- Harry Potter Fandoms will be a part of the Fediverse one way or the other. It’s better to shape this development rather than being overwhelmed by it.
- Harry Potter Fandoms are a huge opportunity for the Fediverse. Look at what the collaboration of Lego and Disney brought to Fortnite. People want to spend time in places, in which they feel familiar and welcomed. I’m not saying collaborating with big companies here, what I’m saying is: the Fediverse needs to be filled with life and we have to use that opportunity first, before others do.
- Don’t throw the opinions of J.K. Rowling and its fandom in one bucket. It’s one of the biggest in the world, there is a broad range of opinions and people.
- The Fediverse needs more projects that immediately make sense to people. Projects that you tell a person about, and they say: “Oh, yeah, that makes sense.” Mastodon in comparison to Twitter was such a thing: its billionaire proof. Everybody gets why that’s a good thing. A better, more open place to build Harry Potter fan sites could be another.
- The project (including other places like this that may follow) could also become another attractive place on the Fediverse for the open-source community. Who wouldn’t be excited to help build the world of Harry Potter?
All of this is of course up for discussion. I’m a very stubborn person but I’m also able to listen ;)
Edit: I removed “queer friendly” from the description. Its not a claim that I can fully uphold anyways. Instead, it has a no tolerancy policy against transphobia, which is more clear and probably easier to enforce.
Here is the link: https://diagonlemmy.social
Harry Potter spaces are not unique in creating structure. There are tons of fandoms, with millions of members. It’s not the first modern fandom by any means either. It’s not like if HP suddenly disappeared there wouldn’t be any fandoms of equivalent or larger size to provide “structure” to vulnerable people. Lots of them have more queer people in them too, and less transphobia.
I’m not sure what makes Harry Potter uniquely digital in your mind either. I’m sure you can interpret it as being about that, but I don’t think that’s the interpretation most people walk away with. Even if it really is a lens some people use to understand the Internet or whatnot, I certainly don’t think it’s the first story to be used in that way… There are a lot of stories that can claim that title that far predate Harry Potter, many of which have fandoms of their own.
I just don’t think HP is an essential backbone of culture. It’s important to a lot of people, for sure. And I can’t imagine what it’s like to realize that the creator of a work that’s so important to you is a terrible person. That has got to be a really shitty situation to be in. But there are other fandoms out there. There’s other great fiction, written by authors who won’t weaponize your consumption against minorities. It’s not a dichotomy of either you embrace Harry Potter or you must write your own.
But what are these other franchises? I seriously don’t know any that strike the same nerve as H.P.