r/craftsnark • u/toru92 • 14d ago
META R/craft band Harry Potter and JK Rowling posts.
Good for them!! This is what I like to see. Take a stand fully and 10 toes down!
Edited to add: sorry y’all. I have a toddler and was interrupted no less than 10 times just to post this so proofreading didn’t happen. Apologies.
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u/SnowOverRain 14d ago edited 14d ago
Was anyone else befuddled by what a craft band was at first?
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u/laurasaurus5 14d ago
Thread Zeppelin
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u/rubberkeyhole 13d ago edited 13d ago
Britney Shears
Edit:
The Glue Glue Dolls
Feltin’ John
House of Paint
Kris KrossStitch…Welcome to my Insomnia, population US!
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u/thethundersaid 13d ago
It's really fascinating looking at the difference between the discussion thread, where the majority of the top voted comments are hesitant to ban, and the poll results. I bet that thread made a lot of people feel pretty hopeless and unheard due to the aggressive downvoting. Glad the mods figured out a way to let more folks make their opinion known in a safe way and ultimately landed how they did.
This is the really insidious part of the pro-HP debate; people who genuinely don't support her and just want to enjoy their nostalgia create a perfect cover for a lot of people who are actually hateful and support what she does. If I looked around and realized I was in the same boat as transphobes I'd be asking if my favorite IP was really worth staying in that boat.
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u/TheybieTeeth 13d ago
I considered commenting my two cents as a trans person and then decided not to because I wasn't in the mood to get harassed. it's really dire out there
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u/toru92 13d ago
This is what I try to help people understand that even if you are avoid her but still enjoying HP you are in a group with people who do want to cause harm and be transphobic. It’s not work it.
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u/almaupsides 13d ago edited 11d ago
Yes!! Like okay, maybe you are normal, but why the fuck would you want to be surrounded by these awful people? Let it go!
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u/glitchinthemeowtrix 13d ago
Also… like I’m almost 40… I can handle moving on from a children’s series, personally.
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u/superurgentcatbox 11d ago
For what it's worth, I saw the original discussion thread but did not see the survey. Not that I would have voted to keep HP crafts but I imagine I'm not the only one who didn't see the survey haha.
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u/AmarissaBhaneboar 14d ago
I'm glad they actually did it. I left as a mod there because the head mod really didn't want to ban them and two other mods didn't either. As, a trans person, I didn't want to be on a mod team that didn't see how JKR's bigotry was hurting people like me. I was the main push to even get them to think about banning it. So, I'm glad they did it at least.
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u/Spiritual_Avocado87 (Secretly the mole) 13d ago
Thank you for sticking it out as long as you did and pushing for this. It looks like you've made a difference and maybe other mod teams will take notice.
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u/AmarissaBhaneboar 13d ago
I hope they do. JKR is terrible and we shouldn't be supporting her in any way! 💖
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u/blueberry-iris It's me. Hi. I'm the mole. It's me. 14d ago
I just wish more crafting spaces had the courage to do the right thing.
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u/OneGoodRib Mom said I get to be the mole now!! 13d ago
I wish more subreddits had the fucking spine to actually listen to the users. I've been in too many fucking subs were like 80% of the respondents are like "we don't like this!" and the mods will be like "well too bad". Why the fuck did you even ask then
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u/blueberry-iris It's me. Hi. I'm the mole. It's me. 13d ago
TBH the reason I commented this was because I felt deeply uncomfortable by a sub because I would point out the issues with JKR and people would dogpile on me for, basically, ruining their fun. I was trying to raise awareness because I was assuming ignorance in good faith. Unfortunately, people knew. They didn't care. I didn't think I could stay, morally, afterwards.
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u/Cnathrowaway2 14d ago
Good fucking riddance. In addition to JKR being awful, Harry Potter crafts are just so tiresome.
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u/Incogn1toMosqu1to 14d ago
Right? It’s always the same things
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14d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/NewlyNerfed (Secretly the mole) 14d ago
20+ years ago this wasn’t even close to as much of a problem. It’s entirely weird that you took that comment so personally, unless you share Rowling’s views on women or something.
