Follow up to the discussion in this thread: https://literature.cafe/post/20498464
Given the variety of perspectives shared in that thread, I don't think that a single community will be able to satisfy everyone.
As such, I have come up wit the following split:
- [email protected]
- [email protected] (this community)
- [email protected]
While it does fragment the userbase (always a risk with in the fediverse), it would put give individual users the maximum amount of choice for what posts they wish to see in their feed, and what topics they wish to discuss.
I am interested in hearing people's thoughts.
"A majority trans instance doesn't need reminders that JK Rowling exists in their local feed."
How tf does that make sense with the rest of your arguments? You keep saying that it is important to highlight the JKR criticism, but suddenly agree that it is traumatizing for a lot of people?
I feel slightly alarmed that I need to explain this to you.
JK Rowling is traumatizing to trans people because she wants them not to exist. There's very little trans people can do to take away JK Rowling's power to harm them. Note that Rule 3 of [email protected] is "Don’t post negative, depressing news articles about trans issues unless there is a call to action or a way to help." !jkrowling will be a !trans rule 3 violation community.
I imagine JK Rowling is traumatizing to you because she wants trans people to stop existing, is using your participation in her fantasy world to fuel her crusade, and the cognitive dissonance between that knowledge and the belief that you aren't an oppressor of trans people is uncomfortable. Maybe you are comfortable with Rowling's goal to erase transgender identities. It could be that are concerned with the growing social consensus that Harry Potter is fueling transphobic policies and propaganda, and people are catching on to your bigotry more easily because of your enthusiastic participation in the fandom. I honestly don't know why you consider your exposure to news about JK Rowling's politics in a HP community comparable to feelings of anger, anxiety, and depression exposure to JK Rowling news is likely to cause in a trans community.
There's a fundamental difference between the trauma you are concerned about and the trauma I am concerned about. With the knowledge of what JK Rowling is doing, you can choose to pirate the content and encourage your friends not to give JK Rowling any more money. You can make trans-inclusive fan art of HP characters. You can choose to listen to the many trans people who have asked you to stop engaging with the franchise entirely. You can stop building your identity around her specific fantasy world. You have so much agency to deal with the trauma of knowledge. Trans people cannot stop being trans.
And while I am not trans, I cannot stop being queer.
I already don't give her or the franchise any money at this point and if I ever choose to consume anything from this franchise again, I will pirate it. I understand the stance of "stop engaging with it entirely!", though I personally don't agree with it. My "enthusiastic participation in the fandom" is laughable – in the last couple of years I have maybe posted a few news articles and memes that I came across elsewhere, because I felt "makes sense to post this in the HP community". Apart from that it is the passive viewing of stuff that shows up on my feed.
So yes, it may be the cognitive dissonance between that knowledge and the belief that I'm not an oppressor of trans people is uncomfortable.
What I am trying to find is a way to still engage with this childhood world that accompanied so many of us for years of growing up, while cutting this lady out of my life. Because I can't stop her from doing what she does.
But maybe you are right and it is not possible to engage with this nostalgia anymore. If that was the case the consequence for me tbh would be to leave and block any community dedicated to the franchise.
I'm sympathetic to the tragedy of tainted nostalgia. I had a similar experience with the author of Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card. It was distressing discovering that some of the literature that raised me and became in many ways my story -- not only had a corrupted source, but contained questionable themes that originated from that corruption and were always present in the work. I wouldn't describe exposure to news about the homophobic war monger as traumatic, but I do understand the grief that comes with having to re-examine and re-contextualize childhood beliefs and memories.
At the turn of the century, it was ambiguous whether the religious right would continue to wield political power. Harry Potter's unflappable rise in spite of theocratic pearl-clutching about witchcraft in literature gave hope that a less religiously dogmatic future was possible. In a time when scholastic book sales were flagging, JK Rowling helped millions of children to learn to love reading. You're not only losing the good feelings associated with childhood nostalgia, but also a shibboleth to a community of agnostic people who love reading for readings' sake. You're not wrong to want to preserve some part of that. It's not wrong to grieve for the parts that can't be saved.
You're also not a bad person for loving the literature. Fantasy is the power to imagine different lives in different worlds, a prerequisite for changing our own. I find it difficult to think of a work that does not have some suspect themes, and all authors are flawed so some degree. In a world where unparalleled success in fantasy writing didn't give someone policy power to harm of millions of people, a conversation about Rowling's fringe ideas about gender identity would have a very different tone. While not unique to the Wizarding World, one of the redeemable themes of that work is that individual people, each doing their own small part, can defeat an evil that is much greater than any one of them. Your small part may be to come to terms with the need to walk away.
On the other hand, your childhood experience gives you a rare power - you're on much better footing to empathize and soften the blow to others who are at a different stage of grief with the same struggle. You're in a much better position to weather the abuse you will receive if you stay, because you understand the place of hurt that it comes from. Harry Potter is about unexpected people rising to a challenge, and by joining the fight against JK Rowling, you are honoring the best parts of what you discovered through her literature.
Nice comment.
For me the waking up call was the Hogwarts Legacy game.
This is definitely not a completely trustable source, but
https://www.gameslearningsociety.org/how-much-did-jk-rowling-make-from-hogwarts-legacy/
These numbers exist because HP stays relevant in the popular culture. It will probably be similar if not more for the upcoming HP series.
I'm actually trying to mostly bring awareness about JKR issues nowadays. It's fine to also just completely block the franchise.
It's important to highlight JRK criticism, but having that in the local feed of the queer instance isn't probably the best place to have it.
Another instance would be better, as it allows users from Blahaj who are interested to subscribe, while others don't have to see it by default in their local feed.