r/crafts • u/AMVilla86 • Aug 10 '26

Let's talk about Harry Potter

… and other problematic IP

Hi folks,

We need your input. The mods have been discussing for a bit now about crafts with complicated Intellectual Property creators. Occasionally a craft will receive reports due to the theme of the craft and not about crafting itself. While we try to be as open-minded as possible, and we follow sitewide rules (such as no hate speech targeting identity or vulnerability, etc), there is still some nuance with moderating these types of posts. These posts have raised many questions, but we realized we needed to ask the community what they thought. If the community is uncomfortable with something, we want to know and be sure to moderate appropriately.

Some of the ideas we had so far, and why they would be tough to implement:

- Ban specific IP→ Where do we draw the line of what is and isn’t allowed?

- Create specific flair for ‘problematic’ → again, where is the line drawn?

- When a post receives enough reports about the theme and not the craft, leave a high-level moderator comment explaining how to block a user and/or hide a post → might be ignoring a problem rather than solving the issue for the sub.

With that being said, there’s only so much we can police. We want crafters to feel welcome, but with all the moderating we do, it would be hard to add on a layer of “educate a crafter on why the creator of this IP is bad” on top of our normal roles. We also don’t want our subreddit to become a lightning rod for debate. Ultimately, we are a crafts subreddit. While a few comments about inspiration of a craft is allowed, and questioning of said inspiration is also welcome, once we're many comments deep in multiple comment threads with no mention of crafting, it is no longer an appropriate conversation for r/crafts. There are many other subreddits for discussion and debate where you can converse.

So, what do you all think we should do with these types of posts? If we receive a large variety of ideas, we'll put it together in a survey or poll to further gauge how the subreddit feels. Also, feel free to message the mods if you're uncomfortable commenting on the post.

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u/Without-a-tracy Aug 10 '26

I'm on the exact same page.

I'm trans and autistic. Joanne  targeted people like me in her manifesto. I know that me, specifically, the human being that I am, is hated by her. 

But Harry Potter had a place in my life for many years, and it continues to have a place in many other people's lives.

I don't see people using the same logic when it comes to Disney- a company that was started by a literal Nazi supporter. Disney still has an important place in my life, despite the fact that the creator would be rolling in his grave if he knew about my existence. 

I believe pretty strongly in Death of the Author- once the work is out in the world, it belongs to the world, and anything that author/creator wants from it is irrelevant. 

I understand the qualm people have with financially supporting JKR, and I also avoid doing that myself, but it's at the point where the difference between a multi-multi-multi millionaire and a multi-multi-multi-multi millionaire is negligible in the grand scheme of things. 

Our world is on fire (both literally and figuratively). I'm down to let people get their joy where they can for the most part. 

And it shouldn't be up to the mod to police what kind of content people are posting, so long as the content itself isn't actively harmful to anyone. (Ie- a drawing of Cthulu or a HP scarf is not the same as a tee shirt that says "God hates trans people" or some bullshit nonsense like that.)

But that's just one guy's opinion 🤷‍♂️

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u/CheshireRaptor Aug 10 '26 edited Aug 10 '26

I agree with your larger point about being able to enjoy an IP without endorsing everything associated with its creator, but I do want to correct one thing: Calling Walt Disney a "literal Nazi supporter." goes further than the available historical evidence supports. That's a claim that gets repeated a lot online, but the historical evidence doesn't support it.

He absolutely deserves criticism for a number of things, and he did meet with Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl in 1938, which is rightfully controversial. But there's no solid evidence that he supported Hitler or Nazi ideology, and claims that he attended German American Bund meetings have never been substantiated.

Disney's documented politics were strongly conservative and intensely anti-communist, and his involvement with HUAC is very well established. His studio also spent WWII producing anti-Nazi propaganda and military films for the U.S. government, including Der Fuehrer's Face.

So there's plenty of legitimate criticism to make of Walt Disney without turning "he met with a Nazi propagandist" into "he was a literal Nazi supporter." History is messy enough without making it messier. 😅

Ironically, I think this actually illustrates the problem the mods are talking about: once we start labeling entire IPs based on the politics or behavior of their creators, we're going to have to decide which claims are established facts, which are disputed, and how many decades of a company's history we're holding a crafter responsible for.

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u/AssortedArctic Aug 10 '26

Also the money paid to Disney isn't going directly into supporting nazi shit

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u/bakasama12 Aug 11 '26

Unfortunately it is though, Disney is supporting zionism which is the nazi shit of our time

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u/CheshireRaptor Aug 11 '26

There are two factual/rhetorical problems worth separating.

