I was a huge Potterhead back in the day (well…I still am, just not as obsessed). I know the books are great and all, I know how addictive her writing style is, that she can create such vivid and engaging characters and places, and the stories keep you hungry for more…but IMO that still does not completely explain the insane hype that generated. I don’t think there has ever been this level of mania and craze for a book – a children’s/YA book for that matter. So I am wondering, what are some of the factor that led to the hype? I’ve heard things like the rise in Internet (and internet fandom), JKR’s rags-to-riches story, etc all contributed. So for those who have been there, what was the mania like at that point, and what factors (aside from the quality of the books themselves) that lead to it?
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The hype really took off after book 4, and I think it was because we were all left with a cliff hanger and had to wait for each of the next books. While we were waiting, we wanted to talk about what it all meant and what might happen next. This drove a huge online community of speculation. Once book 7 was released, that community wasn’t really needed anymore.
Also, because we had to wait so long for each book, the excitement around the releases for 5-7 was intense. Book release parties, pre-ordering, lines around the block at midnight- all of these captured the attention of new readers and spread the word.
I didn’t like the books but loved the movies. They were advised with so much. The summer school near me had Harry Potter class where you got to pretend to be apart of that world. My family had one of the board games, we would look forward to the movies and go during cheaper times/days. Growing up with the characters was definitely a thing. Who wouldn’t want to pretend there was something magical/better somewhere
It happened to be the right place, at the right time. It was a fine book that happened to be at a time when the internet where it could speak like wildfire but before any real literary critique. Then it got a lot of media attention.
Honestly, it just happened to be Johnny on the spot. Because if you critique the books, they’re just a standard Children’s to Young Adults Fantasy Series, they’re probably a little poorly written compared to a lot of others in that space. But they just gained so much momentum.
Wish fulfillment is powerful, and I don’t think that has been tapped very much before with books for kids. It was also appearing right as things were capable of going viral as we know it today.
In 3rd-ish grade one of my classmates said “My mom won’t let me read Harry Potter because it’s witchcraft!”
And my kid-self thought “…wait that’s the point though? It’s a story book. So the story is witchcraft. The book ITSSELF isn’t witchcraft and it doesn’t teach you witchcraft does it??”
So I checked it out from the library and wham-bam-thank-you-maam I loved the books.
I remember thinking this was so bizarre because I went to a Catholic elementary school and we read it in class. But that was in Alberta and catholic schools are basically the same as public schools so a lot of parents will just put their kids in them if they’re better then the public school in the area
I had a kind of opposite experience where I was really into them around 3rd/4th grade…then my family transferred me from public school to a private religious school where the teachers were actively campaigning against the books (because GASP witchcraft), so I ended up never finishing the series past the fourth book.
I actually feel very robbed bc I was at just the right age to be growing up with them and didn’t get to have that experience due to religious bullshit :(
I had a coworker who was complaining that his 4th grace niece had to read it for class and I said “yeah, that’s a pretty long book to assign” and his response was “Long? I’m mad because it teaches the black arts!” I learned a lot about him that day.
The documentary Jesus Camp had an individual who implored her younger congregants to avoid the Harry Potter novels because of those claims of witchcraft.
The first Harry Potter book got a ton of media coverage. A lot of it had to do with the surprise that literature was still capable of getting young people excited about reading. The Internet was relatively new, at that point, and cable TV was still a really big deal.
yeah i think it’s also because back then, we didn’t have booktoks and bookstagrams and blogs and goodreads and amazons and all the other avenues where tons and tons of books are advertised and talked about all day every day.
back then you either heard about books from your friends or the media, or you went to the library and explored for yourself.
when a book series got attention it got a lot of it because everyone’s attention wasn’t divided in all these different places, we all watched the same channels and read the same magazines.
Yeah I think it happened at the exact magic moment where the internet had the ability to reach almost everybody, but everybody hadn’t figured out that they could use the internet to reach pretty much any crazy thing they wanted yet, so for a hot minute (or more like a decade from 1997 to about 2007) it was this very powerful engine that was able to turn everyone’s attention to the exact same things.
Yeah, the thing is, if you actually look at the Harry Potter Series, they’re actually kinda bad; at minimum, no better than any other book series of the time.
