Opinion I am sorry for shaming Disney adults

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I am sorry for shaming Disney adults​

Seventeen pairs of Mickey Mouse ears, a trip to Disneyland every season and making your entire family dress up as Monsters Inc. characters for Halloween are all symptoms of being a Disney adult.

I will admit that these individuals have been on my judgment list since the retirement of my “Keep Calm and Hakuna Matata” shirt in sixth grade, but I have been exposed to a fandom that is much more extreme.

Even a middle-aged mom with an entire Beauty and the Beast leg sleeve tattooed on her does not come close to the level of this army.

The branch I am talking about is Dumbledore’s Army – aka Potterheads.

Okay, listen, I myself am a fan of the Harry Potter movies and am not ashamed to be a Hufflepuff. I am not even phased by people who have an entire area in their homes dedicated to the franchise’s merchandise (my 25-year-old brother).

I am sure we have all met our fair share of Harry Potter fans that dress up as Hogwarts students for Halloween every year, regularly use spells in their day-to-day and have read the books cover to cover multiple times.

I would consider that type of person to be the average fan. Once I learned that it goes much deeper than this, I fell into a rabbit hole, or should I say, “forbidden forest” of Harry Potter lore.

Let’s start off with one of the most bizarre subset of fans – Snapewives. This group of women claims that they channel Professor Severus Snape, Hogwarts Potion Master, and are romantically and spiritually involved with him. They self-identify as Snapeist and practice a religion called Snapeism.

Snapeism is basically a form of Christianity, but instead of praying to God, they are connecting to him through astral projection. Oh, and God is Snape.

They also believe that the sacred text they follow was written by J.K Rowling because she was also channeling his spirit. To the followers of this religion, Severus Snape is the one true God.

Snapeist do not stop with worship. They are also married to their God. Yes, all of them at the same time, which makes this a sister-wives situation. They all take their marriage very seriously and solemnly swear to Snape that they will not get involved with any other man. Well, at least most of them. There are women who have a physical husband in real life and Snape as their partner in the astral world because why would they not?

The loyal following slowly drifted away after one of the main Snapewives fell in love with another man, which was, of course, Jethro Gibbs from NCIS. Now, Snapeists are worshiping his luscious dark hair from the shadows.

A more current take on the astral projection experience is through shifting, which means moving your conscious thoughts into a new reality. This blew up on TikTok in the Harry Potter fandom.

Numerous people made videos claiming they went to Hogwarts for not just the night, but literal months, and in some cases, years. These individuals truly believe they have spent multiple years in the school of wizardry and are having full breakdowns because they did not want to leave.

This initially made me think of lucid dreaming, but this community has made it clear that it is not a dream. They truly believe that they are going there. They talk about their interactions with Draco and Hermoine and nonchalantly discuss what they are studying in their history of magic class.

Because of this trend and the abundance of shifting influencers sharing their stories, people in the comments are starting to believe that Hogwarts genuinely exists. Just like Snapewives, they believe that J.K. Rowling shifted to Hogwarts and the book series is based on her personal experience.

The idea of Hogwarts being a real place quickly turned into the belief that nothing is real and our current reality is just a shift we are stuck in. A trend that started with silly content turned into something pretty bad when you realize that mostly everyone in the comment sections saying these things are minors.

As someone who has experienced derealization, which is the feeling of experiencing your body and the world from an outside perspective, I can confidently say that hearing content creators talk about how nothing physically exists and we are just our thoughts is definitely not good for mental health, especially for young and vulnerable minds.

I honestly feel bad for kids in this generation who know nothing but the internet. They cannot even enjoy a fictional story about magic and adventure without people online making it a harmful thing.

Let kids be kids. Let magic be fun. Let Severus Snape stay in the story. Please.

 

[Friendly Primarina]

A more current take on the astral projection experience is through shifting, which means moving your conscious thoughts into a new reality.

This has been a thing for years. It's called Schizophrenia.

