# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
On TikTok, Gen Z "Harry Potter" fans edit themselves into the movies in a quest for escapism, representation and community.

Marjorie Law always wished she could go to Hogwarts. "With the magic of technology, I can see myself there," she said. She and other fans have found a niche on TikTok. Credit... Marjorie Law

Caroline Chou, 19, pins a green screen to the goldenrod walls of her childhood bedroom in San José, Calif. She's already changed into her uniform: a white button-down shirt, pleated skirt and green striped tie. A wand and heavy tome lie on the bed, in case she needs props.

Chou, who would normally be on campus at the University of California, Los Angeles, has adjusted to a new normal during the coronavirus pandemic. She spends her weeks clicking between online college courses and two remote, part-time jobs.

And on the weekends, she slips away to Hogwarts.

Caroline Chou, who uses a green screen to edit herself into scenes from "Harry Potter" movies, before working her post-production magic. Credit... Caroline Chou

Chou is among the many Harry Potter fans finding comfort and an escape from the pandemic with TikTok. Credit... Caroline Chou

Chou is one of many Gen Zers who has found her niche on Harry Potter TikTok, a corner of the app devoted to remixing, reliving and affectionately roasting the perennially popular franchise. Harry Potter TikTokers produce and devour their own fancam videos, memes, dances and trends. But millions of views go to videos like Chou's, where fans - predominately girls and women - are editing themselves into the movies.

These edits frequently give creators a chance to romance their favorite characters, à la Wattpad fan fiction. With strategic cuts or more advanced editing, users can star as "Harry Potter" protagonists, whose love interests include everyone from the Weasley twins to Luna Lovegood to - overwhelmingly - Draco Malfoy.

Self-insert videos also offer young fans, many of whom grew up with Harry Potter, comfort and escapism during the pandemic. After online classes, they can go to a potions lesson. Separated from their usual social lives, they can befriend other Potterheads on TikTok. And queer people and people of color, who have been notably marginalized in the Harry Potter universe, can finally become protagonists in the stories they've long adored.

Setup and costuming are just two steps in Chou's production. As she builds her universe over a Zoom interview, the Slytherin scours YouTube for clips from the "Harry Potter" movies, choreographs her scenes and films herself. Later, she'll use Adobe Premiere Pro to bring herself out of her green-screened bedroom and onto the Hogwarts campus through keying, masking and color correction.

The end result is a 12-second montage of her admiring five of the "Harry Potter" boys. The whole process takes about two hours, but some of her videos - which can be as long as 60 seconds - have taken up to 10.

Marjorie Law, a 22-year-old Slytherin in Santa Clarita, Calif., is similarly meticulous. In October, she spent about 10 hours editing herself into Harry's place in an early "Half-Blood Prince" scene, invisibility cloak and all.

For Chou and Law, Harry Potter edits double as wish fulfillment and professional practice. Chou, a film student who wants to be a director, got into TikTok after one of her professors encouraged her to stay creative during quarantine. Law studies digital media at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, and hopes to work in visual effects. Like most Harry Potter fans, they both grew up wishing they could attend Hogwarts.

"Now that I'm older, with the magic of technology, I can see myself there," Law said.

Creators like Chou, who is Taiwanese-American, and Law, who is Chinese-American, also add more racial diversity to the movies.

"It's a great opportunity for any person of color," said Belle Miranda, a 19-year-old TikToker and one of Law's nearly 80,000 followers. "I can write my own spinoff: What if a Latina Ravenclaw was inserted in the series?"

Emelee Chanthabury, 22, received multiple comments comparing her to Cho Chang, the only notable Asian character in the "Harry Potter" series, when she first started editing herself into the movies. Chanthabury, like Cho Chang, is a Ravenclaw who fancies Cedric Diggory. But the two look nothing alike: Chang is of Chinese descent, whereas Chanthabury is Laotian and white.

"It was weird, because I never saw myself as different; I never saw myself as a side character," Chanthabury explained. "I'm seeing myself as a main character in the story."

The experience has introduced Chanthabury to a community of fans like her. "When I go through my followers and my comments, it's all Asian women, and it brings me so much joy," she said.

This is one of Harry Potter TikTok's other major draws: Like the message boards and chat rooms of yore, fans are using the app to meet and befriend fellow Potterheads. They communicate in group chats on Instagram, Snapchat and by text messages. Sometimes, they even collaborate on videos together. Law uses Zoom with her Harry Potter friends - the self-christened "Hogwarts Cheeto Girls" - regularly, and just met one in person for the first time. Chou recently edited herself and Melina Spahn, a 20-year-old Hufflepuff from Germany, into a scene from "Order of the Phoenix."