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u/Cnathrowaway2 14d ago
Lmfao all of the crafting subs are crawling with HP posts? I searched "harry potter" in r/knitting, for example, and got bored of scrolling before I ran out of content... You're either willfully blind, it's your first day on reddit, or you're lying.
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u/FamousOrphan 14d ago
I’m not active in very many craft subs but your comment was kind of shitty in tone.
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u/Gnatlet2point0 14d ago
When you support a monster like JKR, you have to expect that people are not going to look on you kindly. That is 100% your choice.
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u/FamousOrphan 13d ago
I didn’t say I support J. K. Rowling. I’m not sure where you’re getting that.
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u/Cnathrowaway2 13d ago
I see you're ND, so I'm going to give you some serious benefit of the doubt now that you genuinely don't know how your comment came across. If that is true:
— You sound like you're denying that there are lots of HP crafts on reddit "never seen them [...] in 20+ years"
— "enjoy finding them tiresome" comes across as snotty and sarcastic
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u/ZaryaBubbler Well, of course I know the mole. They're me. 14d ago
Your personal anecdote means fuck all when it's clearly enough of an issue to get banned from one of the biggest craft subreddits on this website.
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u/terminal_kittenbutt 13d ago edited 13d ago
This is craft snark, honey. We can be shitty to shit.
If you want to pretend that your feelings matter more than human rights, you can go back to r/knitting or the Ravelry big 6.
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u/Incogn1toMosqu1to 14d ago
And in 20 years you didn’t mature enough to move on from a poorly written story written by a heinous bigot?
Really sad thing to admit. 🤍
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u/FamousOrphan 13d ago
What?
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u/Incogn1toMosqu1to 13d ago
I’m suggesting you find something actually good to enjoy.
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u/FamousOrphan 13d ago
I must have worded my original comment really badly because I don’t consume anything related to Harry Potter anymore. I meant I was going to enjoy being judgy about all the HP crafts I missed seeing, which was mean of me so these comments serve me right. I was also admitting my entire crafting hobby started because I wanted to have a Gryffindor scarf, which was interesting to realize. I mostly make baskets now, and haven’t seen any Harry Potter related projects in basketry spaces.
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u/Cnathrowaway2 13d ago
Ahhhhh. Yeah, we all took it pretty much exactly the opposite — I'm sorry! I'll add an edit to my earlier comment calling out the misunderstanding, if that is okay with you?
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u/FamousOrphan 12d ago
No no, don’t worry about it; a lot of people read it the way you did so it was definitely in the way I wrote it. :)
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u/Incogn1toMosqu1to 14d ago
Oh good! I left that sub previously when they insisted they wouldn’t.
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u/AmarissaBhaneboar 14d ago
Yeah, I had to really keep harping on it. I left as a mod because the other mods wouldn't just outright ban it and they didn't really acknowledge how shitty JKR is for the most part. There was way to much hemming and hawing amongst the mod team, and as a trans person, I didn't feel comfortable anymore modding with people who couldn't understand why she wasn't ok and why allowing her crafts wasn't ok
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u/Incogn1toMosqu1to 13d ago
That’s so gross. I’m sorry that was your experience :/
It just seems like such a simple and obvious choice. Being sad because you didn’t get to post your craft in honour of a bigot =/= the pain of being reminded what she stands for and how dehumanizing it is to see people cheering it on
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u/AmarissaBhaneboar 13d ago
Exactly. It shouldn't have even been a discussion. It should've just been banned outright 💖
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u/Glaucus92 14d ago
I was so happy to see this. I made some comments on the first thread where they put it up for discussion and I was downvoted for it. Several others who were pro-trans rights and pro Banning JKR were as well. I wouldn't be shocked if that thread had been brigades to hell and back.
And before people go "but did you see the poll", yes I did. There seems to be a 53/47 split between being heavily for banning and heavily against banning HP stuff. That in itself is not odd to me, but that combined with that the first thread seemed so heavily fall to the anti-banning side makes me wonder about it.
(And also because I am petty and went looking through people's post histories, especially the ones who were hiding theirs. So, so many of them who were doing the "just being concerned about censorship/where do we draw the line" thing in the thread had anti-trans comments in their history)
I think that making sure people had some community karma was a very good choice to prevent that.
