Darin Tries to Understand Harry Potter

A podcast in which Darin reads the Harry Potter books for the first time, analyzes them from a vaguely leftist perspective, and makes fun of all the nonsense.

[Darin Tries to Understand Harry Potter @DarinTries]

The first three episodes of the third book about the wizard people are up. Check it out if you're into the wizard people. https://t.co/cjvzSXVytH

[Darin Tries to Understand Harry Potter @DarinTries]

Writing "gross, dude!" in the margins of every single page of Lolita

[Darin Tries to Understand Harry Potter @DarinTries]

@Mali_I_am On the to-do list, I swear!

[Darin Tries to Understand Harry Potter @DarinTries]

@JGomez089 I'm doing great, thanks for asking! Recording more episodes is on the to-do list.

[Darin Tries to Understand Harry Potter @DarinTries]

@Katchin05 I appreciate it! But the second part of your tweet is why I've been, uh, a little reluctant to devote much energy to the project lately. I'll get back to it at some point.

[Darin Tries to Understand Harry Potter @DarinTries]

Fuuuuuuck offfffffff

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth.

[Darin @WebbDarin]

Joe Biden said he would pick a woman VP but what if he accidentally picks Cloud Strife in a dress?

[Darin Tries to Understand Harry Potter @DarinTries]

Some of you might be interested in this Google search I just did...

[Darin Tries to Understand Harry Potter @DarinTries]

@FancyWindow Thank you! It's "No Echo"by the Future Virgins.

[Darin @WebbDarin]

Plumbers in Jane Lynch's bathroom: unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.

[Darin Tries to Understand Harry Potter @DarinTries]

Christ, what did she say this time?

[Darin Tries to Understand Harry Potter @DarinTries]

Let me be clear, we should all strive not to be sexist or devalue the opinions of the marginalized. But a best selling author marketing her books to teenage girls is not herself a marginalized voice. And we should all be extremely suspicious of anyone who claims otherwise

[Darin Tries to Understand Harry Potter @DarinTries]

Because this is, on some level, a YA critique account, I'm going to weigh in, tepidly and with great reservation, on the Sarah Dessen controversy.

[Darin Tries to Understand Harry Potter @DarinTries]

That Dessen felt the need to drag the student for her own gain is as unsurprising as it is disappointing.

[Darin Tries to Understand Harry Potter @DarinTries]

Sarah Dessen is doing exactly what Get Vinyl did to me. The college student was championing a book called Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. It's about the abhorrent racial disparities in our criminal justice system.

[Darin Tries to Understand Harry Potter @DarinTries]

It is my most banal opinion that the powerful will always try to co-opt any ideology whatsoever for their own profit and advantage. Even good ideologies. Even ideologies worth defending in the abstract.

[Darin Tries to Understand Harry Potter @DarinTries]

Let me be clear, their relationship to teenage girls was that they were sending them literal garbage in the mail every month. But this was enough for them to claim the mantle of defending them in "woke" terms.

[Darin Tries to Understand Harry Potter @DarinTries]

Not the ruthless exploiter of teenage girls it obviously was, but the embodiment of their values. To critique them was to critique their victims, I mean, customers.

[Darin Tries to Understand Harry Potter @DarinTries]

(2) told me that because they marketed themselves to teenage girls, that somehow my criticism was sexist. They implied that their company was itself a sort of avatar for their target demographic.

[Darin Tries to Understand Harry Potter @DarinTries]

I tweeted at them, sayingthey were a garbage company and they should stop sending literal garbage to people. In response, they (1) threatened to send my tweet to my boss, which was Very Cool and Chill of them, and

[Darin Tries to Understand Harry Potter @DarinTries]

and then pretending like the music had some relationship to the subscriber's tastes. "Oh, you like Chvrches? We think you'll love this Chuck Mangione record." That sort of thing.