Sounds Like A Cult - The Cult of Harry Potter

Episode Date: January 21, 2025

 A missive has arrived in your mailbox, dear cultie!  What’s this? An invitation to an exclusive, mystical, and splendidly nerdy episode of Sounds Like A Cult that’s only a short ride from King’s Cross station away!  YES, your most British, nostalgia-packed dreams have been realized because this week Amanda and Reese are hopping aboard the Hogwarts Express to every 90s baby’s starter cult, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter!    Joined by the hilarious and wise podcasters Sequoia of Fanatical Fics and Where to Find Them and Mike of Potterless, Reese and Amanda are drinking the butterbeer and covering everything from Hogwarts houses to Snapewives. Follow us as we attempt to dissect the undeniably world-shifting franchise, fandom, and capitalist dreamscape that might have more mommy issues than Harry Potter himself…  Subscribe to Sounds Like A Cult on Youtube! Follow us on IG @soundslikeacultpod, @amanda_montell, @reesaronii, @chelseaxcharles.  Thank you to our sponsors! Embrace your ritual with extraordinary hydration from Liquid I.V. Get 20% off your first order of Liquid I.V. when you go to https://LIQUIDIV.COM and use code CULT at checkout. Visit https://BetterHelp.com/CULT today to get 10% off your first month. Please consider donating to those affected by the Los Angeles Fires. Some organizations that Team SLAC are donating to are:  https://mutualaidla.org/ https://give.pasadenahumane.org/give/654134/#!/donation/checkout https://shorturl.at/SGW9w Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The views expressed on this episode, as with all episodes of Sounds Like a Cult, are solely host opinions and quoted allegations. The content here should not be taken as indisputable fact. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. I don't know a Snape wife. I'll put that out there first. I've never met a Snape wife. I have not interrogated a Snape wife. But the Snape wives are a group of people who feel that they are spiritually bonded to Severus Snape. What? That is culty in a sort of like fanatical, ritualistic, and borderline delusional way. This is Sounds Like a Cultz, a show about the modern day cults we all follow.

I'm your host Amanda Montell, author of the books Cultish and the Age of Magical Overthinking. And I'm Reese Oliver, Sounds Like a Cult's coordinator and today's co-host. Every week on this show, you're going to hear about a different zeitgeist-y group that puts the cult in culture, from astrology apps to cruise ships, to try and answer the big question. This group sounds like a cult, but is it really? And if so, which of our cult categories does it fall into? A live-your-life, a watch your back, or a get the fuck out?

After all, cultish influence falls on a spectrum. There is so much cultiness out there these days in the 21st century America, whether you're talking about your celebrity fandoms or your fictional novel fandoms or when corporate offices describe their employees as a family. But the thing is, not all cultishness is equally bad. This show is here to poke a little bit of fun at human beings search for meaning these days

in the digital age, but also to critically scrutinize which culty-seeming groups out there are kind of harmless or even net positive and which ones are destructive, even if they might not look like a cult on the outside. Today we have an overdue topic. We're talking about the cult of Harry Potter. Ha ha! I don't know, it feels like magician-y to laugh like that.

Magician-y, wow. I feel like some Harry Potter fan is already offended. Oh, god. This show is sponsored by Liquid Ivy. Whatever new habits and rituals you cultivate in 2025, add some extraordinary hydration to the mix with Liquid Ivy. You just add it to a glass of water. From acai berry to piña colada to lemon lime,

there is a Liquid IV hydration multiplier flavor for you. My favorite as of late is the sugar-free raspberry lemonade. Break the mold and own your ritual. Just one stick plus 16 ounces of water hydrates better than water alone. Embrace your ritual with extraordinary hydration from Liquid IV. Get 20% off your first order of Liquid IV when you go to liquidiv.com and use code CULT at checkout.

That's 20% off your first order when you shop better hydration today using promo code CULT at liquidiv.com. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. In 2025, maybe you're ready for a plot twist. It may be corny, but as an author, I like to think of every day as an opportunity to pick up the pen and become the narrator of your own life. Therapy can almost be thought of as your editorial partner. There have been quite a few points in my life when I felt like my story was going off course.

I don't know what I would have done without my therapist. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's fully online, making therapy affordable and convenient, serving over 5 million people worldwide. Write your story with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash cult today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash cult. I am nervous. I mean, how do you feel body and mind going into this recording today?

Body, mind, and spirit, I feel a wee bit scared. Why? I want to get it right. I want to be respectful. Well, I feel like this is a vulnerable group because, and we will analyze this more in depth later, but like, is it appropriate to say that it's a cult with mommy issues? I mean, yeah, it has been abandoned or it has gone rogue, so to speak. It has rebelled against their leader and now they're wandering nomadic people. Right. There are nomadic wayfaring peoples, the Potterheads. So I want to be sensitive to them as well. But at the same time, I feel in the way that I feel Swifty passing,

I feel Potterhead passing. You are very Potterhead coded. Like, if I did not know you and I saw you walking down the street, I would be like, that woman is a Hufflepuff and knows it. Oh, what? No, I'm a Ravenclaw. Come on. Okay, my bad.

Well, you're deceptively, you're a very bubbly gal, you know? You think I'm bubbly? You have a very sprite-like presence. Is that Huffily Puffily? I mean, that's kind of just like the general exuberance is kind of the Hufflepuff vibe that I've gathered. I feel like we should establish this early. I have not read a Harry Potter book nor have I seen a Harry Potter film in its entirety.

Yeah, which makes sense sort of generationally, but you're kind of Harry Potter coded too. I read a lot of books as a child, so people are often surprised when I am not. Right, it's like if you've read a book, odds are it's Harry Potter. Yeah, exactly. They're like, wait, you didn't have any friends. There's no way you didn't read Harry Potter, but no. Fantasy was never really my thing.

It always just kind of felt like a little to the left of what I was into. I was a series of unfortunate events kid, so. Oh my God, that makes a world of sense. They have some aesthetic similarities, like the dark academia. Little children really love a gothic aesthetic. I don't know why, but they do.

Yeah, well, I think especially when it's British, and we're gonna get into that later too. We are. So Harry Potter is obviously an empire. It's a cinematic universe, which is a phrase that comes up a lot on this show. But I would venture to argue that at this point, it's also become a culture and even a new religion of sorts.

So to do our due diligence, to be responsible podcasters, Reese, could you give us a little bit of background about the magical, mystical, potentially culty wizarding world of Harry Potter? Harry Potter is a fantasy book series written by J.K. Rowling. We will address Joanne later. Harry Potter has, over the last 30 years, permeated our culture and our consumption

like few other pieces of media have, establishing a presence everywhere, from your local library to Ulta Beauty. permeated our culture and our consumption like few other pieces of media have, establishing a presence everywhere from your local library to Ulta Beauty. He's everywhere. After Scholastic brought attention to the British series by purchasing U.S. publishing rights for $105,000, the novels became a childhood staple for millions and thusly people have engaged with the series to their heart's content. It's a world, yes, and that is partially because it has been almost 28 years since the release of the first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher slash Sorcerer if you're an uneducated American

stone. Potterheads still remain one of society's most pervasive and notorious fandoms, which makes this topic long overdue for Slack. As a long time Slack listener, I'm surprised it's not been done already. I know, but like, there are a lot of cults. Like, we got there. We will get to them, people.

I know like every time we were getting close to approaching Harry Potter on the spreadsheet, a freaking docu-series about the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders. Like, come on. You know, it's like, we got there, we got there. It's evergreen. And the long tail of Harry Potter fanaticism is an element in this cultish recipe

that seems sort of like a given on its face. So, as a millennial, Amanda, what is your relationship to the cult of Harry Potter? Why does it sound like a slur, the word millennial? Well, I think because Harry Potter fans fall into the same millennial fandom cult space that Disney adults do. Almost, yeah, you're right.

