Pottermore's "Hogwarts' Indoor Plumbing" Tweet
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About
Pottermore's "Hogwarts' Indoor Plumbing" Tweet refers to a tweet sent out by the Twitter account for Pottermore, an online destination for Harry Potter fans, which stated that prior to the invention of indoor plumbing, wizards used to defecate where they stood and use magic to make the feces disappear. The moment led to widespread parody of author J.K. Rowling's penchant for adding details to the Harry Potter universe well after the publication of the books.
Origin
On September 22nd, 2015, J.K. Rowling posted an essay to Pottermore[1] explaining the Chamber of Secrets and the invention of indoor plumbing at Hogwarts. In the essay, Rowling wrote:
However, when Hogwarts’ plumbing became more elaborate in the eighteenth century (this was a rare instance of wizards copying Muggles, because hitherto they simply relieved themselves wherever they stood, and vanished the evidence)…"
On January 4th, 2019, the Pottermore Twitter account tweeted the factoid as part of "#NationalTriviaDay,"[2] gaining over 19,000 retweets and 75,000 likes (shown below).
Spread
The tweet quickly led to exasperated complaining among Harry Potter fans tired of J.K. Rowling's post-publication canonical additions to the series' universe. User @Steve_Foxe tweeted a comparison to the extended Harry Potter universe and the extended Star Wars universe (shown below, left). User @DanaSchwartzzz posted an exasperated tweet imagining that Harry had defecated himself in the final confrontation with Voldemort (shown below, right).
Rowling's tendency to add miscellaneous details has also been parodied by notable YouTubers. On October 18th, 2018, Gus Johnson posted a skit about it that gained over 1.8 million views (shown below, left). ProZD posted a sketch in direct reference to the tweet the day after it was posted, gaining over 603,000 views in four days (shown below, right). A question about the parodies was posted to /r/OutOfTheLoop,[3] gaining over 3,000 points in less than 24 hours.
Various Examples
Search Interest
Unavailable
External References
[1] Pottermore – Chamber of Secrets
[2] Twitter – @pottermore
[3] Reddit – What’s up with all the parody’s about JK Rowling and Harry Potter lately?
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