"The fact that you live across the ocean and here we are fighting Death Eaters together," Spahn commented on the post. "I love this."

Image

From left, Mia Oberholzer, Erin McDonald and Emelee Chanthabury, taking a potions class together through collaborative video editing. They met on Harry Potter TikTok. Below, Marjorie Law always reaches out to Hogwarts. Credit... Erin McDonald

Erin McDonald, 19, has relied heavily on these friendships in the last few months. Her parents moved from her home state of Virginia to San Luis Obispo, Calif., during her first semester of college. So when quarantine forced McDonald to move back home, she found herself across the country from her childhood friends.

McDonald found solace in TikTok, quickly gaining more than 120,000 followers for her videos romancing the Quidditch captain Oliver Wood. She and Chanthabury have an ongoing video series with their friend, Mia Oberholzer, 19, a Slytherin from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Another of McDonald's TikTok friend groups, the "Harry Potheads," is comprised mostly of younger teenagers. They call her Papa Ernie, and the group meets on Zoom every night.

Ever the Hufflepuff, McDonald said her favorite thing about Harry Potter TikTok was its overwhelming positivity. When she found herself unwittingly at the center of some fandom drama in October, the issue was resolved with no hard feelings. On another account, she posts "Harry Potter" scene edits in which various characters encourage her eating disorder recovery.

As a bisexual woman, McDonald said she also wanted to create more space for fans like her, especially given what some see as the "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling's feeble attempts at gay representation. Rowling's recent comments about transgender people have likewise spurred legions of fans to make "Harry Potter" their own.

While other fans thirsted over Draco Malfoy, McDonald was one of the first users to edit herself into a relationship with Hermione Granger. Multiple creators followed suit, including Beth McAlpine, a 16-year-old Hufflepuff from London.

"It's like fixing a part of your childhood that was missing," McAlpine said.

@ernmcnugget
lowkey simp for draco n oliver but hadnt seen a wlw version yet and emma watson is😌<3 #wlw #hermione #draco #harrypotter
♬ give ur fav couple the hype - WOWBREY 💰🔒

The pull of childhood comforts is especially strong for young Americans today, with coronavirus cases climbing, a contentious presidential election just barely in the rearview mirror and an upcoming holiday season mired in travel restrictions. In the face of overwhelming uncertainty, Gen Z is fleeing our world for the safety of Harry Potter's. Of all the videos Oberholzer has made for her over 226,000 followers, the most-viewed shows her spending Christmas with the Weasleys.

Harry Potter TikTok is also closely linked to the "shifting" community on the app, where users try different techniques like meditation or visualization to enter a semiconscious state similar to lucid dreaming. Shifters will write scripts dictating what they want to do on their liminal adventures. At Hogwarts, their goals are almost universally lighthearted: whether making friends, finding love or doing class work, it's a privilege just to be there.

"It's currently 9 a.m. and I just woke up from a full five months at Hogwarts," one shifting video claims. "Take me back home, I hate it here."

Chou wants to shift to Hogwarts, but she hasn't been able to make it happen yet. Editing herself into the movies will have to do for now.

"Seeing myself actually in it - like physically, visibly in it - is so surreal," Chou said, after she was finished shooting for the day. She sat at her desk, a copy of "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" to her right.

"For those 30 seconds, I can pretend I'm there, and not in this world that is on the verge of collapse," she added.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
'Harry Potter' and the Prisoners of Quarantine

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
On TikTok, Gen Z "Harry Potter" fans edit themselves into the movies in a quest for escapism, representation and community. Caroline Chou, 19, pins a green screen to the goldenrod walls of her childhood bedroom in San José, Calif. She's already changed into her uniform: a white button-down shirt, pleated skirt and green striped tie.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Comic-Con International in San Diego recreated panels and viewing events for its online-only incarnation but left out ways for fans to interact. Our critic asks, what does that spell for the future of fandoms?

A digital panel featuring the members of the casts from three "Star Trek" shows on CBS All Access: "Discovery," "Picard" and the soon-to-premiere animated series "Lower Decks."

Every year, for several days in late July, the San Diego Convention Center is usually animated with people taking part in Comic-Con International. During the last few years, more than 130,000 convention attendees - lifelong fans, collectors, artists and culture vultures - swarmed the city for the event. It's nerd heaven: exclusive panels and screenings from big studios like Disney and FX, interactive fan experiences like gaming centers and meet-ups, vendors with discounts and deals and more.