Okay, so yeah, I'm 32, Harry Potter came out when I was in fourth grade, I was the perfect age to receive it. Let me preface by saying I could read at the age of nine, but my mom would read the Harry Potter books to me so that I could fall asleep at nighttime as like a sweet sort of bedtime story situation. But I like you. I was not all in. My favorite books in fourth grade were the Chicken Soup for the preteen soul books. I was always a nonfiction girly. I always preferred the section on death and dying. Oh, of course. You need to be prepared.

Yeah, exactly. No, I just I live my life preparing for death, obviously. But yeah, no, I always just wanted to read short essays about death. Just light reading. Nothing has short essays about death. Just light reading. Nothing as intense as Harry Potter. No, no. I think I actually love Harry Potter more in theory than I do in practice. The first couple movies are super nostalgic for me. I think they are enchanting and whimsical. That film score, a masterpiece, but I'm by no means in the fandom. What about you, Reese? What is your personal relish to the series? So I mostly knew about Harry Potter through the eyes of older fans that I witnessed around me and fan fiction that I lived next to

as I read not Harry Potter fan fiction, but didn't really ever interact with deeply. It's wild that by the time you were literally alive, Harry Potter was inescapable. It's a religion. It is low key a worldwide religion. One of our guests today is podcast. Entire premise relies upon Harry Potter fan fiction that was published before I turned five. That's crazy. That's mental. Okay, so let's quantify this cult a little bit more before we get into our interview, which I am so excited for the culties to hear. This is wild, but these books are the best selling book series in the world

with over 600 million copies sold worldwide. I'm pretty sure the only book that has sold better is the Bible. A Vox article will be coming back to throughout this discussion today titled How Harry Potter Changed the World by Constance Grady and Asia Romano shared a 2011 poll suggesting that a whole last third of Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 had read at least one Harry Potter book. So that's like the millennial generation. To put that in perspective, the same year Pew Research found that fewer than a quarter of American millennials believed that the Bible was the word of God. Just to show like how cultural insight. Exactly. Putting

the cult in culture. The Harry Potter series, which has now expanded into a veritable generation defining $25 billion franchise, that's only as of 2016, so holy patronus, including movies, toys, theme parks, theatrical productions, etc. has varying degrees of suffocative power, depending on your age and interests. The Harry Potter fandom has very clearly grown into something so much larger than the scope of a mere young adult fantasy series and the number of ways that you can engage with the world of Hogwarts and its students seems only to be growing even though the last book came out almost 20 years ago.

At this point, like the galaxy, that is the Harry Potter franchise and the lore that comes with it is expansive and intimidating. And if you're not a diehard Potter head, it can be overwhelming to dissect, but dissecting it is indeed something that we're gonna need to do today

to figure out if Harry Potter is a live your life, watch your back or get the fuck out. And here to help us do exactly that are two very special figures in the cult of Harry Potter. One is the host of the Potterless podcast, Mike Schubert. The other is one of the hosts of the Fanatical Fix and Where to Find Them podcast, Sequoia Simone. We are so fucking excited for you to hear our conversation with these two. Let's fricking go. This show is sponsored by Liquid IV.

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January brings you 365 new pages to be filled. In 2025, maybe you're ready for a plot twist, or maybe there's a part of your story that you've been waiting to revise. It may be corny, but as an author, I like to think of every day as an opportunity to pick up the pen and become the narrator of your own life. Therapy can almost be thought of as your editorial partner, helping you write new chapters and create the meaningful story you deserve to live. Oh gosh, there have been quite a few points in my life when I felt like my story was going off course, literally while writing books, but also figuratively in my day-to-day life. I don't know what I would have done in those moments without my therapist,

Nancy. Shout out. I first learned about BetterHelp from one of my favorite podcasters. I remember them talking about how if you're nervous to find a therapist or if you're between therapists, it can be an option, especially because you can switch therapists anytime at no extra cost. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's fully online, making therapy affordable and convenient, serving over 5 million people worldwide. Write your story with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash cult today to get 10% off your first month. That's better help, H-E-L-P.com slash cult. Sequoia and Mike, welcome to Sounds Like a Cult. Thank you for being here.

Hello. Thank you for having us. Hello, good to be here. Could you do us the honor of introducing yourselves separately and together? Cause you two know each other. You're in the same cult. Yes, yes.

Truthfully, truthfully. It's both the cult of podcasting and the cult of Harry Potter. They're both. Tea, yeah. It's where the Venn diagram meets. That's where we live. Yeah, so hello, I'm Sequoia. I am one half of the podcast Fanatical Fix

and Where to Find Them, which is a comedy Harry Potter fan fiction podcast where we read sort of the wildest, wackiest stuff that we can find from pre-2008. We are living in nostalgia. We're dripping. We love it. We're dripping. My name is Mike Schubert. I am the creator of Potterless,

which is a Harry Potter podcast where I had never read the books before, so it was my first time reading them, was going through the show as an adult. I started when I was like 25. So I came in thinking I was going to dunk on the series and make fun of it and poke out plot holes and stuff. But as I got farther in, I fell in love with the books. And by the time I was done with book three, it turned into just me

loving the series. And then I went on to do the books and the movies and all the other stuff. And then JK Rowling became publicly a terrible person. So I hard pivoted into only doing fan made stuff and trashing her every single episode for like a year. And then I stopped making Potterless to make a show with a similar structure,

but about the Percy Jackson books called The Newest Olympian. So you have come to two of the right people, and Sequoia and I were talking earlier just about our knowledge to try and make sure we are the experts you so desire for this. And Sequoia was super in the thick of it up until the late 2010s.

And then I was super in the thick of it starting in the late 2010s. So our powers combined. We should know everything. And if we get anything wrong, don't email us. I don't have an email. Simply keep it to yourselves. Before we get into it, I was just going to ask,

in what corner of the cult did you two meet? We had met at a podcasting convention, not a Harry Potter specific one. But this was like a podcasting convention. It was PodCon, which was in Seattle. I don't even know what year it was. 2019. But 2019, okay. So it was at that point. And that's how Sequoia and I met. And I feel like we were operating in a similar Harry Potter space of like loving the stuff, but being okay to make fun of

the stuff. And there's certainly other Harry Potter podcasts that were like, we love the stuff, and we won't make fun of the stuff. And I think the two of us, I really like that Sequoia seemed to have a similar approach. And then I think when the JK stuff kind of got bad, it was not hard for me, at least because I had no nostalgia at all. But it was nice and easy for me to pivot into like, oh, she's bad.

I have no problem calling her out in Sequoia. And Sequoia's co-host Kim did a very good job of calling out the crap as well. So yeah, I would say Harry Potter podcasting would be our specific corner. But then our audiences are very much aligned, which I would say is like nice Harry Potter fans who get it and weren't afraid to push JK out of their focus

when she started to become very publicly transphobic. For sure. Yeah, Mike was actually the very first ever guest on my podcast. And then Mike let us come on at one point and take over his podcast for over a month reading the My Immortal fan fiction, reviewing that. So we've done a lot of different Harry Potter and Jason stuff together.

Yeah, we really have. Angelic. Okay. Let's get motherfucking into it. So first off, what about Harry Potter and the Harry Potter universe makes it cultier than other franchises in your opinion? Is it the cultural impact? Is there like culty rituals, fan hierarchy?

