You Get What You Deserve When You Correct JK Rowling on Twitter

By Phoenix Tso | May 7, 2014 | 10:50pm

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So an incredibly condescending man corrects JK Rowling’s grammar on twitter, she subtweets him, and then an army of French teenagers descend on the poor man. That’s basically the story, right?

Wrong. Because that incredibly condescending man has taken to the Daily Dot to try and drum up sympathy for all those Gallic Harry Potter fans calling him an asshole in French.

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First the offending tweet and sub-tweet (see what I did there?):

Cook then breathlessly describes how quickly people started to speculate who “James” was, and then how quickly people – especially French teenagers – started flooding his mentions when he gathered all the tweets in his timeline, to the point that his name started trending on the site.

That’s funny and all, but I think the real story here is how Cook tries to play it off like he’s being neutral in his piece, with only a sense of wonder at how crazy Rowling and her fans acted. Meanwhile he peppers his essay with passive aggressive sentences about how irrelevant he finds the author:

For some unknown reason, Harry Potter is still a very big deal in France. While the rest of the world has moved on to The Hunger Games, J.K. Rowling still demands considerable respect from French teenagers.

Despite it being years since J.K. Rowling has done anything of note, her fans are as passionate as ever.

So what did I learn after J.K. Rowling subtweeted me?

Well, first of all: Harry Potter is still a big deal. The series, first published 17 years ago, still commands a devoted fandom.

Hey, James Cook, be careful there before all those Casual Vacancy and The Cuckoo’s Calling fans descend on you.

Here’s the kicker, in the intro:

J.K. Rowling is definitely better at creating imaginary worlds filled with magic and teenage angst than she is at using social media. Her 3 million followers are treated to regular messages about charities, sports teams, and announcements about her new books. But, having enjoyed the Harry Potterseries as a child, I thought I’d help J.K. Rowling out by tweeting her some advice. I was ill-prepared for what would happen next.

I don’t know, based on the response, Rowling seems pretty adept at social media to me.

Image via Getty.