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- Here's a look at the many ways the Harry Potter phenomenon has cast a spell on the cultural landscape over two decades. It got kids (and adults) reading The Potter books have sold more than 450 million copies
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Jun 26, 2017 · Here’s a look back at the way Harry Potter changed and influenced online fandom, millennial culture, and the publishing industry.
- The Ya Boom
- It Proved Kids Would Read Longer Books
- Made Reading Cool Again
- Mainstreamed Nerd Culture
- Influenced Real World Language
- Quidditch Became A Real Sport
- Helped Lord of The Rings Kick Off The Fantasy Boom
- For Better Or Worse, Kickstarted A Fan Fiction Boom
- Helped Make Authors Themselves Celebrities
- It Helped Teach A Generation Tolerance
Though of course, young adult fiction has always been around, there’s no question that the release of Harry Potter proved that it wasn’t just a niche but a rich and deep market that could be fully exploited. In the years since the release of the novels, we’ve seen a veritable explosion of both similarly-themed books (young people discovering magica...
There is sometimes an assumption that children will only read short books. According to some people, it’s better to talk down to children rather than to speak to them on their own terms. The Harry Potter books, by contrast, speak to both children and adults. As a result, they proved to be extraordinarily popular among all ages. For their part, chil...
We’re all familiar with the stereotypes associated with someone who likes to read. Such a person is almost automatically regarded as not cool, as being something of a social outcast. One of the unexpected benefits of the success of Harry Potter has been the way that it has shifted how people think about reading and the ways that it is perceived. No...
Relatedly, geeks have always had a hard time of it. They are far too frequently dismissed as being out of touch with the real world, with having too much time on their hands and being too obsessive about their chosen fan object. Harry Potter changed all of that. Now, it was not only acceptable to show that you’d immersed yourself in a fantasy world...
One of the brilliant things about the Harry Potter universe is how fully developed it is, with its own internal consistency, including its own vocabulary. For example, the word “muggle” is used to refer to those who don’t have magical abilities. RELATED: 10 Things From Harry Potter Science Is Able To Explain In addition to be a truly hilarious-soun...
In addition to influencing the real worldthrough the use of vocabulary, the wizarding sport of Quidditch has also made the leap from page to the real world. For those who don’t know, Quidditch is a game played on brooms and involves two teams with various roles to play, several balls that try to take out individual players, and the all-important Go...
The early 2000s were something of a golden age for fantasy films. After all, the year 2001 saw the release of not just Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone but also The Fellowship of the Ring, the first installment of Peter Jackson’s hugely successful trilogy based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. These two enormous financial successes led to a spa...
A sure sign of a particular literary work’s success is how much fan fiction it inspires. For the uninitiated, fan fiction is fiction that is set in a fictional world that is not written by the creator of that world. It is often used by first-time authors who want to practice their craft without creating their own world, and some use it to fill in g...
Though there are of course many writers who labor in relative obscurity, JK Rowling is one of those who has truly ascended into the ranks of a celebrity. Her tweets are looked over and scoured, and her input is sought out by those who want to know her viewpoints on a wide variety of subjects. This is a rather extraordinary thing for an author to ac...
Though it is easy to forget, Harry Potter is not just an exciting tale of a young wizard growing up and confronting evil, it is also a warning about the dangers of the rise of a dictatorial wizard who emphasizes the importance of blood purity above all else. Voldemort and his Death Eaters repeatedly attempt to purge the wizarding world of all of th...
- The series taught adults that, when it comes to literature, age ain’t nothing but a number. Whether you started reading the series at an age-appropriate 12 only to wait in line at 22 for the joy of the final installment or, like my dad, you decided to indulge your overzealous daughter by reading the copy she hid in your carry-on bag on a work trip and fell in love, the Harry Potter series took adults reading books written for kids and teenagers from being something mildly embarrassing to being an everyday occurrence.
- It taught publishers that, as long as the books are GOOD, kids will read them, no matter how long they are, or how many you write. Before “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,’’ a 700-page children’s book was unheard of.
- That led to an EXPLOSION of popularity for children’s and young adult literature, especially series. Did you know that the Harry Potter series is the reason that The New York Times Bestseller List has a separate list for children’s books?
- It made book culture into pop culture. Find someone who was working at one of Harvard Square’s bookstores in July 2007 and ask them about the Harry Potter Party thrown in the square to celebrate the release of the final book in the series.
Here's a look at the many ways the Harry Potter phenomenon has cast a spell on the cultural landscape over two decades. It got kids (and adults) reading The Potter books have sold more than...
- Muggle’ is in the dictionary. The Oxford English Dictionary added this bit of Potter jargon (referring to a non-magical person) to its pages in 2002.
- People play Quidditch competitively. In Harry Potter, magical folk play a sport called Quidditch, while riding flying broomsticks. In the real world, people run around on the ground with broomsticks between their legs, imitating the positions of beater, chaser, seeker and keeper.
- Platform 9 and 3/4 exists now. Go to King’s Cross station in London and at the far end, near the left-luggage, you’ll see a trolley fixed in the middle of the wall.
- There’s a ‘wizard-rock’ festival called Wrockstock. Five years after the emergence of Harry Potter, Harry + The Potters began making music, kicking off the wizard-rock phenomenon.
The first movie adaptation, released in 2001, earned upward of $1 billion at the global box office, transforming actors Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson—who played Harry, Ron, and Hermione, respectively—from young unknowns into tween superstars.
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Jun 26, 2017 · Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the first offering in J.K. Rowling’s billion dollar literary juggernaut, was published in Britain 20 years ago today and its impact has since been hotly debated. Did the Harry Potter series produce a generation of empathetic individuals?
