Harry Potter and the Twitter Turn About

Cait on Twitter: “JK Rowling reveals Dobby was actually Clinically Depressed all along !!!”

See also, ‘J. K. Rowling Created an Army of Liberals — And Now They’re Turning Against Her.’

My guess is that those unhappy with the ‘No Homo’ Cursed Child, the Depp Embrace, and the reported “straight-washing” of Dumbledore in Beasts, not to mention Rowling’s “muting” the outcry, are a very small minority in the 14 million followers she has on Twitter — but the disappointed fans there can be very funny.

Take the above MadLibs variation mocking Rowling’s ‘Retroactive Representations’ in her fiction, a not so subtle suggestion that this fan thinks The Presence is only virtue-signalling by such post publication reveals.

Or the Twitter follower whom Rowling re-tweeted about scientists’ announcement that they believe the first Britons were “dark skinned.”

Why would Rowling in the midst of the firestorm in a tea kettle retweet someone with the moniker ‘Make Dumbledore Explicity Gay’? She didn’t. The ‘somegreybloke’ tweeter whose anti-Brexit joke she enjoyed changed the name to shame her:

So… 14 million followers of Rowling’s Twitter feed get the message from this sly guy’s new name that even those “on her side” vis a vis Brexit don’t think she is speaking truth to power sufficiently with the not-explicit Dumbledore. Because doing the “hard thing” is the right thing to do even if it means losing at least a hundred million dollars.

Right or wrong, Rowling’s detractors share her acerbic wit. I wonder how she is feeling about being the target of same and the social media shaming it comes with.

Is turn-about fair play or are we obliged to be as sympathetic with her plight as we are for those she has dismissed previously as deplorables? I think the latter, albeit charity and empathy tinged inevitably with Schadenfruede.

Comments

  1. Mine is “Fleur Delacour was actually a Muslim all along.”

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