Harry Potter and the Social Community.

I have never really been a fan of Harry Potter. I don’t remember exactly when I first heard the name Harry Potter, I guess it was sometime around 2001, when I was getting ready to leave Secondary School and move to Dundee for University. I was fully submerged in my ‘unique’ phase, during which, I would go out of my way to be different and to against the grind. The foundations of my standards and morals had already ensured that my teenage conduct was contrary to the expected, so when something over-popular appeared I was not interested in the slightest.

Harry Potter continued to increase in popularity and before long there was a huge fan base that was hard to avoid. There was always someone that I knew that loved Harry Potter. The natural commercialised order of entertainment soon ensured that a movie would be released. This, I had no qualms about seeing. I think I was even one of the first people in the UK to see it.
The years passed on, and so did the movies, until 2004 when The Prisoner of Azkaban suddenly surpassed the entertainment of the previous two movies. I remember thinking that it was an exceptionally well thought out and planned piece of cinematography, I have always been partial to films that embrace the space time continuum, because I am a child of the eighties and therefore a born and bred fan of Back to the Future.

Moving on to the fourth movie, and I found myself in attendance of the midnight showing in Glasgow with two of the greatest friends I will ever have.It was this year that I was working full time as a web-designer and I would spend many hours listening to music and on occasion I would dapple in some comedy or audio books. After the fourth movie I really wanted to know what happened next. So, I obtained the fifth book on mp3 and ensued to listen to it for twenty-six hours of my working week.

Having previously never read any of the books, I was amazed at the finer details and the deeper story line that is simply brushed over in the movies. I somehow, prior to my listening of the fifth book, had learned of the deaths of certain characters in the fifth and sixth books, therefore at the end of the fifth I refused to read or listen to the sixth until I knew for sure the seventh book and the definite ending had been written. I would have hated to have a two-year cliff-hanger. The ‘real’ fans though, were dedicated to the cause, that was for sure. I felt more like a fly on the wall of an epic tale that had taken years to discover.

Then the end came. 2007. The release of movie five spurred my Harry Potter curiosity once again, and I found myself enthralled in the movie that I had listened to 18 months previous. I wanted to understand the Harry Potter hype; I wanted to know why it was so exciting, for weeks talk of the seventh and last book had been hitting headlines. It had been the talk of many conversations with friends and the number of friends that I have who are avid fans have increased, this is either because of the growing popularity of the series or because my social circles are always changing.

I found myself cramming the sixth book into 4 days. I listened to it on mp3 as I worked - I was ‘catching up’ essentially. In comparison to the Harry Potter fans, who have been with him from the word go, I was cheating. An intensive seventeen hours worth of listening brought me right up to the day the seventh book was released, with a few hours to spare.

I decided to head out early and observe the ‘hype.’ Borders was the first port of call - they were hosting a Harry Potter party. Families, friends, the old and the young were dressed to the wizarding-nines, some assuming outfits of significant characters,
but everyone part of something bigger than themselves. Every person in the shop, past 10pm was there for the same purpose. You didn’t have to be a fan to feel the connection and the sense of social community.

A short distance away there were huge queues forming outside the two other bookshops in the city, supermarkets were plagued with hoards of Potter fans, and there was still 2 hours before the launch.

I waited outside one of the other bookshops and witnessed the queue increase in size and variation. (I say variation because the people who were there didn’t have one particular obvious trait in common with another.) There were hecklers, people jeering, and laughing; people intent on ruining the ending, or mocking the queuing people for their passion, dedication and care for Harry Potter, we will call them un-fans. At one point during the wait there was a short-lived fight between some of the un-fans and one of the Harry Potter fans. Unfortunately for him he did not have the magical power Harry possess in order to protect himself from the un-fans.

Just before midnight we were allowed into the shop and then there was a ten second countdown and consumer madness ensued: Book after book leaving the shop ready to start the race to the finish.

I hadn’t expected to read the book so quickly, I felt that life would get in the way. My reading began after my drive home from town and it ended that night around page 90 and at 3am.