But this year, for the first time in the 50-year history of Comic-Con - the oldest pop-culture convention in the world - there was no gathering. Instead, there were prerecorded panels on shows and movies on YouTube and a virtual exhibit hall. Comic-Con was online.

Because many fandoms have at least in part been associated with the internet and internet culture, it would seem an obvious transition, as though this Comic-Con could bring fandom back to its roots, so to speak, and invite the possibility of new avenues of fan interaction in the age of Covid-19. But the virtual event, called Comic-Con@Home, only showed how the convention failed to translate its most essential qualities technologically and conceptually. But the event also ultimately served as a lesson on fandom - how, even in times when entertainment industries and conventions are threatened, fandoms will continue to thrive and drive the culture.

Image

A crowd of cosplayers dressed up as zombies descended on Comic-Con International in San Diego in 2019. Credit... David Maung/EPA, via Shutterstock

A 2015 convention attendee costumed as the character Splinter from the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" franchise. Credit... John Francis Peters for The New York Times

In better times, there is nothing like a comic convention. I love cons like other people love the holidays, looking forward to them for months. Each one is like a living beast, bustling and humming for days on end as fans camp out in lines just to get a seat to a panel. The show floor is a mob of bodies, many costumed, wearing extra appendages, wings and tails, carrying faux weapons - Mjolnir here, a keyblade there - and thronging around booths buying wigs and T-shirts and comics and artwork. The air is humid with fan excitement, an energy so dense that it can overwhelm the senses.

This digital con did feature hundreds of panels, from the casts of several "Star Trek" shows and longtime convention stalwart "The Walking Dead" to panels about publishing and using comics in the classroom. Covid-19 itself inspired a number of events: on superhero fandoms during the pandemic, on fictional portrayals of the apocalypse and one considering zombie outbreaks in the context of the coronavirus.

The cosplay competition, usually a staged event with pageantry, gadgetry, glitz and intricate designs, moved to Tumblr. Watch parties - screenings of old favorites like "Space Balls" and "The Avengers" - were served via Scener, a browser extension that creates a "virtual movie theater" so that viewers can watch a movie in sync and chat on the side, in real time.

A screen grab of a prerecorded panel with Charlize Theron (top right) at Comic-Con International, which offered this year's programs online for free.

Overall, what could have been an adaptive, gratifying experience was instead a flimsy facsimile. The show floor became a two-dimensional map of the exhibit hall where it would normally have been held. When you hovered over a little square, the booth name popped up. But the layout wasn't practical or user-friendly; the online equivalent of walking and browsing amounted to individually clicking on hundreds of tiny rectangles just to see the vendors, many of whom didn't even list what they had in stock.

The prerecorded panels seemed cleaned up and sterilized. There were no technical glitches or unscripted awkward moments to worry about, which are always risks in livestream events, but there was also nothing human and spontaneous. One panel on Friday, "Charlize Theron: Evolution of a Badass," was an exquisitely polished one-on-one interview, full of interesting information and perfectly incorporated movie clips, but delivered like a lifeless promotional segment, with the star of "The Old Guard" sitting poised, talking-head style, before a blank white wall.

And yet, somehow, the execution was often clumsy. The editing of some of the panel clips was egregious, with responses bluntly cut together, like some of the segments in the "Star Trek" universe panel, which had the actors' responses squeezed together in quick succession, without any natural transitions. The inevitable actor slip-ups, when they drop spoilers to rounds of gasps and applause from the crowd, were censored, sometimes bleeped, sometimes with a flagrant "spoiler" sign plastered across the screen.

The panels also kept fans at a distance. Comments were disabled on YouTube, and Q. and A.s, usually full of excited attendees in cosplay asking earnest questions, were cut out. The companies were asked to produce their own content, so some simply sourced questions in advance from their fan base. So much for the element of surprise.

Even the tease of "exclusive" content - usually the world premieres of new episodes, movies and trailers - felt sucked dry of its marrow by the canned presentation. Can info dropped in a public YouTube video still be considered exclusive? Part of opening Comic-Con up to the internet and making it accessible means it losing its claim on exclusivity. The democratization of the con feels positive, at least conceptually; the "Star Trek" panel is at 65,000 views as of this writing, when the biggest hall at the convention center during the event had capacity for only 6,500.

The Coronavirus Outbreak ›

Frequently Asked Questions

Updated July 27, 2020

Should I refinance my mortgage?

It could be a good idea, because mortgage rates have never been lower. Refinancing requests have pushed mortgage applications to some of the highest levels since 2008, so be prepared to get in line. But defaults are also up, so if you're thinking about buying a home, be aware that some lenders have tightened their standards.

What is school going to look like in September?

