When a Fic Has * Number of Bookmarks

I was checking out some of the AO3 profiles of authors who've written megapopular Good Omens fic, and a lot of them look like this. No hate, of course, but sometimes I wonder what it would be like to write for popular fandoms.

Would sure love to try it one day smh.

I Am Weak to Cute Girls and Animals

Me, to my students: It's very important to understand how clever memes and image macros can function as a gateway to white supremacy and xenophobic ultranationalism in online spaces associated with the alt-right.

Also me: She's wearing a hat to hide her elf ears !!

A Fun Tumblr Hot Take

From the beginning of the 2016 American election cycle, a popular way to signal social belonging on Tumblr has been to reblog angry posts about J.K. Rowling like the one above.

J.K. Rowling isn't perfect. No human being on this earth is perfect, and Rowling is no exception. Rowling's books are far from perfect, and I have to admit that I personally don't particularly like or enjoy them. It's important to critique popular media, and it's reasonable to hold public figures to basic standards of decency. Still, I'm concerned about posts like the one above, which promotes decontextualization as a performance of progressive political ideology.

It's difficult to make generalizations, so I want to refer to the post above to demonstrate what I mean.

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Again, it's vitally important to think critically about popular culture, and I strongly believe that public figures should be held to basic standards of decency. I am all for critiquing the Harry Potter series and Rowling's creative decisions. That being said, the trend of posts on Tumblr that hold one progressive female artist or activist responsible for everything that's wrong in the world by means of aggressive decontextualizations of what she's actually doing and saying are frightening, especially since they're starting to recirculate within left-leaning spaces in advance of another election cycle.

In the end, who does it benefit to say that books about respecting difference and resisting authoritarian violence even when not everyone on your side is perfect are "problematic" and are only read by bad and stupid people? Given that the Harry Potter series is the primary gateway a lot of younger kids have into enjoying books, who does it benefit to say that reading itself is something that's only done by bad and stupid people?