this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2025
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She is directly benefitting from the sales and people buying Harry Potter stuff know that.
Yeah so are about a thousand other people who worked on the franchise/product in question and may be very positive influences on the world.
Trying to deny a literal billionaire money is symbolic at best.
Do you feel the same about boycotting Tesla?
I don't because they're not really comparable. Not in their intended effect nor their feasibility.
There are many other electrics cars, many of them better and/or cheaper and entirely interchangable. Boycotting Tesla just means getting a direct substitute instead. There aren't any substitutes for HP games because the IP itself is the whole point.
Another point where they're not comparable: Tesla isn't the problem here, Elon is and he needs to go. And he can be gotten rid of, which is the entire point of the boycot. Meanwhile, there is no mechanism legal or otherwise to remove Rowling from the equation. She owns the IP and no amount of boycots will change that. The only thing boycotting HP products achieves is making the companies involved fail and preventing any further HP products from being developed. So what does that achieve?
Finally: we are talking about a woman saying mean things about trans people on the Internet versus a man actively dragging the USA into fascism as if these are equal problems requiring equal responses. As much as I empathise with trans people in that this issue can be much more real for them than it is for me, I still don't think they're anywhere near the same level of urgency. I have yet to see Rowling have any kind of meaningful effect, while Elon is currently rampaging through every institution he can reach.
So: given that boycotting Tesla is both easy, effective and urgent, while boycotting HP is a personal sacrifice for no real effect, surely you see the difference?
It isn't for "no real effect". Harry Potter is a merchandise empire and it's important to see how that empire is being utilized. Open fan support of Harry Potter is often used as a direct open signal of anti-trans support and Terf ideology. Here in Vancouver where we have a larger than average population of trans and non-binary folk and more open accommodation to the community a billboard was put up saying "I❤️ JK Rowling" downtown because it's a more nebulous dogwhistle that wouldn't immediately ping Canada's hate speech laws so that the whole "Freedom of Speech" ploy could be envoked.
Whenever a new HP franchise item comes out there's a wave of people who flood online and sometimes in person trans spaces who use the barest veneer of support of the franchise as a means to say some truely awful things about trans people. Some don't even bother mentioning the franchise they just participate in the storming because they have the opportunity. Those spaces are often filled with vulnerable people seeking support and solidarity and these rushes can leave isolated trans people without community for weeks.
Here in Van someone wearing HP merch in any queer space is throwing up a flag that says "I am potentially an unsafe person."
Article of the billboard.
http://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.5722244
You don't have to give up your books. All we ask is that people do not white knight the author or the publication and merchandising empire which keeps making her influence into an active memetic weapon.
Hmm on the one hand is kicking trans people down the stairs and on the other hand is having enough self discipline to not consume a single franchise. Yeah you are right, this is a tough choice! lmao, personal sacrifice my ass
Hyperbole and bad faith arguing is not compelling anyone to support your cause or your point of view
Literally hundreds of games, movies and books out there not made by a monster leading the anti trans movement but you're still unwilling to give up on one video game to show support for trans people. They are absolutely right about you, nothing hyperbolic about what they said.
I haven't played the game nor do I want to. What I said is still true nonetheless. If you want to convince someone to boycott a piece of media, being a presumptuous dickhead is the exact opposite way you accomplish that.
Unless of course their actual goal is to merely use trans people as fodder for performative moral grand standing in which case they're a piece of shit that no one should listen to anyway because that's not what true allyship looks like.
I am trans myself fucker. Someone who has to live with the vile shit terfs are spewing. Either way, someone disagreeing with you is not ""performative moral grand standing""".
You're right, which is why I didn't say that it was. You and the person I'm responding to are being toxic and you're not helping yourself by doing that. I am and have always been a defender of trans people, and you are jumping at every opportunity to assume I'm not simply because I don't agree with your methodology. That's retarded. Grow the fuck up.
This level of hyperbole makes you sound like the MAGA crowd, dude
Hyperbole is when person asks you to not play one single video game to show support for trans people when you can easily play anything else instead. How dare they, so mean. Exactly like the fascists who support MAGA 🙄
Wow, that comment makes you look fucking dumb, not knowing what hyperbole means
Except the hyperbole in this case is comparing someone who has played "one single video game" as the same as kicking trans people down the stairs.
You get that right? The insufferability comes not from saying "please show support by not playing this game" but from saying "if you play this game, you are a bad person".