What specifically about Harry Potter makes it so culty? That is such a difficult question because I feel like there are parts of the fandom that are cultier than other parts of the fandom. You can walk up to like a random millennial on the street and be like, what's your Hogwarts house? And like, they'll tell you. And that's kind of like your baseline person out in the world

who like either read the books or saw the movies or did both of those things and likes them. And then you have the people who like have the books, they love the books, buy a lot of merch, they've been to Wizarding World of Harry Potter, you know, but they are not necessarily immersed in the fandom itself. And then I think the cultish bits come a lot into play for me as a person who's like deep fandom

was going to Harry Potter conventions in like 2010 era, really in it. When I was coming on this podcast, my first thought was like, the closest thing that I have ever had to a religious experience is a wizard rock concert. Like seeing Harry and the Potters live is, is like my form of church.

I think also what can lead to some of the cultier nature is just like the structure of how the stuff from the Harry Potter universe came out. And obviously this is me coming late to it. So this is me kind of like looking back, but when you have books that are coming out and they're split up where one is releasing a year, and you're a kid, and you like it, and you get all into it,

you're just all consumed by it, and you want to talk about it, it seems like a lot of the books will either have cliffhanger endings or how does this affect the big picture. So I think naturally, when you're waiting for the next book to come out, you talk to your friends about what's happening in the book. Online forums spring up. Podcasts spring up.

People start having conversations about it. You do that for all the books. Then the movies are coming out. Then there's speculation about what's going to be in the movies. Who's going to be cast? What are the differences going to be? The movie's finished.

Now they're making a play. What's the play going to be about? OK, the play is out. It's terrible. I think there's just like, there was constantly things being brought in and brought in brought in and People had just started as kids having these conversations and then they got older and older and they continue to have these conversations and I think that obviously this is all like before JK is terrible. But like it's a very welcoming space and

There's a lot of different characters You can see yourself in a lot of different characters. You can see yourself in a lot of different characters. Even if you're not seeing yourself in one of the main characters, you see the Hufflepuffs and you're like, oh, the chill people. Like, yeah, that seems kind of nice. Or the Ravenclaws are like, oh, the nerd. So I think it's a world in which a lot of people can see themselves. And I think that it has like a lot of wide appeal.

And if you super really want to get into it, it's not that hard to do so. There's so many ways to do it. And then I think that can lead into culty type stuff. But like Sequoyah is saying, I think there's good elements. I think there's bad elements. Something that helps the cultishness grow is the fact that like Mike's talking about, yeah, these books are coming out as we're growing up and ba-ba-ba.

And at the exact same time, the internet is coming into prevalence. They were happening at the same time and nothing else might ever capture that magic in the same way because of just the sheer timing. Exactly. Just a perfect storm. So much about this reminds me of full on Christianity. Like it starts with a book

and then it just like expands into this immersive, capitalistic, internet mediated monstrosity with offshoots. And like, if you want to go to, you know, an evangelical amusement park and like watch an actor get crucified and have that experience, you can, just like you can go to the Wizarding World and like watch a simulation of Ron and Hermione and Harry, like I don't know.

I'm going for the castle for sure. Yeah, and in the same way, yeah, there is like good parts and bad parts to both of those things. Yeah, yeah. And good people and bad people. Well, because both religions are humongous. And if you want to compare it to like a non religious thing that some people do treat as religion like I think there's a lot

Of overlap with Star Wars as well just in that there's a bunch of stuff You can go beyond like the main canon thing and get super into other things you can Enjoy intense discussions if you're an adult if you're a kid and you're watching a story So it's like oh cool laser swords, and if you're a kid and you're watching a story, it's like, oh, cool, laser swords. And if you're a kid with Harry Potter, it's like, oh, cool, magic wands. Like, there's enough broad appeal to, like, lots of different age groups and stuff like that. So I think both of them have similar sort of very, very broad appeal, depending on what type of person or what type of nerd you are.

It's interesting that you make the Star Wars comparison, because sometimes when I think of a comp for Harry Potter, I think of Lord of the Rings. But what Christianity, Star Wars, and Harry Potter all have in common that Lord of the Rings kind of doesn't is that like the target is kind of kids. And so like, if you can capture a youth and give them more fodder throughout their entire life.

Yes, give them nostalgia. Oh, listen. So like they're hopped up on nostalgia and then there's like more doors, more levels along the bridge to total freedom if we're making a Scientology comparison. If you can give them more and more and more throughout their upbringing, you've got them for life.

Whereas like Lord of the Rings appeals to adults, mostly I would say. And that makes it maybe less culty. Listen, I think I'm contractually obligated while we're talking about what is the most culty aspects, yada yada, is, Mike, are you familiar with the Snape wives? I've heard of this, but I have such a disdain for Snape, the character.

We will get to that. Oh, okay, okay, OK, OK. OK, OK. Great, great. I'm just like, well, we will give you an opportunity to get to the Snape point. We'll put it that way. I don't intend to get to the Snape point.

Sounds like a cult episode has a very specific liturgy, not unlike a religious service. Right, right. And we're not to that prayer quite yet. We start with the origins. Yes. We must go back and start the prologue, so to speak. Start with Genesis.

Yes, okay. To get to our next question, let's start with some facts about how exactly these books became almost as worshiped as the Bible itself. So in the late 90s, these books are published in the UK. They do kind of meh. And then there is a scholastic publishing deal made to publish these books in the US. And it is one heck of a deal. It is a $105,000 deal for United States publishing rights. And because this is such a huge publishing deal, they also pour a ton of money into marketing this US launch. This piece

from Vox says, in short, it gave the book many more resources than are typically afforded to the average debut novel from an unknown author. And that decision paid off. As a result, they do splendidly. They take off immediately. A key thing that was done, you got to give a shout out to whoever at Scholastic made the call to say, you got to retitle the book from the Philosopher's Stone to the Sorcerer's Stone. Americans, we're not wise enough to understand Philosopher's

Stone, but Sorcerer's Stone, that's kind of like a wizard, right? Oh, yeah, it's a wizard book! Oh yeah, okay, okay, okay. Especially if you're reading these books as a little school child, it's like all of these magical things happening to mysterious British little school children. In robes no less, classic culty piece of iconography. Train the children to fall in love with black robes. Get them early. Yes, that really opens up so many different culty doors

for you moving forward. And then Harry Potter is also definitely a gateway to other British fandom cults. I feel like Doctor Who, that's a supernatural progression of fandomness that a lot of people undergo. Yes. So why do you guys think that the English characters in like this fantasy setting captured American audiences

so religiously, especially at this cultural moment in the 90s when these books were coming out. I think there's something to be said about the fact that there are a bunch of things in these Harry Potter books that are just normal British things. And as American children, we did not know that. We were like, all of this is magical fantasy.

And they're like, treacle tart is just real. Legit treacle tart on an episode of Potter. I was like, oh, they eat all these magical foods, like fizzing whizbees and treacle tart. And then British listeners are like, that's just dessert. There's also like boarding school culture. It feels fantastical in a way that's like far away from home, but actually not that far away from home.

Exactly. Well, it is both fantastical and accessible because I mean, before this interview began, we were joking about how the Harry Potter fandom has a little bit of mommy issues maybe because of she who shall not be named. And I feel like Americans in general have mommy issues with England as one of their colonies.

It's why we fetishize British accents and British culture. It's like- We have abandoned it. Well, I mean, I guess we left. We fully left. We left, but we were kind of pushed. I don't know. Going no contact is hard.

Yeah, I don't know, that's strange. That's strange. I do feel like the general cult of the United States as an offshoot of the mainstream religion that was England plays into the approachable exoticism of the cult of Harry Potter. I also think that the style of the book, like, your classic sort of, it's a main character

who didn't know that they were magic or important or whatever, and then they're introduced to this world. Like, that just usually does well, at least in America. Star Wars is that, and Holes by Louis Saccar is that. Like, there's so many things which are just like, I'm just a normal person, and then this wild thing happened to me. And I think that that format just kind of works. And then when you combo that with like Sequoia saying,

the magical literal magic, and then the magical like, whoa, Britain, whoa. Like there's enough going on that can just be fantastical. Harry is a proxy for every little kid reading, right? And like every little kid growing up in America, I mean, especially of this generation, was told anything is possible for you.

