#but yeah there’s so much that’s been destroyed bc of jkr being a shit ass person

[houseofwolves-v1]

harry potter was my special interest for most of my life. and it’s so crazy to think about how much of my life now is a result of that series. like one of my criteria for what i wanted in a school when i was applying for college was that they had a quidditch (now quadball) team. i was deeply involved in that sport for almost 4 years, even spent 2 years of that time running my school’s team. my entire irl friend group is people i met playing quadball, my girlfriend of 4 years now is someone i met playing quadball, all the roommates i’ve had over the years are people i met through quadball. (gonna talk about quidditch since that is something i’ve been directly involved in most recently lol) but at an organizational level the name change from quidditch to quadball has been in the works for as long as i had been playing the sport if not longer simply bc of the restrictions warner bros had placed on the sport. we could only be a nonprofit, we weren’t really allowed any brand sponsors, we weren’t allowed to be on espn or any major news network. and all of that was frustrating and holding the sport back, especially since over the years it’s evolved so much (like literally outside of the base of using hoops and brooms, the ball names and position names, the sport is nothing like how it’s described in the books) we’ve been trying to move towards a much more athletic and serious sport and are implementing a lot of structure things that more long standing sports have. and even at a recruitment level for individual teams, we had such a hard time recruiting new members bc everyone saw us as just a nerdy harry potter club, and it made it hard for us to compete with other teams bc everyone that joined ours just didn’t know what they were getting into and didn’t want to put in the work that’s needed to be on a sports team. like this is a full contact sport, you have to be putting in the work to be athletic to play. and then getting into jkr and all her transphobia, quadball is one of the leading sports in gender inclusitivity, there are so so many queer and trans people in the sport and at an organizational level and individual level everyone is so supportive of that. there are rules in place to make sure a team isn’t leaving out one gender or another and that everyone gets play time and everyone regardless of gender gets to play on the same pitch on the same team with no gender divisions. and for jkr the inspiration behind this sport to be so blatantly against all that we’ve worked for fucking sucks. but yeah all that to say that the name change to quadball is one of the best things to happen to this sport, like within 5 ish days of the name change we were on espn. but like op was saying, this is an entire subculture that’s been lost. i used to listen to wrock all the time, i have so many harry potter fan films that i’ve watched over the years, there were podcasts i regularly listened to, i used to check mugglenet daily to keep up with what was going on, and to have all of that just..gone now bc i don’t want to associate myself with jkr and the harmful things she’s done? it’s been a weird adjustment.

What makes JKR's shitshow even harder to process is that she didn't just ruin a book series. Harry Potter was an entire subculture. Like Star Wars and Star Trek fans, Harry Potter fans dedicated their lives and careers to the series. I don't know if I'd call it "underground," but liking Harry Potter got you beaten up when I was in school, so it was more of a dedicated indie culture than a mass-appeal fanbase.

Harry Potter was so huge that fan works developed their own followings. Potter Puppet Pals racked up hundreds of thousands of followers and was nearly as relevant as the series itself. For fanfiction, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality got so big that it has a Wikipedia page. The band Harry and the Potters spawned the wizard rock music genre. A Very Potter Musical developed a fanbase and launched Darren Criss's career.

Harry Potter also has extensive ties to fandom history. Everyone in my generation (millennials) remembers coming home from school to read Harry Potter fanfiction on the Internet. Today, most people just post their stories on Wattpad or Archive of Our Own. But at the time, the fanbase was splintered between fanfiction.net and dozens of individual websites and forums, some made for specific ships. Since they all had individual hosts, a lot of those sites have been lost to time.

And there's the infamous My Immortal fanfiction, which is an Internet legend with people still searching for the author. Everybody read that one (and laughed at it) in middle school.

Pre-social media, fan sites like The Leaky Cauldron and Mugglenet had massive followings because they were one of few sources for news, theories, essays and fan content. Some of these sites still exist after being around for over a decade and building their own legacy.

Before Deathly Hallows came out, fans were so desperate to know what happened that Mugglenet published a book called What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Falls in Love and How Will the Adventure Finally End? Yep...Harry Potter was so big that people wrote separate books about what would happen in an upcoming book.

And that's not mentioning all the book release parties, Harry Potter-themed events, monuments, fan films, restaurants and even a theme park. A lot of fandoms have those, but Harry Potter infiltrated every aspect of popular culture.

Today, there's a thriving culture of "Harry Potter adults" with themed weddings, baby showers and Etsy stores. Putting your Hogwarts house in your Instagram bio is pretty much a prerequisite for joining the "bookish" community. Warner still produces new content, like the Fantastic Beasts series, although we've all seen what a disaster that's been.

Everyone has at least a few memories associated with Harry Potter even if it's just watching the movies. I had great memories associated with Harry Potter. But looking back at the subculture, history and thousands of fan works, it doesn't seem fun anymore. Studying the fandom or being part of it comes with an awkward tension because you don't want to seem like you're condoning JKR's bigotry but can't divorce her from the series. This subculture was spawned by a woman who turned her legacy of magic and wonder into one of abuse and hatred.

I don't expect people to write paragraphs about how much they hate JKR every time they post about Harry Potter, but it's still uncomfortable to see people make new content or wear their Harry Potter Etsy tote bags like nothing happened. Even if they clarify that they don't support her, it's just a weird, tense situation for everybody.

People dedicated years of their lives to running Harry Potter fan sites, writing fanfiction, cosplaying characters and making fan movies. If I were in that situation, I'd have a mild identity crisis. I'd ask myself "Did I waste all those years? Should I delete my content? Where do I go from here?"

So ultimately, JKR didn't ruin "just" a book series or even "just" a fandom. She tanked an entire culture, which inspired people to look at Harry Potter more critically. The issues that people brought to the light tainted the series's legacy even without JKR's personal issues.

Once, Harry Potter was a series for generations. Now, former fans hope that the series fades into irrelevancy. Unfortunately, JKR didn't just tarnish her legacy--she took decades of history, millions of fans and a worldwide subculture along with her.