the situation with harry potter is kind of unprecedented in some ways imo because it is maybe the largest media franchise in history to be created & owned by a single person who still has direct creative control over it. who is also a billionaire with significant cultural/political influence. like the usual "no ethical consumption under capitalism" type excuses shatter on impact when the bigoted author in question is logging onto twitter every day saying explicitly that when you buy the tim hortons ravenclaw donut she is using your donut money to fund the genocide of trans people. like with big franchises usually there's at least a little more diffusion of responsibility than this
#sometimes people will do a harry potter comparison to say ppl are morally obligated to join an informal boycott of another author's work #when that author is revealed as sleazy or abusive or bigoted #and i will be real: i just don't think that's true. #go ahead and stop engaging with that other person's work if that's what your conscience dictates #but it's not a very meaningful choice one way or the other #outside of what it means to YOU. #but harry potter is different. you actually do have to eschew that shit. #you can't even 'be a fan' without paying for anything-- you're still feeding into the cultural phenomenon #that allowed and allows this woman to act like a petty tyrant #and pump money into hate groups #it truly is unique. singular. unlike any other situation in literature. (tags via @flameswallower)