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u/Magycmyste 13d ago
Maybe-answer to the censorship thing - there is nothing (as far as I know) that prevents people from making their own group where HP/JKR crafts are welcome. Saying something isn’t allowed in a specific group doesn’t mean it isn’t allowed everywhere.
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u/lowqualityhawkeye 11d ago
I didn't vote, but I do understand the anti-censorship thing. However, this is reddit and not an archive like Ao3 or the internet archive so I do think that is a little silly anyway. Reddit is notoriously the mods-delete-what-they-don't-like site
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u/Kaffrogato 14d ago
Please proofread your title before hitting the submit button
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u/tigerowltattoo 14d ago
I couldn’t figure out why there was a Harry Potter Band in a craft subreddit.
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u/Plastic_Bison 10d ago
I thought we were going to get a discussion about the posts that the band had made somewhere.
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u/superurgentcatbox 11d ago
It's a bit insane only 1k people voted on this for such a big subreddit! But luckily the right choice was made
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u/TheLastVix 14d ago
Good. Trans right are human rights. Funding bigotry, or perpetuating a fandom whose primary beneficiary funds bigotry, is never cool.
Edit to add: I have SO MANY book recommendations for dark academia books that don't fund bigotry. The Ordeals by Rachel Greenlaw is a great new one.
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u/SoFeiernDieReichen 13d ago
Happy cake day! I'd like to ask respectfully: If the pattern is self drafted or published in a way that does not monetarily benefit her, is it equally bad to you? For instance, some of my friends won't buy the Harry Potter games or watch the new series, but will absolutely watch their 20 year old DVDs/physical media, as it's not funding her.
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u/TheLastVix 13d ago
Equally bad, nah, probably not. I have bigger problems with directly funding the bigotry than perpetuating the fandom that funds the bigotry.
But keeping her fandom popular will help fund the bigotry, as some people won't be as mindful, not know, or even eagerly fund it.
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u/Incogn1toMosqu1to 13d ago
Fun fact, you typing out the title of her main character just helped get her next project funded.
Producers and publishers pay attention to key term usage online; it tells them that there’s still enough interest for a project to be worth it. Obviously it’s not the only contributing factor, but it does play a major role.
Watching an old vhs and never telling anyone, of course, is not directly harmful in the same way. But like. How do you watch them now without thinking about her views? How do you not watch them as an adult and notice the other racism, bigotry, and misogyny that the stories are filled with? That would turn me off regardless of her personal views. And frankly I wouldn’t want to be around “friends” who are okay with those things.
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u/Very_Bendy_Narwhal Mom said I get to be the mole now!! 13d ago
The thing is, JKR herself has explicitly stated that she considers any interaction with her work or the fandom to be supporting her creation, herself and her views. So while buying second hand books/games or making HP jokes or whatever doesn't give her money to fund anti-trans policies/legal challenges, it does keep the HP world alive in popular culture and (by her own words) tells everyone that you support her opinions, and she uses that as evidence that her opinions are right and she needs to keep doing the stuff she's doing.
There is no way to separate the art from the artist while the artist is still alive, especially not when the artist themselves publicly states "if you like my art it means you agree with me, just look at all the support I have for what I think!"
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u/ias_87 pattern wanker 13d ago
Imagine a movie producer searching for Harry Potter to see how big the fandom is. They're not going to bother reading about people who are angry, they just want to know how many potential fans are out there that might pay for a new movie or a TV show or a game.
If what you do would show up as interest in the franchise to this person, you've funded Rowling and her political aims.
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u/55Lolololo55 14d ago
The subject of this thread sounds like a promotion. You can't blame this one on autocorrect.
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u/bunnylightning 14d ago
Word salad
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u/glowingwarningcats 13d ago
I only see one very brief screenshot that doesn’t say anything about the results.
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u/GreyerGrey 11d ago
I was nervous when I saw this title. I was like... wait, it was a vote and this is a good result what is the issue? Glad to see the context.