It is unlikely that many schools will return to a normal schedule this fall, requiring the grind of online learning, makeshift child care and stunted workdays to continue. California's two largest public school districts - Los Angeles and San Diego - said on July 13, that instruction will be remote-only in the fall, citing concerns that surging coronavirus infections in their areas pose too dire a risk for students and teachers. Together, the two districts enroll some 825,000 students. They are the largest in the country so far to abandon plans for even a partial physical return to classrooms when they reopen in August. For other districts, the solution won't be an all-or-nothing approach. Many systems, including the nation's largest, New York City, are devising hybrid plans that involve spending some days in classrooms and other days online. There's no national policy on this yet, so check with your municipal school system regularly to see what is happening in your community.

Is the coronavirus airborne?

The coronavirus can stay aloft for hours in tiny droplets in stagnant air, infecting people as they inhale, mounting scientific evidence suggests. This risk is highest in crowded indoor spaces with poor ventilation, and may help explain super-spreading events reported in meatpacking plants, churches and restaurants. It's unclear how often the virus is spread via these tiny droplets, or aerosols, compared with larger droplets that are expelled when a sick person coughs or sneezes, or transmitted through contact with contaminated surfaces, said Linsey Marr, an aerosol expert at Virginia Tech. Aerosols are released even when a person without symptoms exhales, talks or sings, according to Dr. Marr and more than 200 other experts, who have outlined the evidence in an open letter to the World Health Organization.

What are the symptoms of coronavirus?

Does asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19 happen?

So far, the evidence seems to show it does. A widely cited paper published in April suggests that people are most infectious about two days before the onset of coronavirus symptoms and estimated that 44 percent of new infections were a result of transmission from people who were not yet showing symptoms. Recently, a top expert at the World Health Organization stated that transmission of the coronavirus by people who did not have symptoms was "very rare," but she later walked back that statement.

But it also signals the kind of paradigm shift that we've seen in the culture lately. Convention culture is no longer niche. In the past few decades, in the larger cons, that has meant a shift from a more fan- and industry-forward focus, prioritizing comics and art, to primarily working as publicity platforms for big moneymaking Hollywood franchises. Comic-Con@Home felt like the latter; it worked more effectively as a vehicle for company-controlled marketing.

The watch parties, usually buzzing with life - especially late ones, near the end of a long convention day, in a darkened room with other weary but still hyped-up fans - were polite and prosaic, with a few dozen people making brief comments but mostly waxing nostalgic about Comic-Cons of yore.

In fact, bittersweet nostalgia seemed to be this year's theme. On Twitter, fans appeared haunted by the ghost of cons past. They shared pictures of themselves in old cosplay or posing with celebrities. The images showed fans beaming, gathered in groups or with crowds around them, almost devastatingly close, it seems, considering how so much of our lives are now defined by distance - our measured attempts to keep others at least six feet away.

A panel of epidemiology, mental health and comics experts discuss how people confront disaster events and emergencies with art and fiction. Credit... n/a

In some sense, such distance feels antithetical to fandom. Because at its heart is an irrepressible sense of intimacy - intimacy with a book or movie or TV show or game that is then funneled into a sense of intimacy and kinship with others who feel the same way. The convention is, or should be, all about this communion: how someone costumed as Wonder Woman can sidle up to a Superman to pose for a serendipitous picture on the show floor; the way two anime fans will pair up and face off for an off-the-cuff Yu-Gi-Oh card duel; or the hush that falls over the audience before an advance screening of a widely anticipated new movie or TV show and all the fans seem to lean in, ever so slightly, together.

For all the ways internet culture has helped grow fandoms, with online communities and discussions, conventions have come to pave a new route to fandom and have made it more active and inclusive. And it was the committed convention fans who still managed to make this year's event something precious despite the circumstances. Would-be attendees shared pictures of themselves with their badges, dressing up their homes as the convention center. People showed their sleeping bags and tents, which would normally be set up for the wait for the most-hyped events. They set up their kitchen tables as concession stands. Instead of queuing up in a convention hall, they "queued up" in the hallways of their own houses.

These expressions aren't the entirety of fandom, which is so much older than convention culture - back to gatherings at comic book shops and gaming nights of Dungeons & Dragons. Fans have always worked with what they have.

And even though this is a summer without conventions and blockbusters, fandom has never been the point at which pop culture ends. Rather, fans take pop culture and give it a longer, more complex life that is self-sustaining, way beyond the last season of "Game of Thrones" or the ending of the last "Avengers." Even though 2020 pressed pause on much of pop culture, those who love it will still be here next year.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
When a Quarantine Comic-Con Keeps Fans at a Distance

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Comic-Con International in San Diego recreated panels and viewing events for its online-only incarnation but left out ways for fans to interact. Our critic asks, what does that spell for the future of fandoms? Every year, for several days in late July, the San Diego Convention Center is usually animated with people taking part in Comic-Con International.