And yes. You can get your letter to Hogwarts in the mail one day. Yes. Very, very American dream coded, very. Actually though, but like British flavored. So like. So, so not flavored? Yeah. So not flavored.

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is the immersion ability, the potential for something Harry Potter to infuse every single corner of a fan's life. There's lingo, there are the Hogwarts houses, Patronuses, robes, spells, etc. The lore of Harry Potter is extremely developed and detailed and there is like a decently high barrier to entry it seems in terms of being truly in the know as far as Harry Potter goes, which gives way to certain hierarchies within the fandom. My favorite lens to examine cultishness through is language. I think language is secretly a cult leader's most powerful, albeit invisible,

tool. And so I wanted to know from each of you, what is some deep cut Harry Potter lingo that a casual fan might not know, but that you think is especially culty in that it can help you clock a true follower? I would say the OGs sort of know when you ask them what the three-year summer is. So the three-year summer is after the fourth book, there was a three-year gap between books,

which had not happened before that. So like Harry left Hogwarts to go to the Dursleys at the end of book four, and then that summer was three years long. And there was like an explosion of fandom during that time. So like if you were like online, you're on the message boards, you're on, you know, the leaky cauldron website, MuggleNet.

You are sort of using that kind of terminology. And then I would also say the convention circuit would know snitch witches. Mike, you would know snitch witches. I do. I do. Yes. So Harry and the Potters developed a sandwich that they sold illegally inside of convention spaces so that we wouldn't have to eat. That terrible, like, pizza or nachos or whatever they sell inside those, like, convention centers at their little, like, concession stands,

it's, like, so awful. And it's just, like, peanut butter and honey grams on, like, white bread. But they would, like, sell it from underneath, like, a table inconspicuously they say. And then it became just like a huge part of this convention fandom. Yeah, I think what Sequoia's brought up here

is that knowing the terminology of the books, right? So there's like, even within that, like your Hogwarts house is one step. Maybe you get into like, what's your Patronus? Then it's like, do you know what your wand and everything would be made out of? Like there's all the things within the book context that you can do.

Then beyond that is the next thing with the three-year summer. Then it's like, OK, do you know the big picture fandom sort of terms we talk about? Or if you say something like, dreary, when you're doing a ship of Draco and Harry together, some of those terms just for fans who are a little more into it than just,

I've read every single book and I know all the stuff that goes down. And then the next step is those things like snitch, which is where it's like I'm so invested in the fandom that I know all the stuff. I'm going to conventions. And I know inside jokes at conventions. So there's lots of different layers.

I can easily conceive of a type of child who grows up only knowing themselves through these Harry Potter devices. Amanda, I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't think anyone who did that. I want to unpack the note of sarcasm I detected. And in order to do that, I want to phrase it like this. Basically, like, what is your Hogwarts house? Is kind of, to me, like asking someone their astrological sign, it feels like an opportunity

to understand someone through this sort of, like, new religious vibe. First of all, what are each of your Hogwarts houses? How did you figure that out? And then what do you think questions like that and, you know, what is your patronus and stuff signify to fans on this profound level? I am very much Gryffindor.

I found it out because when Harry Potter released a thing called Pottermore, which when it first came out, it was supposed to be like a game. It was like Neopets but Harry Potter. Like you're in there, you're doing stuff. And even though I was not reading Harry Potter, it was so hyped up, like it was gonna be the new social media.

And I was like, can YouTube videos and stuff at the time that I was like, I got to get in on this just to make sure if this pops off, I'm here. So I did it. And they had this sorting quiz in the beginning. And the way that the quiz used to be, is it would ask you a question and would have four answers that were very clearly each geared

to one of the four houses. And then you would pick that. And then there would be a follow-up question, because it would narrow it down to two. And then you'd have the next one then there would be a follow-up question, because it would narrow it down to two. And then you'd have the next one. So there was a question that was like, if someone's in trouble, would you save them? And it was like, yes or no.

I said yes. And then the follow-up question was, if you saved them, would you want people to know about it? And I was like, oh, well, yeah. And that was the thing where I thought I was Hufflepuff, because I pride myself on being a good friend and trying to get along with a lot of people. So I thought going into this, I was going to be Hufflepuff. And when they asked that question, I was like, oh, OK, yeah, I'm a was Hufflepuff because I like pride myself on being a good friend and like trying to get along with a lot of people. So I thought going into this, I was going to be Hufflepuff.

When they asked that question, I was like, oh, OK, I'm a Gryffindor. I don't think I've met a Gryffindor. This is like a huge moment. That's so OK. Oh, wait, Reese, you're a Gryffindor? I am. And I found that out because, as how you've mentioned on the pod before, I went to an arts high school and there's a whole section of the campus that is portable classrooms that the school administration thought would be really cute if they named it Diagon Alley they have like a

little sign made and everything and I think it was mostly the work of my math teacher Miss Rhodes who on our first day of class made us all take the Potter Mark test and then made the seating chart accordingly and that is how I found out I was agent of chaos Miss Rhodes. Yeah. Seriously. She took it very seriously. I hope she's doing well.

There was one of each house sitting at a table. That's what I was going to ask, because it's not cool to divide everybody by house, so you're just sitting with your housemates. Like, you want there to be. No, it was like, you'll work better together. OK, that's way better. Good.

Like, she had logic. Agent of improved system, Miss gross. There we go. It was literally like Enneagram in a corporate office. So, Koya, what about you? So, I spent my prime sort of like Harry Potter years as a child and a teenager and a young adult thinking that I was a Ravenclaw. And I'm not. I'm a Slytherin. I am 100% a Slytherin. There was like a thing where it was like, oh, the like creative people are in Ravenclaw, you know, and I was like a writer and an actress and I was like, yes, that's where I belong.

But like my defining characteristic is ambition, if I'm being real about it. So when I got into like my like mid 20s and stuff, I was like, you know what, let's embrace this. Let's embrace this about ourselves. And I've been a Slytherin ever since. Wow. Okay, so I wanna go back to the sort of visceral gut response you had to my commentary about all of this very powerful shit

being a defining identity formation template. Can you explain more about what motivated that response in you? Yeah, I mean, I think that Mike really was onto something saying that the format of the book being like a person who thought they were just a regular person isn't regular. I was always like, yes, I'm actually a witch and this hairbrush I'm about to pick up, it is a portkey and it is going to take me to Hogwarts,

you know, and I've always wanted like fantastical things to happen around me or to me or whatever. And the way that that book allows you to step into it and to really imagine yourself in the space. And then I started writing fan fiction when I was like 12. So like, for me, it was a lot about existing in the space. And then I started writing fan fiction when I was like 12. So like for me, it was a lot about existing in the space that was not just my regular go to school, take my math test life and to imagine

that it could be something fantastic. Yes. So that is culty in a sort of like fanatical ritualistic and borderline delusional way. But it seems like nice, you know? Like kids are so imaginative and it gives you a place to put that. Did it interfere with your life

in any kind of negative way? I would say no, because while I was like kind of a daydreamy, big nerd with dreams and you know, I was always talking about Harry Potter. There was also 20 other kids who were daydreaming and talking about Harry Potter all the time. So it wasn't as though there wasn't people for me to be around.

It was the thing where you go to school on your first day and you don't know anybody, but then somebody's wearing a Hogwarts t-shirt and you're like, oh my gosh, I also love Harry Potter. So I felt it really enriched me. I made friends. I was writing full stories as like a really young person and like engaging critically,

which is why everything that's happening now is so wild. Engaging critically with this piece of literature so young because I digested it so much and thought about it so much. So like, I don't think it was detrimental to me at the time, no. And from the other perspective, like for me not reading them as a kid, like I was definitely way more like left out.