When I awoke the next morning my flatmate had reached well in to the 300page mark. By Sunday I was hearing of the hoards of people who had finished the book. I ended up in conversations with people about the few chapters I had read, and then I found myself growing nervous and anxious in case the conversation developed in to a plot spoiler. Around 3pm on Sunday I shut myself off from society. I could no longer communicate with anyone just in case they knew something I didn’t.

On Monday I kept a low profile and on the Tuesday, I refused to leave the house until it was finished.

By the end my reading was no longer for pleasure, it was for self-discovery, and the chance to learn for myself what happened. It was not a race to the finish, it was a race to be free. Free from the paranoia and fear that the ending might be spoiled for me.

For those brief days I was part of the Harry Potter hype, although I felt like somewhat of an impostor because I had cheated my way to where I was. I had no 2-year wait between books, and I had not grown up with or developed along side Harry, Ron, Hermione, or Neville. My view was very passive and disconnceted because I had to look back to compare my own life and experiences with the character’s lives.

I started to understand why Harry Potter was so important to those younger than me, and to those whom had found him years before I had. He was a comfort to them; he was a connecting object - he brought people together and helped them find a common interest. Rather than settling in to a pre-existing social circle Harry Potter was the basis of social formations. As one of my friends said ‘it’s how you wish your own childhood had been.’ The appeal of Harry Potter is the mythology and the magic; the ability to reach beyond the normal constraints of society and live a completely parallel life filled with fantasy and adventure. The books appeal to such a high range of people because the writing style encapsulates the reader and allows them to feel part of something bigger. That something boils down to two things: One. The fictionalised wizard community, with its intricate details and ability to co-exist with the contemporary world we live in, thus making it completely possible to be less than fiction. Two. The worldwide community of Harry Potter fans, with it’s many nationalities, and different types
of people, with different interests all united over the one book and story.

Reading the same book as the rest of the world for a few short hours or days is something that I will never feel again. I don’t think there has ever been such a hype and such a popular demand for a book that causes hundreds of people to be awake and queuing for hours just to be a part of something and I honestly believe that it might never happen again.

One of my main reasons for partaking in the Harry Potter hype this time was because I realised it is and was a cultural phenomenon. I still don’t believe that I am a Harry Potter fan, I think I missed that opportunity years ago. What I have come to realise is that whether you are a fan or not, that on the stroke of midnight on the 21st of July 2007, where you were and what you were doing matters. It will become a part of who you are. Whether you were queuing, sleeping, waiting, unknowing, not-caring, a full fan, a half fan, or an un-fan, your actions will be marked as your identity. The way that we react to an object and the way that we perceive other people interacting with that object in effect becomes a part of who we are. The value is undefined and varies from person to person, but for me Harry Potter will always be a cultural phenomenon that gripped the world and forced people to choose a position: for, against or neutral. The magnitude of that choice will never really be understood, social circles will continue to form around other objects, but an individual’s reaction to Harry Potter will always mark what kind of person you were and are. Whether you regret not partaking of the universal read, whether you waited until it was less popular, perhaps you still don’t care or perhaps you were one of the hecklers. My explanation for the hecklers lies in the fact that we all, as human beings, want to be part of something bigger and we want to feel a social, collective belonging. Essentially, they are jealous of what Harry Potter fans have. This reasoning also includes those who wanted to know the ending to feel a small connection to the social Harry Potter collective.

The emotional and sentimental value of the events that Harry Potter has created will be a part of every individual’s identity. For me personally, the value that lies in the experiences of the book launches I have partaken in, the people I have talked to about Harry Potter, the people I have queued with, the people I have watched the movies with (and the experiences before and after the movie viewing); the general memories that I have attached to the significant events that Harry Potter has created will always be a part of who I am. It could be argued that I do not need Harry Potter to appreciate that kind of value, but without it I would not interlink the experiences as an epic journey that resulted in me feeling like I could almost be a Harry Potter fan.