It’s fascinating that profits hinge on providing a slightly below par experience on most forms of social media, dating apps included. Facebook et al require it for rage interactions while dating apps need it to maintain a userbase to populate and pay for the service.
What an absolute joke. Its basically instagram, and almost everyone on it is completely braindead in discussion threads... and almost all the image posts are either I'm so pretty! or cats or landscapes, or Why are people so hard to find?
Kippo is even more hilarious. Nearly every profile is just trying to recruit you to watch their E girl twitch stream or onlyfans and is not interested in dating.
People said that 10 years ago, and i always disagreed. Now a days it's an absolute nightmare. Everything that used to be free is behind a paywall. Set the max distance to 30km? Fuck it, here's people from thailand and china and kenya.
I was like 'maybe I can help a guy out' but I have a strict furry-only policy and I didn't see anything from a quick glance of your profile suggesting you weren't a normie. Sorry my man.
(I don't fit the categories anyway but any is better than nothing :p)
Its not about the age range, but because Rowling wasn't a hate spewing TERF back then. At lest not publicly.
Quoting JK Rowling has serious undertones right now. Even more so if the recipient is nonbinary as OP mentioned in another comment. You wouldn't quote a Nazi to pick up a jewish person, would you?
I'm NB and quoting Harry Potter just sounds like you hate me
Edit: also I get very few people messaging me first
Edit 2: I really don't understand the downvotes outside of maybe just enjoying Harry Potter. This is just a personal experience I've had.
Harry Potter stuff directly funds anti-trans organizations and that leads to the furthering decline of mental health among trans people which leads to them dying.
Sure, an opening message doesn't send any money to JK but it's a massive red flag that someone is willing to send money to JK.
People are allowed to enjoy things, but in turn, I'm also allowed to decide not to talk to someone for funding hate speech.
I'm NB (to the extent that I've had surgery to remove gendered parts of me) and sometimes I just let my friends enjoy one of the biggest cultural events of their childhood without making everything about me because I'm capable of seeing that their actual actions have always been wholeheartedly supportive of me and that's the part I actually care about.
I guess it is bad in the sense that it's not great pick-up line to use in your case, but I do like the creativity. Would've been better used to someone with some Harry Potter stuff in their bio though
I'm sorry you have to deal with so many ignorant and apologist people.
Everyone who exuses the hate Rowling spreads because of the Harry Potter cult is partly responsible for the harm and danger this causes to trans and non binary people.
Not blatantly, but there are signs of it even in the first book; and as the books go on, you can see almost in real time her political views shift from criticizing the system to defending it as she started becoming wealthy and benefiting from the system.
I highly recommend watching Shaun's 2 hour video on the subject, as it goes into great detail on the subject and makes for perfect podcast material.
Some highlights include:
Obesity as a moral failing - want to make a character seem bad? Just make them fat!
Masculine features as a negative trait for women (sound familiar?) - want to make a teenage girl bad (and ugly) but don't want to make her fat? Just talk over and over about her "mannish hands" and sharp jawline.
Token minority characters that are often stereotypes or border on racism - the black kid is named Shacklebolt, the Asian girl is named two single syllable last names (might as well have called her Ching Chong), the 12 year old Irish kid is obsessed with turning drinks into whiskey and blowing stuff up, etc.
The defense of the slavery of house elves using the exact same arguments that slave owners used before the Civil War in the US mentioned by somebody else, with a bonus criticism of Hermione as a girl with blue hair and pronouns for questioning and trying to change the system.
There are no good or bad actions, only good or bad people. It's okay for the right people to use the torture spell, because they're the "good guys."
And a resolution that basically resolves nothing. Harry doesn't kill Voldemort, he kills himself due to a magic technicality, and Harry goes on to become a magic cop to ensure the flawed system that the early books criticized doesn't change.
I feel like most of those things are not accurate, or are not good faith criticism. It's worth remembering that until the whole trans thing, the Harry Potter series was seen as very liberal to the point where some conservatives boycotted it.