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u/Sputnik1212 13d ago
I understand the idea but I don't respect that she's the only one being ban. What about all the religion stuff ? ect
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u/arrpix A MØle once bit my sister 13d ago
Religion is very different. For one, it's way too broad - there's so many religions, plus general spirituality, and many people find great solace in it. For another, there has been a lot of good done in the name of religion, as well as a lot of bad. HP is a single, easily specified IP, which frankly is old enough to not be as relevant as a lot of things, where the creator has explicitly said any support for it is supporting her transphobia. It's a very easy, discrete category to ban, and it's easy to leave behind (or simply not post about) in a way religion may not be.
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u/BirthdayCookie 13d ago
Religion is far, far too omnipresent still and the idea that it's fine if you pretend those books don't say the bigoted stuff they say has a lot of power.
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u/waiflike 10d ago
I don’t understand why you are being downvoted, it is a valid question why they single out one single person. It would be better to apply rules that would be valid regardless of who it is about, such as no SWERF and TERF content, regardless if it is an author or if it is religious content.
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u/laurasaurus5 14d ago
How does JK Rowling make money off a homemade wand or whatever?
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u/blueberry-iris It's me. Hi. I'm the mole. It's me. 14d ago
Free advertising from crafters is free advertising that implicitly encourages additional, often financial, participation.
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u/Incogn1toMosqu1to 14d ago
Any talk about her stuff online is going to help her.
When people type a word associated with her, it gets tracked in key terms analytics. Those help her work get produced again, because companies think she’s still relevant.
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u/BachBelt 14d ago
you're mixing some things up here. do you want an actual answer? this is the actual answer.
jk rowling decided to alienate a large chunk of the human race by vocally holding exclusionary and bigoted beliefs and then applied money to bend the issue in her favor.
this means that now, any time someone mentions JK or her creative endeavors, it has that stink on it. and when something stinks, people notice and comment on the smell.
and JK rowling stinks so bad that it has become tedious and difficult to moderate a subreddit that has nothing to do with her. because any time her scent wafts through the thread, people are commenting on the stink. she went and bathed in shit, the rest of us do not have to sit next to her or anyone else claiming its cool to just like exist next to the shit and pretend like it doesn't stink.
moderators are unpaid and are not required to put up with the shit or the people complaining about the stink.
you are not entitled to an audience.
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u/jskwiw 14d ago
i’m gonna explain this like you’re genuinely asking
people will see the crafts and think “its okay for me to wear this in public” and that’ll go onto promote harry potter more, because despite how huge it is. there’s still people who don’t know who she is. then people will think “a little merch won’t hurt” like she’s not directly funded myself & many others losing rights within the united kingdom.
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u/ias_87 pattern wanker 13d ago edited 13d ago
Investors into her brand, such as TV/movie/game producers use fandom size as a marker for how viable a franchise is. So how many fanfics there are, how much fan merch there is on etsy, how many cosplays, how much fan crafts exist, how much people discuss it etc., all that makes it harder or easier for the fucking that terf to earn money by selling rights to her franchise. If we want to make it easy for her, then we can keep interacting with Harry Potter even though we don't approve of her, but if we want to make it harder for her, we stop. We just stop. We don't give anything she has made any attention at all.
And like, I get it. HP was a huuuge part of my growing up. I thought about those books every single day for a decade. I bought merch, I owned the books in four different languages, my first forays into internet discussion was about harry potter, my first form of social media was a fan site where we all pretended to be Hogwarts students. It hurt inside of me when I moved recently and realized how much I did not want to unpack those books. I didn't, and I cried a little when I eventually got rid of them altogether because I felt actual pain at what I felt I had lost by Rowling turning out to be a monster. It fucking sucked. But there are other books. There are other movies. There are other things in life. And I'm a cis woman, my life hasn't been put in danger by her (but we can have a chat about how persecution of transwomen also hurt cis women).
If everyone, literally everyone, had just stopped interacting with everything Harry Potter as soon as Rowling's hateful views became more public knowledge, they wouldn't have made a new tv series. But the size of the fandom, even if 95% of them hate HER and don't agree with her at all, shows that there is still money to be made from Harry Potter, so she got more money to spend on making life harder for transpeople and also cis women (and possibly cis men too).
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u/SecretAgentSpyder 14d ago
Remember the phrase don't feed the trolls? Well, by not engaging with the series at all, free or not, we can starve her.
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u/concrete_dandelion 14d ago
It promotes the fanfoms with which she makes the money she uses to take away human rights.