Disney did announce $2 million in humanitarian assistance after October 7: $1 million went to Magen David Adom, Israel's emergency medical/blood service and an affiliate of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies; another $1 million went to other nonprofits working in the region, particularly organizations helping children. People can absolutely criticize Disney's relationship with Israel or characterize the company as supporting Zionism. But describing that as Disney funding “the Nazi shit of our time” is an ideological assertion, not a factual description of where that money went.

And I think this exchange perfectly demonstrates the problem with trying to moderate crafts based on whether an IP is considered "problematic."

We started with whether Harry Potter crafts belong in r/crafts, moved to whether Walt Disney supported Nazis, and have now arrived at whether Zionism is comparable to Nazism.

None of this has anything to do with crafting anymore.

People are going to have very different political, ethical and historical views about creators and companies. Trying to determine which of those views should decide whether someone is allowed to post a quilt, painting, crochet project or bedazzled DVD seems like an impossible—and frankly unnecessary—job to give the moderators of a crafts subreddit.

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u/AssortedArctic Aug 11 '26

Those are some crazy wild leaps there

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u/bakasama12 Aug 11 '26

It's true. Check out the no thanks app. Disney is on the boycott list

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u/Ixi1223 Aug 10 '26

"Our world is on fire (both literally and figuratively). I'm down to let people get their joy where they can for the most part. " Thank you for words describing things so perfectly.

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u/AdmirableRespect9 Aug 11 '26

Reddit, and especially very generic subreddits, need to be open and accepting onramps where people can develop themselves and their ideas. Each crafter that comes here deserves the respect of their lived experience and the joy of their creation. Mods should provide question models so people can find out a good phrasing to ask if the creator is open to discussing/ learning more about the intersections of complex issues. But too many people craft through loss, trauma, struggle....middle school. I don't want this subreddit's concerns with complexity being the reason someone doesn't create or joyfully post and I don't want an 82 year old woman posting a Wizard of Oz craft to be bombarded with the thoughts of the author instead of talking about the delightful red glitter on the shoes. Mods should also suggest forums for IP free crafts. But the science says that extended empathetic discussion is the way forward from/out of intolerance. So that's what the Mods should cultivate and nothing more.

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u/orange-shoe Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26

you can't just say death of the author like that actually means anything in practice. if people are giving her financial support that DOES matter as she uses it to directly fund anti-trans organizations. you are not transfem so idk why you are acting like you get to be the Trans Person Of Authority when transfems have already spoken about how damaging supporting jkr is

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u/PiperIsAwake Aug 11 '26

Death of the Author only works when they're not using their money for harm. It's one thing when they're just a shitty person. Joanne is actively using her money to hurt people. She has political pull. The HP IP isn't going away anytime soon because people won't give it up. There is no active Death of the Author when it comes to her. She isn't separate from the IP. She is using the money brought in from the books, games, play, shows, movies, everything, to fund her hatred.

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u/searchforstix Aug 11 '26

That’s irrelevant to people crafting items and pirating her work which is the subject at hand here. You guys want death to the book and not just death to the author. That’s not going to happen.

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u/nichelicorn Aug 11 '26

Thanks for bringing up the Death of the Author, and your overall take on this thread

At this point in time, the creative input for ongoing HP merch, books, stories, theme parks, etc, seems to be largely out of the hands of the TERF that shall not be named. She started something wonderful, and like many before her, morphed into a monster beyond what the collective HP fandom could have anticipated

She may have been this way all along, but something in the stories tells me that she was changed along the way. Or perhaps this is my own hope. In any case, I can’t wait to learn her true villain origin story. Could be worth a series of its own. Written by someone else, obviously 

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u/orange-shoe Aug 11 '26

the stories were already racist and antisemitic before she became a huge terf. and it doesn't matter if the creative part of the IP isn't in her hands because she is still making a TON of money from it.

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u/Mindelan Aug 11 '26

Her villain origin story seems to be that out of fear she has displaced trauma from a male partner that abused her, and then the blowback against her doing that was severe enough that she double and tripled down and became a ghoul.

In her mind now, somehow, trans women are paving the way for men like the cis man that abused her to harm women. She refuses to learn how that is wrong. She is vehemently convinced her path is righteous.

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u/constantchaosclay Aug 10 '26

Death of the author requires the death part. If the author is still alive, that's just supporting them.

JK is not only still alive, but an open activist who announces that she will use this platform and money she receives to help make the world more dangerous for Trans people.

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u/hungrypierogi Aug 10 '26

Death of the author, as a concept, has nothing to do with the author being literally dead or alive.

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u/searchforstix Aug 11 '26

I completely agree. Nb here who grew up with the books/franchise as they were being released. We can’t go around banning just one problematic author - we have to then ban them all and people need to understand just how problematic most of the creators and producers of their franchises actually are. There are an abundance of Disney, Star Wars, lord of the rings, etc. fans who do this.