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Welcome to Go Touchgra. Go Touchgra. The podcast where we log in. No, you can mug off. Wow, guys. I have brought something today for this search history that it couldn't have been evoted on search history because no one would have voted for it because I'm like the only person in the world who would know what to do. Well, apparently not, but also you brought it up. And I was like, yeah, just do it. Don't even ask, just do it. And now I regret that. You should be scared. Everyone listening should be scared because today's topic is truly from the depths of Harry Potter, early 2000s, Harry Potter online fandom. In a way that is I thought I knew about this topic. And then as I was researching it more, I was truly shaken to my core by what I learned. OK, um, yeah. Today we were talking about snake lives. OK, so I texted you to ask if we could do this bit this topic. And I was like, Millie, have you ever heard of this? And you were just like, at least no. Why would I? Why would you have heard of this? OK, so one thing I want to shout out before we begin is that I got a lot of this information from a creator who her name is Biz, which is funny because that's my cat's name. Her handle is up in your biz on YouTube and TikTok. And she did literally a three hour long, like deep dive philosophical video essay about the snake. Why as well, and we are not going that deep here. I really just want to shout out youtubers like that because the thing is that they take something and they summarize it and whatever. And then we take from literally even more. I could never have done the research required to like uncover a lot of this information because like I said, a lot of it is from the early internet. So you have to go into like archive.org to find a lot of this stuff. So, OK, before I get into this topic, I have to ask you, what do you know about the character Severus Snape? Well, I read all the books. OK, so then you know, you know his whole lore. Yeah, like he was like moody and a dick, but he's really nice. I could see the appeal of like why that's attractive to a girl because it's kind of like beauty and the beast kind of like he's an asshole, but he really has good intentions, which I told you, the French guy I used to date, he majored in literature like he got his or he liked to his mom, but whatever. But he told me that beauty and the beast was actually like propaganda for poor people to like feel bad about rich people like post like around. That's really interesting. Like, look how sad look how sad and like he's like, they're good people. They just may be monsters on the outside, but in the inside and all this stuff. So so that I could see that appeal, but Snape was a dick. Yes. So OK, for anyone listening, I mean, it's insane. If you're listening to this episode and you're like, you don't know literally exactly about Harry Potter, but in case Snape is like anti hero. He's the teacher. He's a pushing teacher. He's mean to Harry. We later find out that he was bullied by Harry's dad. And Harry's dad's friends. Yeah, I know like he was like wizard racist also. And then wait, the dad was Snape, Snape was wizard racist. Oh, OK, but also Harry's dad shouldn't have bullied him. I don't know, but I don't know. I think I think that James is more complicated than that. OK, but it is like people are like, oh, feel bad for a snake, but then Snape calls Lily the wizard inward. OK, but I thought he had a I thought he had a crush. Yes, but he's caught still calls her the wizard inward. Wow, and that's why they stop being friends. Wow. And then she is my muggle. Yeah, he says my blood, my blood, my blood. He calls her that in front of everybody, even though secretly they've been really good friends since they were children. Wow. And he calls her wizard inward. And then when he finds out Voldemort is going to kill her and James, he asks Voldemort to spare just her, not her husband and her child. But then when Voldemort isn't really going to do that, he turns spy for the good side and goes to Dumbledore and like tells him to protect Lily and James and protects Harry. So like, supposedly he is like a reformed bad guy. I personally don't find him to be great. I think he gives me in cell vibes that he's like, I love her, but I don't respect a core part of who she is. And like, I will have her and she never showed any interest in him other than being friends. And then he called her the wizard inward. I mean, at least let me tell you something about dating apps. There are Trump supporters swiping right on me, trying to take me out. And I'm like, what is going on? That's kind of the kind of dissonance, but guys love that. It's like, you're going to join a group of people that literally want to like kill her, but then also be like, I loved her until the day I died. And like, I will always love her. It's like, no, you didn't. You wanted to kill her son and her husband. Well, just so that you could have her wet. Like, hey, what, what? Anyway, so the snake floor now, I'm going to start us out. This is literally just the intro paragraph of the, like, fandom wiki about snakewives. And it's going to give us an overview of this topic. And it honestly made me laugh just to read it. So the snakewives, also known as snapists, not a great name. OK, snapist, I'm going to say is not something we have to rework. Snapist, but I am unfortunately going to have to say snapist a bunch of times. Wow. OK. The snakewives, also known as snapists, are a group of women in Harry Potter fandom who believed that they channel Severus Snape in parentheses, allow his spirit to inhabit their bodies and speak to him and engage in a romantic relationships with him and see him as a vital spiritual guide for their daily lives. They practice snapism, a new religious movement centered on Snape. They believe that Severus Snape is not simply a character in the