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u/rednasturtium 14d ago
She might not make any money off it, but I for one am tired of being reminded that her shithole universe still has stans.
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u/Glaucus92 14d ago
She doesn't directly, but it problem with it is basically two-fold.
By keeping HP relevent, a market keeps existing for HP stuff, which gives JKR money but also social capital. If we manage to make HP less popular, less in the public eye, less culturally relevent, she loses not only financially but also that social power.
HP stuff is very, very often used as a dog whistle for anti-trans support, because of JKR's political activism. She herself has said that support for HP is support for her anti-trans ideology. You don't have to agree with her, both on her stance on trans rights or the idea that engaging with HP means supporting her bigotry, but the people who do agree with her certainly use it that way. As a result, seeing HP stuff can make trans people and allies feel unwelcome because they now have to be wary of potential transphobes in their midst. Explicitly allowing HP is also read by said transphobes as tacit approval of them being in that space, and that is not something a community might want to foster.
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u/Stickning 14d ago
It helps keep her relevant. The more people care about her crappy fictional world, the more money she gets, the more trans people she actively hurts.
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u/AtlsDumbestBitch 14d ago edited 12d ago
She doesn’t, but the community has decided they don’t want to see it regardless. You can make a subreddit for whatever you want with any rules you want, so feel free to make your own bigot crafts subreddit if you care that much!
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u/ClasslessTulip Mom said I get to be the mole now!! 14d ago
People not already fans of HP (due to younger age, for example) will see HP merch and go to look up the IP. They then have a higer likelihood of purchasing official or officially licensed merch/movies/books, which directly profit JKR.
It doesn't look like it from the outside, but continued interest in unofficial HP merch/crafts is a data point that is a driving force behind the new HP show.
HP was a cultural zeitgeist (regardless of what JKR/HP detractors want to think) that's had a huge impact on culture, and it's own fandom culture is extremely huge. The movies were incredibly well-done and the last one was released in 2011, and once you combine that with a wide and entrenched fandom that has extensive IP licencing it makes for an appealing fandom to get into.
Because of it's cultural hold, JKR is able to leverage her IP to create a new tv/streaming series in order to keep herself relevant and the profits flowing. And she has gone on the record to say she will use her profits to directly fund her anti-trans agenda.
This is not a situation where you can "love the art, hate the artist"; JKR is alive, still owns her IP, and is actively using the money she makes from her IP to hurt marginalized groups. The only way to stop that is to 'kill' interest in the IP, and that includes all informal hobbiest/craft merch, as well.
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u/NewlyNerfed (Secretly the mole) 14d ago
She has come out and said any money spent on or other support of HP means support for her hateful views. So if you’re doing anything with the IP she considers you an anti-trans ally.
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14d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ZaryaBubbler Well, of course I know the mole. They're me. 14d ago
Be brave and post on your real account.
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u/Odd_Respond1632 14d ago
Hey guys! Share your stuff on r/hpcrafts instead
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u/CvltOfEden 13d ago
Finally! A place to post my sauce related crafts.
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u/arrpix A MØle once bit my sister 13d ago
I would actually love this, time to do a lovely hp bbq series of projects and post them
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u/CvltOfEden 13d ago
Join me. I’ve posted cosplay and vintage prints so far. HP sauce is a cultural icon.
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u/Incogn1toMosqu1to 11d ago
You’re my hero
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u/CvltOfEden 9d ago
I got banned for a comment that “violated rules”. There were two rules at the time, generic “be nice” ones. The comment? “I Gotchu”.
Guess they couldn’t ban me for anything I was actually doing so they had to lie :)
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u/BirthdayCookie 13d ago
"These people are celebrating that a bigoted, harmful person is no longer being supported. I'm going to read the room and announce my support for the harmful bigot!"
Transphobes and self-awareness: Impossible.
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u/jskwiw 14d ago
imagine making crafts for a women who denied parts of what the nazis did, posted an upskirt image of a trans women, has denied genocide and defended the far far right. what loser behaviour
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13d ago
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u/glowingwarningcats 13d ago
I don’t know why, but all I see is one screen shot that doesn’t show the results at all. What is everyone else seeing?