What book series from that time do you think is at HP level? Honestly, as far as children’s fantasy books go, I think the Hobbit and Narnia are the only ones from before HP that are even close.
I worked at Barnes and Noble before the 4th book came out and it was such a fun time. We did readings and the kids were just out of their minds over Harry Potter, even correcting us when we mispronounced words or names. E.g. it’s how I learned how to say Hermione. “It’s HER-MY-OH-KNEE!” out of the mouth of babes.
I remember in Germany the hype really started with the first movie. We had the first book in our school library and I remember an acquaintance told me the book is great and my 18 year old self was like “but isn’t that for children…? Meh” then I watched the movie and was hooked, along with everyone else.
This. That plus the spin that the publisher put out that “these books were getting kids who didn’t read to read for the first time”. Well, ultimately it did but it was because of the artificial hype than anything specific about the books themselves. Parent heard that these books were very popular, non bookish kids liked them - even if that wasn’t true - and bought them.
My memory may be betraying me - I was a kid when they came out - but my memory is off reading the first one shortly after it came out with no context that it was the new big thing and then a few months later it being this big sensation. My understanding is it became a big deal by word of mouth first and then the publishers caught up and magnified that
The publishers knew it was a big deal. The CEO at Scholastic had to approve the deal because the advance - which by today’s standards is modest - was considered massive at the time.
No one could have predicted what it would become though. Same with Hunger Games. Also Scholastic. She was an in house author but the building shook when that book came in.
All I can say is I saw the author on Oprah (2010) and the book sounded interesting so I purchased it and started to read it to my sons (7 and 12). My 12 year old never really read with out being prompted until we started to read this book before bed. He became impatient and started to read the book on his own and then read every other book as soon as I could get them for him.
These are just really great books that people feel connected to, but I agree with others that having access to others online who were excited about the books probably had a major impact on the depth and longevity of the fandom. People need to feel connected to others and sharing a love for the books and movies connected people.
For me it was the world building. The thought of a secret magical world that exists along side with ours in modern time sounded amazing.
The books also came out when I was around the same age as the characters, going to school, worrying about exams, holidays, crushes, etc. As the books were released it felt like I was growing up along with the characters as well. The books really helped me get through times and the releases gave me something to look forward to.
I’m very introverted and usually avoid people, but during the book and movie releases, I felt quite connected to people however brief that was. I think it’s the same for most fandoms.
I think this is it. It wasn’t just a story to escape into, it was an entire world. Harry Potter fans can talk about cities and sports and schools and historical events that simply do not even exist. It’s crazy.
I also think that the three primary characters are different enough that most people can identify with at least one of them.
For me it was the world building. The thought of a secret magical world that exists along side with ours in modern time sounded amazing.
But the World Building is no better than any books of the era. Indeed, there were plenty of other books that were far better world building around that same time. Like Wheel of Time has a far deeper, richer magic systems. His Dark Material is similar vibes and a far better magical systems. Others include The Magicians.
To each their own on what satisfies their imagination. If you happen to find another series that you like better, good on you. Doesn’t make one better than the other.
The books you are comparing it to are all written for adults or at least much older. Harry Potter was leaps and bounds better than the other children’s books at the times
Same
One factor to consider is the state of the YA genre c. 2000. Nowadays, kids ages 13-17 have TONS of books they can read that are targeted to their demographic, especially in the fantasy and paranormal category. But when Harry Potter was popular, young adult wasn’t established as it is now. In short, there were fewer options.
Presumably Scholastic publishing the books in the US also helped a lot as Scholastic basically had (and still has to an extent) a monopoly on book sales at schools.
HP single-handedly created the YA genre if I am not mistaken. Obviously there were books for teens (which is what YA is), but YA as a separate literature/marketing category did not exist. Now YA is the most lucrative genre. And pretty much all the successful YA books (Twilight, Hunger Games etc) followed the same style as HP: being a series instead of a single book, online fandom culture, big budget movies etc.
Yeah, this isn’t really accurate. There were very popular YA series around at the time - Babysitters Club and Sweet Valley High strike me as two.
I loved Baby-Sitters Club and Sweet Valley High. I read all the books, watched the movies, and tv shows.
I would agree with this. Not to say that they were the first but they definitely created the demand. I used to work with children books and HP was originally categorized with children’s chapter books but eventually had to be broken out into “teen” books until bookstores started all having YA depts to fully bridge the gap.
