Harry Potter: The Pop Culture Phenomenon

Krissy Edmonds
18 min readSep 28, 2019

20 years later, he is still relevant

Photo by Artem Maltsev on Unsplash

Harry Potter is a major player in popular culture, that fact is undeniable. The novels by J.K. Rowling, the movies, the merchandise associated with both, clothing, housewares, unauthorized books making speculations of the how and why, websites, message boards and even a genre of music have brought Harry Potter to the cultural forefront. When you say Harry Potter or J.K. Rowling everyone will have some idea what you are talking about, it is culturally understood throughout the world. Harry Potter has gotten kids away from video games and the television, it has gotten adults reading again as well, but mostly it has made a huge cultural impact around the world. The story of the boy who lived, and his trials and tribulations through school has been able to reach out and touch all ages, despite having a lot of the determining factors of success working against it, Harry Potter was able to become more than a success, but a phenomenon in the literary world. This phenomenon spread outside the literary world and has had an amazing effect on popular culture as well, creating a Harry Potter phenomenon world wide.

Reading has not been wildly popular since the introduction of video games. Children have been more interested in what is on cable television, or the video game they are currently playing than in picking up a book…

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