The Magical World of Threads

Three Layers of Fail 

Let’s talk about why this post doesn’t work anymore. 

If you click over to view the original post on Threads, you’ll see they are getting absolutely roasted in the comments. Why does this seemingly simple and benign post conjure such negative feedback? I see three distinct types of failure here building on each other: Failure of Politics, Failure of Content, and Failure of Form. 

Failure of Politics

People don’t like that weird terf lady anymore. If you haven’t been paying attention to J.K. Rowling outside of her published novels, you might still be unaware, but she’s become a very outspoken–and frankly unhinged–anti-trans activist bigot. While I do believe it’s possible to separate a work of art from its creator’s personal political views, I don’t think we can separate engagement with a media franchise from the real world harm its creator does with her money and influence. Despite lovely childhood memories anchored in the Harry Potter fandom, I find myself, like many others, deeply uncomfortable engaging with that franchise and feel a moral conviction around not spending my money in a way that adds to Rowling’s ability to harm the trans community. All of this makes it very difficult for people to playfully engage with prompts about Hogwarts Houses; the shadow of Rowling’s own bigotry sours that mood.

In a post-Twitter world, you should probably think about what political self-sorting between Threads, Elon’s X, Truth Social, Bluesky, Mastodon and any of the other Twitter clones can tell you about the potential audience for a post. I have no data to back this up, but I’d put good money on active Threads users being more supportive of trans rights than active X users. Putting aside my humanity for a moment and thinking purely as a marketer, it was entirely possible to predict a negative response to this post and avoid the negative brand association it generates. 

Failure of Content 

Even without the Rowling of it all, being super into your Hogwarts House in the year of our lord 2024 is pretty cringe. The last book in the core Harry Potter series was published in 2007. The last of the core series films came out in 2011. The Fantastic Beasts spin off series is mostly made up of “rotten” critic scores and more importantly doesn’t seem to have made any kind of lasting cultural impact of its own. I know Warner is planning a massive rebook TV series, but I’m unsure how well that’s going to work out for them. I think we’re hitting the saturation point for what you can extract from a decades old children's fantasy series before you need to shelve it a few years and give folks a chance to actually miss it. Add on the complicated emotions and politics Rowling’s outspoken bigotry invites and I’m left wondering, “who was this post for?” 

Failure of Form 

People know engagement bait when they see it now. Or at least the audience for a year old text-based social media platform’s official brand account probably does. I’ve written so many of these posts in my day. Open ended questions designed to give folks an opportunity to talk about themselves via replies and quote shares. Replies and quote shares that get my account seen (and ideally seen more favorably) by each engaged user’s own network. The other people who care what an official Threads account has to say have probably done this cynical copyrighting work too. If you aren’t a creator, marketer, product designer, or journalist, I don’t know why you’d be interested in this account. So at least calibrate your engagement bait for the audience that is going to actually want to hear from you. Don’t just recycle stuff that feels like you found it at the bottom of a junior Buzzfeed staffer’s trash bin in 2011.

Was this an excessive amount of analytical thinking to direct at a fairly minor social marketing fumble? Absolutely. Was this post at least partially about exercising my own demons around past Harry Potter fandom and professional guilt around past mediocre social copyrighting? Most definitely. Do I hope you enjoyed it anyway? Sure do! 

In Other Magic News

Marvel dropped a trailer this week for their new Kathryn Hahn stan fuel series Agatha All Along. This thing looks like it was designed in a lab specifically for me. In addition to the fabulous Kathryn Hahn, the cast includes Aubrey Plaza and Patti LuPone! Plus witchcraft!!! I will be seated.

I know they won’t do it, but I really want Marvel to surprise us with Aubrey Plaza reprising her role from Legion. 

*I’m very dyslexic, and this is a largely free project/hobby. I do not set aside the same time for proofreading that I do for other professional work. If you spot a typo that would cause a communication error, please reach out to gently let me know.