I think it was the idea of being a school you actually wanted to go to, rather than the boring place you were actually trapped in while reading it.
In England, the chattering classes’ obsession with the boarding schools they did not attend, runs very deep. You can see this in lots of media, arguably in Saltburn, Never Let Me Go too
Of course, many of the characters are bored at their magical school.
I can somehow understand purebloods, but I don’t understand how muggleborns are so disinterested in learning magic. You are accepted to a wizardry school just after learning there is magic, and you spend your whole time there sitting in your common room gossiping while drinking pumpkin juice, really?
In reality we don’t really see much of what goes on outside of the trio, and we know Hermione sure as shit wasn’t just sitting around gossiping and sipping pumpkin juice.
Snape’s not a great example, but he was spending his free time (at least part of it) developing better ways to brew potions and inventing spells.
From what we know of Lily she was pretty similar to Hermione in that she was really engaged with all the magic stuff.
Maybe the good students just weren’t the interesting ones because, no matter how cool the magic, doing it in the confines of the classroom or workshopping new spells in their free time doesn’t sell the action and the drama.
This happens in real life. Not every subject is that interesting. People will break their backs to get accepted to their dream school but eventually they’ll get bored of it and slack off.
The wonder probably wore off after the first year.
One can think of it by analogy to STEM subjects.
Lots of people love jet planes and robots and rockets and fancy chemical reactions.
Lots fewer people love figuring out why their computational fluid dynamics simulation doesn’t converge, how to program a visual learning system to tell a ripe apple from an unripe one, how thick the combustion chamber wall needs to be, or fucking titration.
Similarly, there’s probably lots of people who love the idea of magic and even the practical parts of it, but writing essays about the uses of dragon blood, not so much.
I’m sorry but, I have never been as excited about ML as I am at the thought of being capable of literal magic. You give me Harry Potter world magic, a wand, and a room of requirement and I’ll be damned if anyone sees me for years.
I would have absolutely been in constant trouble for not doing the homework, magic school or not.
Kind of a theory I’ve been workshopping, but in my opinion one of the reasons no subsequent YA series has managed to replicate Pottermania is that Harry Potter itself led to a fracturing of the market. That, combined with some of its most popular successors/competitors failing to have competent movie adaptations (cough Percy Jackson cough) led to it being such a singular pop culture moment.
The amount of time I spent online on forums chatting about theories, reading fan fics, etc, man those were the days of the internet. There is no where I feel like that online anymore. I used to on Reddit but it’s different now too.
I was there, standing in line with my tween children at best at midnight waiting for the last few books. When we got it home grandpa read it to the kids over the course of several weeks (they could read themselves but then the fights would have been endless and spoilers, omg). And I would read it after they were in bed, usually finishing in a few days.
I agree, I’ve never seen anything like it as a kid or parent, and I don’t think we ever will again. The internet has caused our culture to fragment and just like no one at the office talks about that amazing sitcom episode the next day there won’t be such a publishing phenomenon again in my opinion.
Why? I think it was legitimately driven by the kids and the awesome story and how that story grew up with the kids. The first couple of books were popular but not that popular. It built up over the years. JKR was not only a reliable writer publishing on schedule, but her world was so intricate, it was like the most delicious candy. The midnight book sales were pure marketing and pure genius. I think the last three got that treatment? But it was authentic, it wasn’t fake or PR feelings. The kids and their parents loved the books.
I can’t think of a single parallel with any other children’s book. Maybe Roald Dahl comes closest as I think hard.
I think your comment best describes what happened. My son was 7 when the first book came out. My husband bought it to read to him but quickly read it himself first ( basically devoured it). I remember being thrilled that we had a book that especially got both boys and girls reading it. It was truly a phenomenon. Early internet for the first books. Now there is so much noise over everything that it’s hard to tell what is being pushed versus what is being driven by word of mouth.
My daughter (9 at the time) was invited to a Harry Potter party and I was invited to stay. The moms all told me about the books (I hadn’t heard of them before then). This was a year before the 4th one came out. I bought the first three and we were both immediately hooked. I loved the books, liked the movie. Now I am hooked on her Strike series. She really knows how to weave a story and the more you read, the more you learn.
I miss it. That was the best part of my summer any time a Harry Potter book came out.