blueberry

It’s so powerful to get more HP fans in more leftist spaces so they can incept those ideas.

That could prove to be harder than expected. I tried to reach out to r/harrypotter but they won't let me put an advertisement post there :( Turns out that not so surprisingly, these fansites are kind of closed up themselves and until they open themselves up to AP, too, they will be very reluctant to any fediverse clones of them ...

I'm now trying to reach out to other fansites. Let's see.

So discussion of the text would be allowed in literature section. Just not if it were transphobic?

No, I meant that it wouldn't be put to discussion if it were transphobic. It would need to be decided just like for any other book. I just don't want to pre-empitively outrule the book because I don't know it AND because the situation hasn't arised yet.

But yeah, we can assume that it would happen. Its a fair question. Probably I or the mods would have to do some reading and then decide. But that holds for any controverse book.

Now, the question is, if in doubt, would I rather ban the book discussion or not, I would be on the side of allowing it, because banning books from discussion is a very radical step and then see if any transphobic comments pop up around it.

I mean frankly, you are gonna have the community regardless what I or any other trans person say, which is your right.

That's true, it was never up for discussion; I mean, it was some work to put it up. But I'm interested in your opinions around it. Just because it will not be a safe place for queer folks (I have neither the resources nor the skills), it can still be a generally welcoming place to them (hopefully).

But what are these other franchises? I seriously don't know any that strike the same nerve as H.P.

https://diagonlemmy.social

Its H.P. themed not Rowling themed. If they want to talk about Bad Blood in the literature section, sure. Like on all other literature instances, too. If its explicitly transphobic, its not.

I love to be able to reclaim works from their hateful authors, especially cultural ones. I’m a big fan of Lovecraft, and that dude was hateful. He makes JK Rowling look sweet and kindly. But it’s a lot easier to reclaim the narrative and make it a part of our culture when the author is literally dead.

Agreed. The athmosphere he creates is great but that dude was really problematic.

I understand that HP is important to a lot of people. It was a cultural phenomenon. But we aren’t leaving it behind just because JK Rowling said something offensive. We’re leaving it behind because the author is actively using our consumption to fund hate and campaigning to deny rights to trans people.

Sure, we find ourselves in a pickle, there. On the one hand, she is actively harming people and this will stay this way until it eventually becomes part of the public domain.

However, boycotting Harry Potter also comes as a price that, at least I would argue, also hurts minorities. Because the places create structure, which protects vulnarable people.

Why don't we replace it with something else that does the same? Well, because in my opinion, Harry Potter culturally serves as a mythologization of the digital. People use it to understand the digital world. In past centuries, humans always made up stories and myths to understand complex concepts. The same thing is happening with the digital world and Harry Potter is one of the first to do this. It has a unique and central societal purpose.

That doesn't mean that it can be improved, as can be seen in Hogwarts Legacy, which is kind of progressive, and also still slightly antisemetic, which is not so great, BUT I think overall the books still do much more good for vulnarable people than anything Rowling does against them, if she wants it or not.

So at the end of my line of thought, I always end up with two options: either create something new that does the same thing as H.P. while being more progressive but still hugely popular (which is hard to impossible), or to use H.P. and build on top of it to make it more modern (which is much easier).

What I would like to see more in these discussion is the question how EFFECTIVE Rowlings actions really are and if boycotting doesn't hurt more than it helps.

I think the biggest challenge at the start will be keeping community alive. I know from experience that if you are the only person posting it is disheartening, and it leads to very fast burnout.

Yeah, I think so, too. I fear that Harry Potter memes could play a crutial part here, but I'm not yet confortable enough to enable images. Let's see how it goes ...

<3

Is it possible to separate the creatOR from the creatION? Yes. But not for everyone, and many of those who can’t will see your support as support of their own shitty ideals that match the creators’.

If it would be that easy, yes. But you ignore that H.P. does have a cultural value to it. Now you could try to re-build this, but first of all: it will be pretty hard to come up with something that no one feels offended by. And second of all: it will be pretty hard to come up with something that is equally popular.

For me, this is about post-structuralism vs. structuarlism. The current zeigeist is all about "deconstruction", but if you de-construct everything, you are left with nothing. You need to build something new and that structure will always leave some room to deconstruct.

So I'm for leaving some of these cultural structures even if they are in parts worth overcoming. In case of the social web, which the Fediverse tries to create: it will not work without some kind of cultural structure on which it is build. People don't want to spent time in a non-place, the Metaverse already failed because of that (at least its first try).

Post-structuralism is bad. Its anti-liberal and currently a big problem on the left imo.

Thanks :)

The more the merrier. I will check it out sometime if I find the time.

diagonlemmy.social

Thanks for the tips, they are very helpful.

I think I will exclude "queer friendly" again. It raises some false promises that I think I cannot hold. I like the term “no tolerance towards transphobia”.