Like I was the weirdo for not having heard them. And this is also like an age group thing. Like I'm 32. So it was like, I was prime target audience for this. And I was definitely more of the like, you haven't read Harry Potter. Mm hmm. Weird. And that's the thing is then it creates this kind of, oh, well, everybody's mad that I'm read Harry Potter, so I'm not going to read it. Right.

That was my angle on it was just I was almost out of spite where I was like, everybody is telling me to read this thing and everybody is telling me that I will like this thing so much that I just I refuse to engage with it at all. And that's especially true when it's absolutely everywhere. Like especially because I'm 21 and my childhood is like the early 2000s and it's just capitalism everywhere and there's still Harry Potter stuff everywhere. And I have not known a time where Harry Potter was not everywhere. No, it can get a little annoying. I find that some cults tell on themselves so much and they're so

intimidating for that reason because you just don't want to get into it with the followers that a person might avoid it. I was once a casual Taylor Swift fan, but I am not anymore because I just don't want to get into it. You know? Like, geez, it's too much. Yeah. I think the good thing that I have found with the Harry Potter fandom, at least once I started to get into it,

is that I came into my podcast trying to dunk on Harry Potter. And then I started to love the series, and it was fantastic. And I think that level of fandom is very accepting and welcoming to where it doesn't feel like some other fandoms where you're going to dunk on someone for only being like casually into it. Like if someone knows their Hogwarts house and they need to go, what's your Patronus?

And they go, what? And you have to remind them what the Patronus is. Like I wouldn't think that that would elicit a reaction where like a level headed fan is going to be like, oh, weird. Huge green flag. They would just like understand the level. I thought my sister was the most intense Harry Potter fan

because she would reread the books every single time a next book was coming out or the movie was coming out. And I thought that was my sister being a super fan. That's just baseline level average fan. So when I started my podcast, all my guests were like, I would call them experts. And then I learned they are not experts. Because I was like, oh, these are all people who've

read the books more than once. That's kind of weird, right? And then everyone's like, uh, they've only read it three times? No. So the intensity is for sure there. But I don't think that the pushing and shunning people away because they aren't up to your game is.

And then as I made my way more through the fandom, then I was able to have more of those conversations. That's fascinating. And I want to talk more about what you think then I was able to have more of those conversations. That's fascinating. And I want to talk more about what you think has tempered that fanaticism and not made it as toxic as maybe some other fandoms. But first, Reese, could you serve us with a little bit more

for one one about who is benefiting from this cult's existence for better and for worse? We began to talk a little bit about all of the endless like butterbeer flavored capitalism opportunities that Harry Potter has given the world, the most like immersive and large extent of which is probably the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios. I have been and it is fun. I do like it. Yeah. But yeah, Harry Potter stuff is absolutely everywhere. Like I was saying, if you search for Harry Potter on Etsy, they literally wouldn't even show me a number of how

many results exist. Another extent of Harry Potter capitalism is the conventions, which Sequoia, you've been touching on a little bit about. There are enough conventions that there is an article on MuggleNet, which will guide you through all of the most popular options if you need help deciding which convention is right for you. Can you tell us a little bit about what it's like to attend these conventions and the cultiest things that you have witnessed at one of them? We can talk a lot about these,

because Sequoia's done the full thing. She's done fan presenter to featured guests at conventions. I have achieved my dreams. I'm just going to say I have achieved my dreams. Oh my god, the Slytherin paid off. It truly did. The full fan girl life cycle. It's been beautiful, wonderful, and glorious.

No, I can sort of start a little bit later back in the day and then hand it over to you, Mike. But the early fan conventions were at their beginnings when you were like, one of the very first ones was Ascatraz in San Francisco. There were a couple of main companies that were running them, and they sort of traded off years, so there would be one every year,

and those were so fun, and they got bigger after the books were done, and they got bigger after the movies were done, which I think is really wild to think about. Yeah. Yeah. Because people wanted to consume more. They want to be in the Harry Potter space and like talking about it and everything and like, oh we don't have any more books, we don't have any more movies, let's go to the convention. We have to sustain the shared delusion. Exactly. It's so beautiful and

there were some really wonderful years there, but there would be things like I was in a musical at a Harry Potter convention once that was based on the last 200 pages of Deathly Hallows. I played Electo Caro. It's really fun to play a villain. So there's just like all of these wonderful, like fan created things happening everywhere where you're like,

yeah, the musicals that I saw at Harry Potter conventions are like better than the play that is running on Broadway currently. So it's just fun to be in those spaces where everything's being made by super grassroots. Yeah. Who care about it? They're really fun. I fully agree with Sequoia saying that they

got bigger post the books. What I always appreciate about those conventions is that everyone in attendance just felt like they were their truest, purest self. Whether people were going super intense into costumes and cosplay, or if they were just wearing like the robe you get from the Wizarding World or the tie, you could be as intense with that kind of stuff

or as not as intense and it didn't matter. It wasn't one of the things like you have to wear a costume, but if you want to, you can, and you can go all out if you want to. And then because of the age of the demographic and the years that I was going to these conventions, you have like parents there bringing their kids. You have like eight to 10 year olds contributing in panels where me and other experts are leading it. And then an eight year old will like get on the Q and A mic afterwards and be like, Oh, actually you misspoke like blah, blah, blah. It's like, oh, you're eight, and you've thought

about this way more intensely. It's just a beautiful, positive space. And I always loved and still love going to these conventions, because you can go to the big stage things, or it's like, watch the people who were in the movies do an interview, or watch the musical people from Star Kid do a production of Harry Potter musical or whatever. But then also, you can go into like a tiny small breakout room

where it's just like portraits in Harry Potter. How do we think they work? And it's just back and forth with the crowd. I was like asking all the people, like, JK Rowling has nothing to do with this? And they're like, no, Warner Brothers has like actively sued LeakyCon year after year after year. Like, that shows you, I think, the good that the fandom can do

is like they can put so much awesome work into something cool. And that just shows you when this community is channeled for good, they can make a big opening welcoming space, which makes what JK Rowling did wild. Because look at how much good these people do when they read the books about acceptance, being accepting. And then she goes, what if actually I made my whole brand not being accepting?

Bizarre. Wow. It sounds like such a wholesome, nice, loving space. Maybe I've just been working at Sounds Like a Cult for too long, but I'm a little suspicious. Any theories as to why it is able to be such a positive space despite its size? And usually when things this big have existed for this long,

they tend to go sour at some point. But it doesn't really seem like there's a ton of that here. Are there any toxic pockets with hierarchies or weird us them dynamics? And if so, where? There's definitely toxicity. I will say to answer the first question of why I think it's welcoming.

I think it's just because at their core, the books are about being accepting of other people. Absolutely. And then as far as the toxicity, like, there's definitely toxicity, and it takes shape in different form, and now it's in, like, a weird space because of the JK stuff. So, like, I wouldn't know as much about the toxicity of, like, the pro-JK versus the anti-JK stuff, but before that all happened, I would get a little bit of super intense, well-actually emails, like, if I got something wrong on the podcast or people would be like so intense. I think you can get into some toxicity with like feelings

about certain characters like Snape or James Potter. Like there's very divisive characters that I think can get into some like really intense conversations and stuff. And that could be a level of toxicity. But I think like now like in its current state, the toxicity is just like people who recognize what JK Rowling is doing is transphobic, and she's spreading these awful, harmful, hate speech-filled messages. And then people who are, and this is where I think the only culty aspect is really there, people who are just like, JK Rowling can do no wrong.