-Harry isn't a "cop", like hes not walking the beat arresting people, hes a dark wizard catcher. Which is perfectly rational given dark wizards killed his parents and they're pretty explicitly fascists.
-a pretty huge part of the books is devoted to how good people can do bad things and bad people can do good things. Barty Crouch Sr is a whole character who is there to show how the good guys can end up being nearly as bad and brutal as the bad guys because they think the ends justify the means and in times of crisis people are willing to compromise their morals.
-Hermione is ridiculed for sticking up for house elves but she's also right, as Harry starts to realize by the end of the books. It's worth noting that the two most steadfast supporters of house elves are Hermione and dumbledore, aka Rowlings "always right about everything" characters
-Seamus is pretty yikesy in the movies but 90% of the stuff isn't in the books. Idk I thought he was a little racist, although still ultimately a good guy. Cho Chang has a stereotypical name but so what? I don't think it's racist in itself. I literally work with a guy named Ying Yang.
-I don't think obesity is used as a failing, gluttony is used as a failing, as in a favorite expression among leftists, the "fat cat". There are plenty of other overweight characters that are good and righteous like Ms Weasly, Slughorn (kinda), and Hagrid.
-I'm not sure who you're referring to with regards to describing teenage females as unattractive but that seems kinda cherry picked. Harry ends up with Ginny who in the books is described as a tomboy. The biggest female villain is arguably Umbridge who is very stereotypically feminine
I'm not defending Rowling as a person at all, or her statements about trans people, but the criticism of Harry potter feels very much like going back and reexamining them with an agenda. You can do the same uncharitable thing with any fantasy series. Hell, off the top of my head I can think of much worse criticisms of lord of the rings or game of thrones but people don't seem to want to nitpick those the same way.
Yeah, that doesn't surprise me, I guess. Money changes people; status and power changes people.
Obesity as a moral failing - want to make a character seem bad? Just make them fat
Although, there were fat good guys, and many non-fat bad guys. There wasn't a particularly late amount of obesity in the books. That point seems a stretch, to me.
Token minority characters that are often stereotypes or border on racism - the black kid is named Shacklebolt, the Asian girl is named two single syllable last names (might as well have called her Ching Chong),
Schacklebolt is pretty bad, but I think we also have to consider Rowling's cultural upbringing. Of she were from the US, it would be blatantly shocking. The UK didn't have systemic domestic slavery based on race; I don't know that it's fair to judge her based on US critical race theory; the UK has it's own version, for sure, but it has different foundations.
Rowling has enough criticizable behavior; we don't have to exaggerate by turning otherwise non- controversial facts into issues.
the 12 year old irish kid is obsessed with turning drinks into whiskey and blowing stuff up, etc.
That's most 12 y/o boys, but making it the Irish kid is a fair point.
I think nearly all of these ignore counter-examples where, e.g., every other Irish person in the family isn't an IRA stand-in. That also ignore the fact that every true villain is WAS(P), and that the "crazy" character is so white she's practically albino.
The defense of the slavery of house elves using the exact same
It's defense only used by villains. Hermione actively pursues ending the practice, and it's described as being a terrible practice. How does the fact that villains - and only villains, or in one case, inherited - in the books practice slavery condemn Rowling?
criticism of Hermione as a girl with blue hair and pronouns for questioning and trying to change the system.
Are we ignoring that Hermione was one of the four, central hero's of each of the novels? I don't remember any criticism of her except by the establishment.
There are no good or bad actions, only good or bad people. It's okay for the right people to use the torture spell, because they're the "good guys."
Yeah. I agree, there's a lot of questionable justification of behavior in this. I mean, everyone lets slide the exact same justifications in GoT, but, hey.
And a resolution that basically resolves nothing. Harry doesn't kill Voldemort, he kills himself due to a magic technicality, and Harry goes on to become a magic cop to ensure the flawed system that the early books criticized doesn't change.
