Honestly, this shit with Hogwarts Legacy is just like what happened with Chick-fil-A like ten or fifteen years ago. Some of y'all might be too young to remember it, but it went almost exactly like this shit today, only the target was technically gay people (not like we aren't all lumped together when push comes to shove, but gay was the political scapegoat in US politics at the time, as trans people were still on the fringes of social awareness).

It came out that the people who own Chick-fil-A were donating to organizations in other countries that were actively working to get gay people there killed, and were also very monetarily invested in stripping gay people of any legal rights they'd amassed in the US. So a lot of queer folks were asking for allies to boycott Chick-fil-A to show solidarity.

And it turned into a giant fuckin circus for bigots to rally around. There was even a support Chick-fil-A day, I remember it because I was a server at the time and our restaurant was empty most the day - while the line for Chick-fil-A down the road was like a mile long consistently.

But while that was obviously annoying, that wasn't what hit people the hardest. Cuz we expect clowns to wear the shoes, right, it's not shocking.

What disappointed people, or really demoralized a lot of young queers at the time especially, was the allies who would still go there. Because they like the sandwiches or fries or whatever. The people who'd march with them in the parade or be supportive of marriage equality, who would then turn right around and give their money to people who were trying to actively harm their friends.

Because the chicken was good.

I remember a friend of mine being really just absolutely broken up over that, trying to understand some of her friends reasoning and at the time I couldn't give her an answer. I could now, though.

And it's this:

Talk is cheap.

It costs nothing to say things. A person can say whatever the hell they want, any feel good flowery thing, and it doesn't really cost them.

But when they are asked to actually give something up - or put their money where their mouth is and just....can't do it. Well then there isn't much else for them to say, is there? At least nothing that's worth anything.

Some people had to find out the hard way that the choice between a chicken sandwich and funding people who did not believe in their dignity as a human being was, in the eyes of certain allies, apparently really hard. Too hard, in fact.

These allies would march in the colorful parades and go to the bars for drinks, but in the end, you couldn't actually depend on them to inconvenience themselves. They were fair weather allies, and they were there for the party and that's about it . They wanted entertainment, and it didn't matter if that came from having fun gay friends or a tasty sandwich.

This is the same thing, really, or pretty close to it.

These types of people just wanna have fun. Either you, their friend or whatever, are fun or the game is fun, and if you stop being fun by incidentally making them feel a little guilty about where they spend their money , then they might just choose the thing that doesn't make them currently uncomfortable.

And I'm not saying these people who say trans rights online but who also really, really want to play wizard game and already have are horrible people or anything - they're just not very good. They have no real character. And unfortunately there's not much you can do to change that, other than investing time and energy in people who do.

They're also being asked to give up the smallest possible thing. To not eat one type of chicken sandwich, in a world where multiple other fast food options exist. To not play one badly-made wizard game in a sea of computer games. They could not be asked to give up less and this is too big a price to pay; they are proving that they will do literally nothing to stand by us. Meaning that when they say 'gay rights' or 'trans rights' or 'I support Jewish people', they are lying. The bar is lying on the ground and they refuse to simply step over it. If they won't avoid a computer game or a sandwich, are they going to make any material effort to stand with us? Would they ever actually risk or spend anything to protect us? No! They're proving right now that they won't! And then lying to our faces about it with pithy facebook messages and showing up to marches!

These people are not allies, they're pretending for woke points, and moment like this are great for giving us data on who we can actually trust and who we can't. These boycotts are literally the bare minimum of support, it is actually impossible to do any less and still be counted as supporting.