# data[].attributes.body
Since we are not sure if our internet connection will be fixed by next Thursday, we recorded our extracts for you :)

# data[].attributes.headline
(1) Do not interfere with other civilizations (Prime Directive)

# data[].attributes.subject
(1) Do not interfere with other civilizations (Prime Directive)

# data[].attributes.body
(2) FedCon
(3) First Contact 2063
(4) Captains as heroes/role models

# data[].attributes.body
(1) Values and  morals
(2) Rituals and practices
(3) Myths and beliefs
(4) Structures and hierarchies

# data[].attributes.body
(1) Values and  morals
(2) Rituals and practices
(3) Myths and beliefs
(4) Structures and hierarchies

# data[].attributes.body
(1) Values and  morals
(2) Rituals and practices
(3) Myths and beliefs
(4) Structures and hierarchies

# data[].attributes.body
(1) Values and  morals
(2) Rituals and practices
(3) Myths and beliefs
(4) Structures and hierarchies

# data[].attributes.body
(1) Values and  morals
(2) Rituals and practices
(3) Myths and beliefs
(4) Structures and hierarchies

# data[].attributes.body
(1) Values and  morals
(2) Rituals and practices
(3) Myths and beliefs
(4) Structures and hierarchies

# data[].attributes.body
(1) Values and  morals
(2) Rituals and practices
(3) Myths and beliefs
(4) Structures and hierarchies

# data[].attributes.headline
Tourist Attractions for Trekkies? Even "USA Today" has a list:

# data[].attributes.subject
Tourist Attractions for Trekkies? Even "USA Today" has a list:

# data[].attributes.body
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/travel/destinations/10greatplaces/2017/07/21/star-trek/496573001/
Here: Vasquez Rocks, CA where Captain Kirk fought the Gorn and which often functioned as an alien planet, like Vulcan.

# data[].attributes.body
here is my travel brochure for all the Thronies!

# data[].attributes.body
This is for Malin, Katja and Wiebke.

# data[].attributes.body
This is for Natalie.

# data[].attributes.body
This is for Sophie.

# data[].attributes.body
This is for Helen, Francseca and Nina

# data[].attributes.body
This is for Anne.

# data[].attributes.body
It's a bit glitchy, but I hope you enjoy it a bit nevertheless :)

# data[].attributes.body
Just start the presentation - everything else should work by itself.

# data[].attributes.body
I have created another padlet. Click on the link to take a look: https://padlet.com/NathalieMer/9qgjvc8zmgc53q1c

# data[].attributes.body
Fantastic Beasts Survival Guide HP 1-7

# data[].attributes.body
And here are some example songs :)

# data[].attributes.headline
This is what Natalie's Padlet looks like. Check it out! 

# data[].attributes.subject
This is what Natalie's Padlet looks like. Check it out! 

# data[].attributes.body
Here is my (Helen's) presentation on Kpop :)

# data[].attributes.headline
and here are our notes for the presentation

# data[].attributes.subject
and here are our notes for the presentation

# data[].attributes.body
This is for Clara and Julian.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It seems you are either blocking or disabling Javascript on your browser, and we totally get that. However this endpoint uses Angular, so the front end is in full JavaScript and won't work without it.

There might be numerous reasons you refuse to use JavaScript. If it just has to do with security (or lack thereof) of JavaScript-based web applications, then depending on your threat menace you might want to go through the code running on the node you are trying to access, and look for security audits.

There will be other non JS-based clients to access PeerTube, but for now none is available. Be sure we will update this page with a list once alternative clients are developed. You can certainly develop your own in the meantime as our code is open source and libre software under the GNU AGPLv3.0 and documented on docs.joinpeertube.org.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It seems you are either blocking or disabling Javascript on your browser, and we totally get that. However this endpoint uses Angular, so the front end is in full JavaScript and won't work without it. There might be numerous reasons you refuse to use JavaScript.

# data[].attributes.headline
here is our presentation on One Direction!

# data[].attributes.subject
here is our presentation on One Direction!

# data[].attributes.body
by Nina & Francesca

# data[].attributes.body
Here you go!

# data[].attributes.body
If you are interested you can watch the presentation and listen to us talking about one of our favorite video game series. Enjoy :)

# data[].attributes.body
An incredibly catchy tune made as a Tribute to the ME Universe.