This is actually feminism, and it's good feminism. And there are people who just like can't recognize that what she's doing is horrible, whether they agree with it because they're also bigoted or if they just have way too rose tinted of glasses that they're like, no, no, no, JK's good and she can do no wrong. I do think one of the things that makes it

such an accepting space is because there are a lot of people from marginalized communities who found that they could see themselves in these books, who wrote fan fiction and other things so that they could write themselves into this space. So the convention going fandom that we're talking about is like very queer, like a really very queer space. And there's just a lot of different types of people there. I think the only toxicity that I have experienced has been when people are just like very passionately tied

to the canon of the story, like Mike was saying about like the long emails and stuff like that. And then right now, you know, there's obviously people who are like, I don't care what JK Rowling says, I'm still going to exist in the space in the exact same way I existed in the space before.

When you're like, we don't all agree about exactly how to go about existing in the space, but a lot of people seem to agree that we're treating the space differently. We are entering the space differently. Right. Everyone has a different approach. My approach once J.K. Rowling made it very clear

was that I didn't want to do anything that gave her money or influence. Even though that she's got infinite money and infinite influence, I just didn't want to contribute. So like I stopped covering anything that was officially Harry Potter branded on my podcast. And if I ever did like, I think I was in the middle of one of the movies, I like donated all the proceeds to a trans charity, like the Trevor Project or Marsha P. Johnson. And then I also was trying to like speak up against it on those episodes, but I got to a point where I didn't want to buy anything officially Harry Potter branded because then that meant she would get a cut of it potentially if you buy like Harry Potter vans or whatever.

And then I didn't want to cover any of the new stuff coming out like the third Fantastic Beast movie or that new video game. Like didn't want to cover any of that, because again, if that does well, then maybe more companies are willing to work with JK Rowling and then she can keep doing stuff. But I think one thing that I still firmly believe is like, just because she's terrible, it doesn't mean that you have to completely separate yourself

from the fandom. If you have wonderful memories from reading the books or talking about them with your friends, these conventions that we're going to, friends that I've made because of Harry Potter podcasts or conventions or whatever, like you don't have to flush all that down the toilet, especially because you look at like the fandom doing things like these conventions

where she has no say in wizard rock, all these other things, clearly the fandom doesn't need her. Yeah. Yes, so just to back up really quick for some exposition, because this is not a Harry Potter podcast. So I imagine there are people tuning in who somehow missed the hullabaloo surrounding J.K. Rowling and her dethronement as the leader of this cult, so to speak. Reese, could you provide a little bit of explanation and then we can talk about it more? Yeah, I don't want to bring too much attention to specific things that she said because there has

been a lot of abhorrent things that she said since 2018, which was the beginning of her public life as scum. In 2018, she liked a tweet calling trans women men in dresses and ever since then in her irrelevance has become a pundit for hatred, which really sucks because queerbaiting throughout the story and under representation of marginalized communities have like long been an obstacle in the fandom that the fans, as you guys have spoken about, have been really resilient in working around and in coming together in spite of and building something. So obviously that was really disappointing, especially considering the millions of dollars J.K. Rowling has undoubtedly made

from the support of trans people. So now there is this chasm between the J.K. Truthers, which luckily I don't see many of them around at least. I don't know if you guys see. You'll see them on the internet because she'll tweet just this garbage and then it'll still get like 85,000 likes. So they're clearly out there.

And people would hop up all of my replies when I would post any sort of anti-JK stuff, especially when I was actively doing the podcast. And they would be like, well, if you don't like her, then you should stop making it your career. It's like, no, no, no. She's the one who sucks. I don't have to lose my job.

You're right. But yeah, I think what Sequoia was saying, and Reese, what you're saying is so true about people from marginalized communities seeing themselves and becoming fully aware of their identities through these books. And that's what makes it extra crushing. There's someone that Sequoia and I both know, Jackson Bird,

who's a wonderful creator who wrote a book called Sorted, which was kind of inspired by how the Harry Potter books helped them recognize that they wanted to transition and become a man and made this whole book and everything. And then J.K. Rowling did her trash. And it's like, OK, person who inspired me to recognize I'm trans? Cool.

Very cool. And Jackson is an absolute perfect person to talk to about that specific thing. I had Jackson on Potter List to break it down. I was just like, please, can you, from your perspective, explain why this is so terrible? Of all the people to do this, like the person who wrote the books about

you shouldn't persecute people for no good reason, persecuting people for no good reason just makes it suck extra hard. Yeah, the book about like, get that little boy out of the closet. Seriously. But all you guys on the other hand. So I want to evolve and ask, it's such a unique situation to have a cult fandom with such a clear leader who then betrays the tenants of the cult and then the followers don't accept it. Normally, when a cult leader betrays their own tenants, enough followers

will just heed their own loyalty and their own sunk costs to be like, okay, whatever this person says goes, that did not happen here. And I think it just goes to show the power of what the followers and the believers have done with this material and how that has sort of overpowered any role that JK Rowling has served this fandom and this franchise. But analyzing Harry Potter through the lens of cultishness, you know, not every modern day cult, but a lot of them do have something resembling a leader or multiple leaders in the wake of JK Rowling's, I don't even know how to describe fall. Yeah. Like literally like how to describe what happened. In the wake of that, who do you think, if anyone,

has stepped in to fill a cult leader role? Is it convention organizers? Is it moderators of fan fiction forums? Like who's the glue keeping the fandom together? I would credit the community as a whole. To me, it doesn't seem like there's necessarily like, oh, this person is the one we all follow. I think especially because Harry Potter as a fandom has so many different niches. There's

huge Harry Potter YouTubers, podcasters, musicians, fan fiction writers, the convention folks, lots of other people. And this kind of led into why I decided to do what I did. Not because I'm trying to like act like I'm this great person and everyone needs to follow me. But it was like, I recognized that I was hosting the most popular podcast at the time and I'm trying to act like I'm this great person and everyone needs to follow me. But it was like, I recognized that I was hosting the most popular podcast at the time. And I owed it to people. Because there were genuinely a lot of people who were like, I don't get what she's saying.

Everyone's saying it's bad, but I don't get why it's bad. So I personally tried to learn as much as I could so that I could speak for it, to be like, here's what I learned from reading stuff from trans folks, watching YouTube videos from trans folks, and here's what I've learned. Let me try to pass it along. So I think there were just a lot of different people

in the community that stepped up to the plate. And you had huge things like the Leaky Cauldron website, MuggleNet, you had big YouTubers, Wizard Rock. I felt like most of those people used their platform to try to explain why it was bad and say, we're pushing her to the side, and we're going to still have our own safe space. So to me, it kind of just felt like a big team effort,

as opposed to there's one person sort of leading the charge. Proper commune energy. Truly, though, actually. And I think that we all love that. Actually, I think all of the people would love to hear that, because's also just like so big. We don't have the Pope or whatever, you know? Like we're just a bunch of people interacting

with a fandom in a bunch of very different ways. So I think for like every individual person, there's probably someone that they look up to in the fandom for whatever reason, but that's gonna be different for so many different people. And one thing I can't believe I haven't brought this up, but like the three main kids from the movie

all called her out on it. Daniel Radcliffe repeatedly, Emma Watson repeatedly, Rupert Grey, like they are all out there very profound, whether it was social media statements or interviews, they all very eloquently stated why it was disappointing what she was doing and all that kind of stuff. And like, that's huge because as much as an individual Harry Potter indie creator is going

to be, like, obviously those people have like a million, jillion times more of the influence and knowledge and everything. So the fact that those three and a bunch of other the actors and people involved in the movies in different ways,, all those huge mega celebrities stepped up to the plate to also call it out. Like, that was huge, too. And I think that can go a lot farther for some of the more casual fans,

because not everyone's going to have someone like a Sequoia or me or a Jackson Bird to say, like, here's why it's bad. Someone might just be like, what's going on with the JK thing? And then Dander Radcliffe has an interview where he's like, this is bad and here's why. Emma Watson says it. That's going to get your more casual fan to recognize like,

oh wow, the guy who played Harry Potter, he didn't? And then of course he'll get the people who are like, he should be grateful and you know, all that kind of stuff. But that was huge, huge that they stepped up. Yes, it would be like if Jesus was suddenly like, you know what, actually steal from the poor, just take, just the poor suck, I hate the poor. And then like some of the saints came forward

and they were like. The apostles come through and Peter's like, yo, come on. Amen. Listen to me from the rock, let me tell ya. Yeah, yeah. Like fucking Peter writes a letter to the Trevor Project and is like, nah.

