Who could’ve ever guessed that the harbinger of the far left’s descent into irrelevancy would come from a Harry Potter video game?
“Hogwarts Legacy,” the much-hyped video game released Friday, has been an unequivocal, raging, rampant success by virtually any metric — despite the absolute best efforts by progressive activists to turn the video game into the next victim of “cancel culture.”
Apparently, for many on the left, “Hogwarts Legacy” was irredeemably stained for being the brainchild of noted “TERF” (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) and Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling.
Rowling, as you’ll recall, has been painted as a villain for having the nerve to think (and speak aloud) that women are women and men are men.
Due to Rowling’s perceived “transphobia,” activists called for “Hogwarts Legacy” to be boycotted into oblivion, claiming that every purchase of the game added a little notch to the inevitable royalty check Rowling would receive. Of note, Rowling had virtually no direct involvement with the game.
Indeed, naysayers appeared to genuinely be out for blood because even when word got out that there was a transgender character in the game and that Rowling had no input on the game’s direction or story, leftists wanted the game killed.
Here’s one transgender activist hyper-focusing on one voice actor from the game (and note, the opening criticism is that the actor is a supporter of former President Donald Trump):
Greg Ellis is a Trump-supporting anti feminist who distributed revenge porn of his wife, had a restraining order for domestic violence, and is now banned from seeing his children. He voiced 12 characters in Hogwarts Legacy. pic.twitter.com/Iqq77gNhCD
— Eli Erlick (@EliErlick) February 11, 2023
Here’s another activist sharing a story that compares the immeasurable pain caused by Hogwarts to the immeasurable pain caused by… Chick-fil-A.
WARNING: The following tweet contains text that the reader may find offensive
a friend posted this on IG and I wanted to share it here because it hits at the heart of what a lot of trans ppl are feeling when we see “allies” buying hogwarts legacy pic.twitter.com/OaV8s7KQJ5
— St. Vincent Price (@muddaub) February 10, 2023
Here’s another activist, in a Twitter post that’s too obscene for publishing here, who is apparently completely missing the irony of her regretting a permanent alteration of her body (tattoos in this case) when she was too young to know any better.
The harassment has continued even after the game’s released, with activists intentionally posting spoilers on the internet and even creating a website (since taken down) that was meant to “out” any users who would stream or play the game online. One review, written by an avowedly transgender individual (who is clearly an unbiased reviewer), gave the game a 1 out of 10, an obvious outlier amid a sea of otherwise sterling review scores.
It’s all juvenile, petulant flailing. In other words, it’s a textbook example of what passes for “activism” to the far left.
Well, all the hysteria and histrionics in the world didn’t do much at all for that particular far-left subset of liberals. The official “Hogwarts Legacy” Twitter account tweeted out as much:
The reviews are in and they’re absolutely magical! #HogwartsLegacy pic.twitter.com/sTfefzhN3S
— Hogwarts Legacy (@HogwartsLegacy) February 11, 2023
Thanks to YOU #HogwartsLegacy is officially the #1 Single Player game ever on @Twitch with 1.28M peak concurrent viewers at launch. pic.twitter.com/xRebFwUqD4
— Hogwarts Legacy (@HogwartsLegacy) February 9, 2023
CNN reported that the game was setting sales and viewership records before even being released, thanks to its pre-sales.
Anyone who’s in the gaming world can also tell you that “Hogwarts Legacy” is a very big deal right now. It’s all anyone wants to talk about. It’s all anyone wants to make content for. It’s all anyone wants to play.
In fact, on the world’s biggest video game streaming site, Twitch, “Hogwarts Legacy” on Sunday morning registered 224,000 viewers, putting it in the top five (the phenomena of people watching people play video games is a different topic for a different time).
The smashing critical and commercial success of “Hogwarts Legacy” makes one thing abundantly clear: People are sick and tired of being sick and tired of being told what and how to think by the far left. And there is now mounting evidence that people are being desensitized to the left’s abhorrent screeching.
Roseanne Barr? Canceled in 2018, back on television.
Zachary Levi? Attacked in January, still a movie star.
Tony Romo? Attacked in 2021, still a lead NFL analyst.
Joe Rogan? Attacked constantly, virtually bulletproof at this point.
These aren’t isolated, ancient incidents. These are all relatively recent developments.
Which is all to say: Perhaps there is some semblance of normalcy returning to this country. Perhaps the left has overplayed its hand to the point that it’s backfiring (“Hogwarts Legacy” almost assuredly enjoyed the benefits of the Streisand effect). Perhaps everyday Americans are finally starting to hear the teachers from “Peanuts” every time the left whines and complains.
Sorry, not sorry, leftists.
You guys lost this culture battle in a staggeringly embarrassing fashion.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