 

[Whiskey]

Man I miss when religion was a thing. Christian's never annoyed me this much.

 

[Tasty Tatty]

Why can't they just be normal adults who also enjoy HP or Disney?

 

[Kela de Thaym]

Man I miss when religion was a thing. Christian's never annoyed me this much.

The majority of religions challenge people to think past themselves and about others, putting the needs of the many over themselves in some cases, plus becoming a better person overall. And believe it or not, people who have different religious beliefs are capable of getting along with others who may not share their beliefs, but are also working towards a common goal (i.e. the care of the community and the world around us).

Disney slop is very plainly black/white, good/evil morality that doesn't challenge them, doesn't inspire them to be better people, and gives them a very selfish view of the world and turns them into brainwashed consoomers of corporations who don't care about them and only their cash. A church may ask for a tithe, but they don't make it a requirement to participate unlike Disney, who nickel and dimes every single aspect of its "fandom", right down to using toilet paper at Disney World it seems. And Disney Adults are weirdly defensive of this shit and won't tolerate anyone who's even so much as says "Eh, I didn't like this latest movie".

 

[MirrorNoir]

Harry Potter has one major silver lining.

Neil Gaiman wrote a short-running comic series called The Books of Magic which also took place in a wizard school and had a young bespectacled boy with a pet owl as a protagonist. It came out a few years before Harry Potter. His series never took off, meanwhile JK became a billionaire. Neil has been salty about this ever since. He denies it in his passive-aggressive way, but it helped kill a movie because the main characters are so similar.

Gaiman only wrote the original mini (which didn't have the school part but did have a proto Harry lead) and other writers wrote the ongoing with the other Potter-type stuff. The ongoing was pretty popular and lasted a while but ended in the early 00s. But yeah, Neil has been forever salty that Rowling's HP books stole/borrowed heavily from Book of Magic and how it killed any chances of Book of Magic getting adapted.

 

[Maurice Maine]

What's the appeal of Harry Potter anyhow? I'm too young for this crap.

 

[Aero the Alcoholic Bat]

Why can't they just be normal adults who also enjoy HP or Disney?

Man I miss when religion was a thing. Christian's never annoyed me this much.

Secularism is a plague.

In the absence of religion, people will latch onto anything as an alternative, no matter how stupid or harmful.

 

[Jason Wynn]

What's the appeal of Harry Potter anyhow? I'm too young for this crap.

Junk food fantasy for people too illiterate to delve into more meaningful fare. It’s the literary equivalent of McDonald’s, some people prefer a Big Mac over filet mignon.

 

[stupid frog]

Katie is a senior Strategic Communication and Media major with a concentration in Advertising and a minor in Art. This is her third year working for The Rocket. In her free time, she enjoys rock climbing and going to concerts. She is also the President of RockOUT and AdFed and a member of the honors college. Katie looks forward to gaining experience in the work field and building relationships with clients.



If anyone paid attention to this girl, she'd be labeled transphobic just for writing this.

 

[Flan Handler]

I recently went toy shopping for actual children, in a physical Toys-R-Us, which is rare for me.

Maybe it’s always been like this and I never noticed it before, but I would say a third of the “toys” were actually overpriced collector things targeted at adults. Even worse in the Harry Potter section, more like three quarters. Based on what I saw, they are targeting Millennials, not kids.

Not much new IP, lots of rehashed stuff from ten to twenty years ago. Grim stuff, culturally.

 

[Safir]

Wait, there are still potterheads? I thought they'd moved on and trooned out.

As someone who has experienced derealization

Oh this is just a ChatGPT failtroll hitpiece on Queen Terf's IP empire.

Junk food fantasy for people too illiterate to delve into more meaningful fare.

The majority of religions challenge people to think past themselves and about others, putting the needs of the many over themselves in some cases, plus becoming a better person overall.

