Maybe it would be better to just add that as comments to actual HP promo rather than giving it additional attention and relevance.
I literally had no idea any of these were happening and I still wouldn’t had this meme not been made.
I’m the core demographic, I grew up with the books and a lot of friends are fans of the franchise so I do see a lot of stuff related to HP. I always post these kind of “memes” so my friends can see them and I tell them to stop giving money to JK Rowling at every mention of HP they make
Weird, but I also tend to run in nerdy circles. I have heard lots of other people talk about it just in passing and been asked directly
While I get the desire for escapism, I’ve never understood how the topic of magic had such a strong appeal to so many, anyway. I want an escape that might actually happen. Everyone should know that magic isn’t real, and it’s at best just science you don’t understand. At worst it’s just lies, misdirection, and slight-of-hand - the preference for which so many people have is what’s ruining everything in the real world as we speak.
Just to be clear, you won’t read things like T.H. White’s The Once and Future King?
I get the hate for Rowling, and I’m old enough that I grew up on Narnia instead. I never read Rowling’s books, given that I was an adult, but I lived with a woman a decade younger for a time, and she was all about Harry Potter, so I slogged through all of the movies. Great acting, good production values, but I had a hard time figuring out why to care.
Worth noting, though, is that as a kid, I had no idea when the first two books were read to me in bed that C.S. Lewis was a Christian apologist. I started reading from there. I’ll frankly take someone who seems to have espoused the actual teachings of Jesus over a TERF any day.
I will say that Lewis helped get me through a rough patch via Mere Christianity as an adult suffering my first marriage falling apart … while I remain an atheist, he made compelling arguments. Rowling really has nothing of substance to say through her works.
could’ve just said you don’t like fantasy
I could have, but that wouldn’t be true. I like fantasy just fine, I just prefer that it is grounded in reality and what’s actually possible/probable.
I like metal, as long as it is slow jazz.
Fuck. You win the internet today. 🥇
That’s not fantasy? That’s pretty much the exact opposite. From Oxford’s English dictionary:
“the faculty or activity of imagining things, especially things that are impossible or improbable.”
E: Are you perhaps thinking science fiction?
You’re talking specifically about a name used to classify a particular genre of stories. The word “fantasy” applies to more than just that.
Whatever. Seems I unintentionally touched some nerves here (and, unfortunately, I had to work - so I was unable to keep this from going off the deep end), so I’m just gonna walk away before I somehow wind up antagonizing people (and myself) further.
Let the bludgeoning continue…
While I appreciate the self-reflection, fantasy literally means shit that can’t possibly happen in real life. If it could, well … it wouldn’t be fantasy, now would it?
Once one veers into the realistic, it’s one of a number of genres, wherein “fantasy” is not considered.
So sexual fantasies can’t possibly happen IRL? I think you’re too focused on a single definition & perhaps need to try another dictionary. Whatever. I’m going to bed. Good luck with keeping words strictly linked to a singular definition.
And you’re entitled to your opinion. I don’t need to present my credentials in terms of fulfilling my own sexual fantasies, nor do you need to believe that I had to create a group on FetLife so that the porn I made with my ex actually had a home.
It’s generally not a great idea to tell an editor that he needs to learn how to consult dictionaries, and I hope you don’t extend such pleasantries to other members of the Beehaw community.
Context is king. We’re talking about literary genres, and you want to talk sex. I fully approve! This said, get off your high horse. You knew damn well the context and decided to inject irrelevant data to … I don’t know … “win?”
We’re not here to argue. If that’s your goal, Beehaw is not the correct instance for you.
I tried to do a little humour at your expense, I actually totally get what you mean even if I feel different.
sorry 😔
You’re totally entitled to prefer stories and worlds that are grounded in realism - others enjoy reading stories that are flying high in fantasy far from the places we could ever hope to explore in our universe or anything that follows its rules. Absolutely not a defense of harry potter for what its worth, fuck jkr and everything she makes. But there’s such a wealth of stories to be told that don’t follow our rules, and many magic systems do follow hard and fast rules, they just don’t happen to be the ones we follow in our world.
You really don’t understand how the power to do literally anything you imagine is something people wish for?
Not when you know the methods depicted can’t effect that result in real life. I’d think if you actually desired such power then you’d want to focus on ways to actually achieve it.
I mean sure - I get it’s nice to fantasize about having such an ability, but as one outgrows other childhood trappings then I’d expect that to be left behind for something more realistic as well. But then, I guess it fits with the fact so many people never grow up at all, anyway.