No. I'm here for you. Sequoia, you were talking a little bit about how people are turning to different leaders in this wake of a JK-less era. So one of these kind of subcults or subgroups that exists that you are very well versed in is the world of Harry Potter fan fiction. Now the world of fan fiction in general is a vast and ugly one, which while I'm more versed in that I would like to admit. Ugly. No, but ugly. Scramble. The world of fan fiction in general is a vast and ugly one, which while I'm more bursting

than I would like to admit. Ugly! No, but ugly. Scandal. Scandal. I say that from well within it, I would like to note. But Harry Potter fan fiction specifically is an elusive web that I stay away from solely because I find it so intimidating. Can you expand a bit on your relationship with the Harry Potter fanfic world and kind

of give a description of how that world specifically can be cult-like? Yeah, for sure. I mean, I've been writing fan fiction, like I said, since I was 12. And then we started doing this podcast to, you know, really recapture that portion of our youth being a part of this fan fiction space. And it's not smaller than it was. That's a space that just continues to grow, despite any adversity, you know?

I think something that is fundamentally misunderstood about fan fiction in general, but a lot about the Harry Potter space, is that people either think that it's really silly, or it's like all smut. And while like very silly things exist and very spicy things exist for sure, there is just like people who are exploring new stories

in this space with new or even existing characters and they are building those worlds out to several novel length stories. There are fan fiction writers that are way more prolific than like published authors. And sometimes those things get pulled for publish or things like that, you know, but the fan fiction space is really full of these people

who are like dedicated readers to the authors that they love who are creating these stories that are seemingly never ending a lot of the time. And this is free labor. Yes. Yeah. Cult. Cult.

Literally, my best friend's favorite fanfic author is a full-time lawyer. These people are doing it like solely for the love of the game. I admire it so much. Okay, first of all, it's not very Slytherin to write a whole ass book and get no glory. I didn't say I wrote a whole ass book. I would argue there's glory. There's kudos. There's kudos. Right. Glory and money are different. Very true. And with that, I think it is time. Can you enlighten us about the Snapewives? I would love to do that. Long last. The Snapewives are like an actual sort of cult

that grew sort of inside the Harry Potter fandom. And I don't know a Snapewife. I'll put that out there first. I've never met a Snapewife. I have not interrogated a Snapewife. This is all sort of information that we all have secondhand. But the Snapewives are a group of people

who feel that they are spiritually bonded to Severus Snape, who is not a fictional character, but a sort of an immortal being that is able to inhabit their own bodies. And they are all married to him, and they do believe that the Harry Potter books were written because Snape inhabited J.K. Rowling and had her write those books.

Wait, they really believe this? Yes, maybe. I'll say seemingly. I guess it's really, really hard to confirm anyone's true beliefs. Right, it's so true. Wow, and we're speculating. When I hear this, I think these people are probably like ex-Christians

who left their home church and needed somewhere to put their religious muscle memory. Because, you know, a lot of the members of groups that we now know as notorious cults like Heaven's Gate and NXIVM or Scientology, or a lot of just like the New Age cults of the 70s were ex-Christians who became spiritual seekers and found the New Age. And there was like a direct pipeline in that regard. This has so much in common with Jesus. I'm like, are they affiliating with this for the same reason why people joined Heaven's Gate?

I wonder. I think that's a question for yourself. I feel like you two are more qualified. I mean, I feel like at a certain point, especially now, and you were talking about this earlier, Mike, how it is so far removed now from when this whole thing began and it is still kicking. A lot of it just has to be the fun of being in a coal, right? The fun of participating in it? Yeah, to me, I genuinely haven't read a Harry Potter book in 15 years, three days. It has been years and years and years and years and years since I've read a Harry Potter book. But like, I love the fandom, the community. Like if it wasn't

for them, then you know, we wouldn't be around making these things and consuming all of the art that is being made around this space. Just wouldn't, yeah, it wouldn't be fun. ["Sweet Home Alone"] Okay, I feel like we have explored so many of the bounds of this conversation. It might be time to play a little game. Let's do it. I it might be time to play a little game. Let's do it.

I think it's time to play a little game. I love the game. It is actually the most straightforward game I think you will ever play. We are going to give you some cult leader names, and you are going to sort them into a Hogwarts house. Oh my god. That's pretty much it.

Okay. Okay, but these cult leaders, we're not talking about like Keith Raniere and Jim Jones. These are sounds like a cult cult leaders, okay? Okay. Better chance that I know who they are. I'm kind of getting Gryffindor because like everything she's done for the vaccine.

Well, she's really concerned with her appearances, like the gloves, the gloves of skin that she wears. I feel like that means Gryffindor too. The performing, being in front of the stage. I guess, yeah. The bravery of being on a performing on a stage. I think that she wears. I feel like that leans Gryffindor, too. The performing, being in front of the stage, I guess. Yeah, the bravery of being performing on a stage. I think that's right. I think she's got a little bit of Hufflepuff tendency just in that, like, if someone said they

didn't like Dolly Parton, I would be very concerned. She's just, like, supremely likable. Totally. And I think Hufflepuff's all about getting along. So yeah, I think Gryffindor with a slight Hufflepuff potential in there. Hufflepuff rising. Yeah, there we are.

There we are. Amazing. OK, do you think there's an over-representation of Gryffindors? 100% because they're the main characters in the book. And this is the fault of the text, but they write so much about Gryffindor and Gryffindor characters.

And they're kind of from Harry's perspective, so I get it. Yeah, totally. OK, this second cult leader, I hope you know who this is. Abby Lee Miller. Oh, of course. I don't. Those are such different responses. Living on a dance floor.

You're not familiar with the genesis of JoJo Siwa, Mike? Oh, I know JoJo Siwa. How does Abby Lee Miller fit into this? Is she her mom? That's a really good question. She's her dance mom. She's her cult leader. Oh, the dance mom.

Oh, OK, OK, OK. She's her dance mom. OK. OK, Sequoia, what do you think? Abby Lee Miller is just Slytherin. OK. Yeah. She feels correct.

Period, end of story. Yeah. Would bite you. That's it. Dead. Next up. I kind of, maybe for your sake, hope you don't know who this is. Yeah. Gary V. Oh, unfortunately, I kind of maybe for your sake hope you don't know who this is.

Yeah. Gary V. Oh, unfortunately, I do. I don't. Ah. Well, as the representative straight white male in the room. Exactly. I would say so it's funny because there's

a character in Harry Potter, Gilderoy Lockhart. He's basically like a storytelling snake oil salesman of like it's funny because there's a character in Harry Potter, Gilderoy Lockhart. He's basically like a storytelling snake oil salesman of like, it's all BS. So I kind of want to say he's like an evil Ravenclaw. Cause Ravenclaw believes that they're smart. Gary Vee like sounds like what he's saying is smart, but if you like have enough of a brain, you know that he's just conning people over.

So yeah, I think he's like very specifically a Gilderoy Lockhart Ravenclaw. Oh my god. Sequoia's one of those self-help, the business version, like a Jordan Peterson-ish type, but he's all like businessy and not like Andrew Tate macho. He's like a marketing guru. He's so annoying. Oh my god.