The majority of religions, as preached, is the same soy bullshit as Disney, and for that reason produces creatures like Unitarian Universalists or ass-in-the-air Orthodox grannies. The Snapewives are brought up in the same soy culture, and for that reason it's not important who the figurehead it -- could be Christ, could be Satan, could be Alan Rickman. But it's not strictly "secularism", girls are yearning for the nunnery like boys are yearning for the mines. People who are brought up in a religious culture like most of you here have no idea what real secularism is.

And believe it or not, people who have different religious beliefs are capable of getting along with others who may not share their beliefs, but are also working towards a common goal (i.e. the care of the community and the world around us).

Religious conflict is the #1 reason for conflict in the world. This is not to say it's bad (it's awesome, actually -- religion==tradition must be a generational contract and therefore necessarily more valuable than human life) but religion is not a force for peace.

 

[Lil Yappy]

I recently went toy shopping for actual children, in a physical Toys-R-Us, which is rare for me.

Maybe it’s always been like this and I never noticed it before, but I would say a third of the “toys” were actually overpriced collector things targeted at adults. Even worse in the Harry Potter section, more like three quarters. Based on what I saw, they are targeting Millennials, not kids.

Not much new IP, lots of rehashed stuff from ten to twenty years ago. Grim stuff, culturally.

Every IP is trying hard to reproduce what Star Wars had. Most of it ends up at discount stores like Ollie's because they've overproduced it.

 

[Counterfeit Obol]

Every IP is trying hard to reproduce what Star Wars had. Most of it ends up at discount stores like Ollie's because they've overproduced it.

Something like Star Wars merch sales will never happen again because of Star Wars (and something about George Lucas making serious bank from said merch. No way the suits would want to part with that money now). The toymakers back then underestimated the demand but now? They expect it, with predictable results when they overshoot.

And they're overshooting a lot.

 

[RybenZ999]

Okay, listen, I myself am a fan of the Harry Potter movies and am not ashamed to be a Hufflepuff. I am not even phased by people who have an entire area in their homes dedicated to the franchise’s merchandise (my 25-year-old brother).

I am sure we have all met our fair share of Harry Potter fans that dress up as Hogwarts students for Halloween every year, regularly use spells in their day-to-day and have read the books cover to cover multiple times.

I would consider that type of person to be the average fan. Once I learned that it goes much deeper than this, I fell into a rabbit hole, or should I say, “forbidden forest” of Harry Potter lore.

Let’s start off with one of the most bizarre subset of fans – Snapewives. This group of women claims that they channel Professor Severus Snape, Hogwarts Potion Master, and are romantically and spiritually involved with him. They self-identify as Snapeist and practice a religion called Snapeism.

Numerous people made videos claiming they went to Hogwarts for not just the night, but literal months, and in some cases, years. These individuals truly believe they have spent multiple years in the school of wizardry and are having full breakdowns because they did not want to leave.

This initially made me think of lucid dreaming, but this community has made it clear that it is not a dream. They truly believe that they are going there. They talk about their interactions with Draco and Hermoine and nonchalantly discuss what they are studying in their history of magic class.

I don't know whether to laugh or to feel pity.

 

[Druveer]

This is what happens when a culture looses all respect for itself and it's traditions, people need these things to bind us together. Humans are pack animals, tribal, we need a unifying belief... ethos whatever you want to call it. And over the past century what made us who we are has been degraded and torn down to a point where we've got a generation of adults who don't know who they are so seek meaning from where ever they can even if it's just from a children's book.

 

[Executive Petrel]

What's the appeal of Harry Potter anyhow?

J.K. Rowling is a TERF.

Tax: Disney adults are fat and I would not have sex with them.

 

[Apustajan apustaja]

I live in a university area and i just don't understand how college students nowdays still wear cheesy childhood fiction merch. In my day at that age you were supposed to drink red wine, smoke pot, take yourself too seriously and be the adultest adult who ever adulted. Or rebel in some way. Not showcase how your tastes and thinking haven't evolved since you were 12.