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Harry Potter and the Vibe Shift
I actually was thinking about giving this topic a rest - it makes me feel like I'm being radicalized in slow motion - but...just when I thought I was out...some room for optimism: NY Times: In Defense of J.K. Rowling
To give a brief rundown of the situation:
NYTimes employees in conjunction with GLAAD released a letter putting pressure on the NYTimes for reporting in a "biased" fashion on trans issues recently and how it's being used by states to pass bills against gender medicine.
The NYT...actually shows some spine and refuses to bend, saying: “...But at the same time, we recognize that GLAAD’s advocacy mission and The Times’s journalistic mission are different.". Who would have thought that we'd get to the point where a basic recognition of the different role of activists and journalists would be noteworthy?
Apparently the NYT also posted an internal memo warning NYT staffers against public working with an activist organization against their own company stating that they: "will not tolerate, participation by Times journalists in protests organized by advocacy groups or attacks on colleagues on social media and other public forums."
Then, we see what the bruhaha was likely about and what the open letter was trying to preempt: we get the above op-ed yesterday, basically defending JKR against the criticism she faced - ahead of the release of The Witch Trials of JKR by Megan Phelps-Roper, an escapee from the Westboro Baptist Church.
In essence: the same strategy we've seen from wreckers and ideologues time after time played out, but the Times did the bare minimum and acted like adults. At a certain point - just as with wreckers like Felicia Somnez at WaPo - I suppose it simply became too much for too little gain. The constant fitna was fine when it was in service of popular causes with little cost, but now seems to be in service of a cause that is dragging many people down. So why not put out the op-ed, while also keeping the workers in line?
Said article's content?
...
Nothing here is new to anyone who spent any time checking on the actual words of JKR and her defenders. But it is interesting to see the NYT posting about it and fighting the pushback, especially as it follows the incredible failure of the Hogwarts: Legacy boycott and Sturgeon's fall from power*
The backlash can no longer be written off as the cultural peculiarity of "TERF Island" - a desperate rhetorical ploy used by activists to distract the blind. It's not just a European thing. It's everywhere.
My personal take was that transactivism was just the next, inevitable step in the march to atomization in liberalism. And it probably still is. But there may be bridges too far, even for liberals. I hope.
A good note to leave the trans issue on for at least a while and reset my brain before I become some sort of schizo, hyper-reactionary monarchist or something. Maybe go play a few new games...
* It's been a great month for her, after years of shit, I have to say.
I have a somewhat more pessimistic take on this.
The NYT have often been the defenders of the rich and powerful. They were still publishing pretty nice pieces about SBF right up until he got arrested.
I also don't remember the name of the article, or where I saw it, but it was about how most newspaper articles get written. That there is a marketing agency or PR firm behind so much of the news that we see. And this defense of JK Rowling doesn't come at a random time, it comes during the huge video game release of Hogwarts: Legacy.
I see it less as a shifting in the battle of ideas, and more of a temporary setback to trans activists because they have so clearly gone against large commercial interests.
I am hopeful that this defense of JK Rowling will stick. If I see other active celebrities or actors willing to stick their neck out for JK Rowling I'll believe it has been effective.
Yeah, but the boycott failed before this piece came out. The game pre-orders were very healthy, and now it's on general release it's selling like hotcakes. This argument would be more likely if the boycott had been seen to be working. I'm sure Avalanche games are pretty pissed-off with being smeared as anti-Semites and all the rest of it, and nobody is mentioning their name in this context. If the piece is good for Rowling, it'll probably be good for them, too.
I still don't really understand why it's so popular. The ads look absolutely surreal and uncanny, like that moustached guy who looks like he just found out he can identify as a 12 year old witch for dorm assignment.
Are people just really nostalgic for having never gotten a real Harry Potter game?
/images/16766826537842422.webp
Do you think everyone is wrong about it? It's popular because it's a legitimately good game in a very approachable genre, and happens to be the best game version of one of the most popular IPs ever.
I don't care about Harry Potter at all (I've read half the books to my kids...) but I'm enjoying the game.
Guess I just don't get it.
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