This is why diversity is important, so we can play this game. And Abby Lee Miller and Gary Vee can both be characters. I'm just gonna say she. Yeah. And then we meet back at the middle with Taylor Swift. Oh, no. I would think Gryffindor as well for similar Dolly Parton

reasons. This feels very difficult, because yes, she's a performer. So she's got the Gryffindor. However, she has Hufflepuff energy, but also she is one of the most prolific songwriters. She releases an album every 12 minutes. Oh my god, is she all of them?

Oh, she also has the reputation era, which was all snake themed. It's all snake imagery, yeah, I was gonna say. It seems like she wants to do this. Oh my god. Are her different eras in different houses? That's a good answer. Well, she's so bland that she doesn't fit into any. It seems like she wants to be a Slytherin. Are her different eras in different houses? That's a good answer.

Different eras in different houses is good. She's so bland that she doesn't fit into any. I think she just transcends them all. Well, she's a chameleon. She's a chameleon. Exactly. Yeah, I do think her different eras are different houses, for sure.

Our next cult leader, Elon Musk, sort that man. Oh, he wants to be a Ravenclaw so bad, and he's just not. He's just a Slytherin. He's just a bully Slytherin. But yeah, he wants to be either a Ravenclaw or a Gryffindor, and he's neither. OK, this one is another.

This is niche, except no, it's not. I don't know. The internet is so large. But well, there's background to this. Anyway, go. I'll explain after. Oh, wow. OK, so the last person to sort is Nara Smith.

Why do I know that name? I'm gonna give up. You know who Nara Smith is because her husband Lucky Blue Smith used to make Draco Malfoy TikToks, but he's Mormon and homophobic, so he got out. Oh, Nara, oh.

Yes, I know. She was the one that was like, I'm gonna make mozzarella cheese, but first I'm going to raise a cow from birth. OK, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh my god. I would say, oh, can I actually go little zag? Can she be in Beau Bataan, the very prim and proper

fancy French school where Fleur de la Cour is from? What is that? They just feel, at least in their movie representation, they have the fancy dresses and the nice hats and the flowery like, ah. And they have the fancy dresses and the nice hats and the flowery like, ah. And like, they have this Vila personality, or at least some of them are like part Vila, which like makes people fall under their spell and stuff.

So I'm gonna go with that, where it's just all of the like, oh. Mike, you're playing this game so well. I'm very competitive. Simply dang. Thank you for that zag. Yeah. There's no, there's no winning in this game so well. I'm very competitive. Please, dang. Thank you for that zag. Yeah. There's no winning in this game, but you won anyway.

Wow, incredible. Thank you so much for having this conversation with us. Thank you for playing our game. This was illuminating and like soothing, I wanna say. If folks can keep up with each of you and your work and your, you know, cult, dare I say, where can they up with each of you and your work and your you know cult dare I say where can they do that? You can find me I am Sequoia Simone on all the social medias you can find my podcast Fanatical Fix and Where to Find Them wherever podcasts can be found. I also

have another show that's not making new episodes anywhere but it's called But Make It Scary and there's a good back catalog of that if you like rom-coms and or horror movies, that one's a lot of fun. And then, yeah, Mike. So if you want to listen to the Harry Potter podcast that I made, it's called Potteryless. You can find it wherever you listen to podcasts. Then the Percy Jackson one that kind of spiritually succeeded

that is called The Newest Olympian. Also, wherever you get your podcasts, I have some other shows as well. And you can check out my website, which is just Schubes, S-C-H-U-B dot E-S for all that kind of stuff. And then if you search Mike Schubed, I'll be on Instagram and Blue Sky and Twitter and all that. But if you really like Sequoia and I together, we are currently working on a new podcast.

You can get all sorts of updates about it at patreon.com slash professional talkers. Since the two of us are full-time professional podcaster people, we are making a podcast about how to navigate through awkward conversations since we've had so many. And they've been on the internet publicly for everyone to listen to and ridicule. We've gone through the gauntlet of having

every type of awkward conversation, and now we're here to help you go through low stakes, low yikes ones like small talk at a party to big yikes ones like, how do I break up with someone or how do I ask for a promotion? So that's called professional talkers. Oh, what a great idea. Thank you so much.

Okay, Reese, out of our three cult categories, live your life, watch your back, and get the fuck out. Which do you think the cult of Harry Potter falls into? In a post-Joanne landscape, I think I'm going to call it a live your life. It seems like the people there are having a really good time and I can't fault them for it. You know, I made the argument in cultish that the way that people who are into like the

kink community have been described as sexual nerds, people who are into sort of fringy spiritual practices that you might even sometimes call a cult are kind of spiritual nerds. These are just nerds. Harry Potter fans are simply nerds. And it's sweet. And like, I imagine that there are little pockets of toxicity going on that our guests today aren't privy to. But the fact that they're so involved with this world, and they by their own admission, like, enjoy roasting the franchise, they are not against doing that. They were open to sharing fucked up shit and they're kind of just like wasn't Annie as the fandom exists today. You know what I mean? It almost feels like it's too large and expansive at this point now. Like it's too fractured to do serious harm as one cult-like presence, I think. Exactly, exactly.

Yeah, so I think the vibes are adorable, but adorable vibes alone are not enough to prevent something from becoming a destructive cult. But yes, the fact that it is fragmented at this point is kind of a good thing. So live your life. Live your life. Live your life, Potterheads, damn. Come at, Potterheads. Damn. Comment your Harry Potter house.

Comment your Harry Potter house. Watch. Somehow the most toxic Harry Potter fans are going to find this podcast. And you know what? Welcome. Welcome. Get on in here.

Well, that is our show. Thank you so much for listening. Stick around for a new cult next week. And in the meantime, stay culty. But not too culty. Sounds Like a Cult was created by Amanda Montell and edited by Jordan Moore of the PodCabin. This episode was hosted by Amanda Montell and Reese Oliver.

This episode was produced by Reese Oliver. Our managing producer is Katie Epperson. Our theme music is by Casey Cole. If you enjoyed the show, we'd really appreciate it if you could leave it five stars on Spotify or Apple podcasts. It really helps the show a lot. And if you like this podcast, feel free to check out my book, Cultish, the Language of Fanaticism, which inspired the show.

You might also enjoy my other books, The Age of Magical Overthinking, Notes on Modern Irrationality, and Wordslet, A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language. Thanks as well to our network, Studio 71. And be sure to follow the Sounds Like a Cult cult on Instagram for all the discourse at Sounds Like a Cult Pod, or support us on Patreon to listen to the show ad-free at patreon.com slash sounds like a cult pod or support us on Patreon to listen to the show ad free at patreon.com slash sounds like a cult. Calling all magical overthinkers in the Vancouver area, big announcement for you, you are invited to come spiral with me in person for a one night only live show at the Just for Laughs Festival in Vancouver Canada on Friday February 21st at 7pm. This live show is

called the Big Magical Cult Show, and it is so much fun. Not only does the show involve a deep dive analysis of parasocial relationships and celebrity worship, kind of like a magical Overthinkers episode on steroids, but there are also magical elements like drag and burlesque performances, brilliant special guests, custom overthinker merch and drinks. I mean, who wouldn't want to sip on a cocktail called the French 75 Reasons I Can't Sleep at Night? Am I right? There will also be a book signing, a meet and greet, and some truly over-the-top surprises that honestly can't be explained. They just have to be experienced. Tickets are available now at amandamontel.com slash events and make sure to snag one before they're sold out

because this is gonna be an intimate little gathering just for us over-thinkers. The big magical cult show is coming to the Biltmore Cabaret in Vancouver for one night only on February 21st and I hope to see you there.