Post #3 - The Online Magic

Literary culture is the physical manifestation of the collective network created and shared between those in a community who share literary interests. It’s the combination of ideas and art and literature that was created by the people who were brought together by a common piece of literature. For example, the hundreds of millions of fans of Harry Potter have done everything from speculating about unsolved mysteries to drawing their versions of scenes in the books to writing their own additions or alternative endings to the books. People have made friends and relationships and have had hundreds of hours of entertainment because JK Rowling scribbled an idea for a book down on a napkin on a train.

I’ve never ‘liked’ an author’s Facebook page. I’ve ‘liked’ specific works of theirs, but that was more of a way for me to let others know that I’ve read said piece of literature and for me to kind of document what I read. I’ve never really been interested in an author’s personal life. I love reading, it’s one of my favorite things to do, but I like to read about adventure and mystery and the such, not about where the author got the idea or where they were born or that they have a kid named George who likes baseball. But that’s just me. I’ve always assumed that literary figures create these technological personas in order to connect with the readers who are interested in that. As I’m going down the biographical information section on JK Rowling’s Facebook fan page, all I see is exactly that; a history of her personal life and the story behind the story. It seems that this is a way for readers to identify with the author, and in some ways “normalize” JK Rowling, make her a normal person. But when you scroll down the wall, you get a slightly different feeling. You get a feeling of community and friendship.

As you go down the wall, you see posts from fans about how Harry Potter has affected their life, or for people to connect with other people who might identify with a particular character, or pretty much anything. In this digital age, people have found it easier and more important than ever to create social interactions with more than just the community they live in. We have access to people around the world, and by taking advantage of that, we expand our interests, our group of friends, and our general happiness. By looking at these online communities, we learn much more than we learn by simply reading the book and leaving it at that. We learn more about the world imagined and created by the author, and we learn about how certain elements in that piece of literature are applicable in real life. Someone might pull an idea or a concept from literature that you may not have thought of in 10 lifetimes, and that alone makes these online personas worthwhile. It’s not even the author’s persona itself, but how the author uses it to develop a community where people can learn and have fun.