Agreed. An utterly unsatisfying resolution, which I interpreted as a statement that there are no good and bad people, just good and bad behavior. When the key hero turns out to be not such a hero in the end; when you expect something more noble, but what you get is reality - good doesn't always triumph, people in wars die indiscriminately, and in the end centuries of established practices continue and survive intact despite great upheaval... yup! It's a depressing statement, but I still think it was a statement.
I think Rowling changed as money changed her; she hid bigotry less as she became convinced of the armor of her own popularity; but she also had a kid who grew and changed in time with the novels, and she changed the story to match the loss of innocence and realization that fighting the establishment is hard, expensive, and not guaranteed to succeed. The good guys do not always win; they don't always survive the encounter coming out the same person they started as.
I won't defend Rowling, but I also think some of the criticisms are reaching, merely in an attempt to vilify her as much as possible mainly for her homophobic views. Which, ironically, there were no examples of in her novels, and so nothing to call her out about except by its absence.
I feel like that was more so her self insert, hermoinie, can be "on the right side of history"
This is my little headcannon theory and not a hill I even wanna fight on, so if there are blatant holes I'm interested I'm hearing but also keep in mind this is just something I "believe" because it amuses me.
It just means the author's intent is ignored in interpreting the work. Like if you, the reader, decide "the sky is gray" is a reflection of the main character's inner turmoil, that's what it means. Even if the author was just foreshadowing some rain, your interpretation is correct because death of the author means the reader's interpretation is the correct one. It's kind of silly, but it also lets people find new meaning in art and I think that's neat.
People use it as "enjoy the art but fuck the artist" but I don't think that's entirely accurate, unless they're choosing to interpret certain parts of the books as not coming from a problematic place.
After reading this thread I feel like the original post is more like a soapbox than a shitpost. No personal opinion about the politics but I thought this was a humour sub.
As far as supporting JKR goes: JKR is a horrible person who no-one should listen to but Harry Potter is pop culture. I'm pretty comfortable personally with disconnecting the two in my head. I don't think people enjoying Harry Potter should be seen as "supporting JKR", hell a lot of them wouldn't even be aware of JKRs noise.
Obviously I haven't read the comments here a ton but are people really supporting JKR or are you just treating people enjoying Harry Potter as support for JKR? I think there should be a distinction. It's not really people's job to deep dive into the personal lives of the creators or people involved in every piece of art they enjoy.
Generally, she has very questionable views on body image, her "sympathetic" characters are quick to judge and reinforce the status quo, her very questionable story line with S.P.E.W. and the House Elves, which resulted in Harry Potter fans rationalizing race based slavery.
It's not extreme. She is the most active, vocal, and prominent anti-trans advocate out there. She is a huge part of the push that is ruining people's lives in the UK.
Yeah, I'd keep "monster" for people like Kissinger or Mengele, not for people that make fun of phrases like "people who menstruate". But I was genuinely curious and now I know.
Not everyone follows what these people say on Twitter. Could be this guy had no idea the Rowling was the kind of person she is.
Same is kind of true with jorden Patterson. On the surface nothing he says is unreasonable. It's not until you really look into him that the problems emerge
The spell was just gibberish to me and I couldn't read it until I read the answer. Only than I would parse it. If you asked me for a spell to lift things up, I would have no idea but someone both things made it make sense. Curious how brains work.
At least mine. JKR's brain doesn't seam to work anymore for good sadly
I lack reading comprehension up to the point where I may be illiterate: it took me one fucking day to understand your message. You don't want this. Hell, I don't even want this, but I'm stuck with myself. Get out while you still can.
O hey. Idk if my first message didn't show the right nuance of red on the flag, or maybe it didn't completely send the "turn back now, I'm literally brain dead" idea. So anyway, here's a second message.
Honestly would respond to that kind of self-deprecating humor. Unless I found out they were always putting themselves down, in which case it's not really humor, just depressing and sad.