Harry Potter books, but an omniscient and immortal deity. And, in fact, believe that the books were written because J.K. Rowling was channeling snap. How does that make you feel? I mean, you know, regretting, starting a podcast with the internet. Because I would have died not knowing this, but also in my head, I'm like, OK. To me, I'm just like, there are better characters. Like, if you're going to, like, fuck a character, like, like, I'm just thinking, like, I would be the protagonist from Mulan. Like, OK, let's go with that guy. Or like, you know, Scar's son in Lion King, too. People love to be a feeling they can fix him. Yeah, it has potential. He and he had, like, a bad background. So you feel bad for him, but fucking Snape. I'm like, he's and it also just reminds me in my anthropology class. And another life I was I'm a full blown anthropologist, sociologist, but not too far from being a comedian, but one of the books we read and studied was women with the women of the KKK and women of the hate movement. And, like, nine times out of 10, it's like most of most of the women, the whole crazy thing is like most of the women in the KKK don't even hate black people that much. They just like a guy who hates black people and or they like the community. And that's so it's a study about, like, the search of community for these women. So that's what this reminds me of of, like, you don't care. I don't know. I'm like, no, I get exactly what you're saying. And it actually it actually very much helps me segue into the background. I want to start with just like the background of fandom in general. That is like the foundation of this shit. So June 26, 1997, the first Harry Potter book is published. Damn. OK, so the thing that is unique about the Harry Potter, like fantasy fandom is that it is one of the first, if not the first, like a major fantasy fandom to be around during the internet, where like new and new canon is coming out during the time of the internet. Because, you know, like Star Wars probably like immediately predates it. But Star Wars fans had to like go to conventions, meet up in person, maybe like early, early, early internet. Some people were doing forums and stuff. But like by the time the internet came around, the first major Star Wars films were all out and existed. Yeah. And there was more already. Yeah. And we didn't necessarily know that the freeples were going to come out, but like the main base of Star Wars was already out. Whereas Harry Potter, it's like these books are coming out and people can like in real time like have guesses about what's going to happen and like predict different stuff and then like have a new book coming out. And so the fan fiction around Harry Potter is pretty much immediate, too. Because people are able to like speculate in groups and forums and do the art and all of this shit. So that is like kind of the interesting unique thing about the Harry Potter fandom. So by 1998, we have the first Harry Potter fanfic, which is published online. And the second Harry Potter fanfic ever published is about Severus Snape. So from the beginning, people are very interested in this character. Number one, because he has a mysterious background. And here, this is my spin on it because the Severus Snape fandom is like mostly like middle-aged women, right? They're also teen girls, but middle-aged women like very much immediately clocked into the Snape of it all. And I think it's because, especially in like the first three books, like until we get Remus Lupin, he's the only like single adult man that you could project that kind of fantasy onto, like all by book. Yeah, like all the main characters are children. Yeah. And then there's like Dumbledore, who's like an ancient wizard and like Hagrid, who's Hagrid. I mean, I couldn't even understand a Hagrid, Lord, like... That does not exist at all. Really? Yeah. What do you want? Like a giant dick? I think it's the Christmas shirt. I'd be watching a lot of "Girthmaster" videos. I think that, like, he's like characterized as too goofy. Interesting, but there's like a whimsy and he can like build a house and pick you up and shit? I'm sure it exists out there, but like... Yeah, Severus people are very different. Severus people are very different. And then later, there's like people... The fandom is always kind of divided into like who you ship. It's very like romantically driven. So like right now, and it's existed for a long time, but there's a fandom, there's a ship called "Wolfstar", which is Remus Lupin and Sirius together. That they were like young and that they were lovers. And that has like a huge community behind it. Interesting. And then when I was coming up in fan fiction, there was "Drairie", which is Draco Harry, which I'm still like this. Yeah, everybody. Yeah, that's... Last big is huge, so there's a lot of like gay main big ships. But the Snape stuff was just kind of about Snape and like you, like you're... Interesting. It was about like you fantasizing about getting fucked by Snape, not you fantasizing about like Sirius and Lupin fucking each other. Interesting. So, okay, we start to get the books. I have a question. Yes. Why did Voldemort... Why did Voldemort target Lily and James? Because of the prophecy from... Sybil Trelani delivers a prophecy to Dumbledore that Snape partially overhears, saying that a child born at the end of July, whose parents have defeated him three different times, is going to be the one who like can defeat him. And there were two babies that that could possibly be, Neville and Harry, and for reasons we don't ever really know, Voldemort thinks it is Harry. And that's why Snape, 'cause Snape tells Voldemort about the prophecy, and then he's like, "Oh, it's the potters." And Snape freaks out because he's going to kill Lily. He tries to get him to agree not to kill Lily, but Voldemort's kind of... Yeah, you can't get him like... He's like, "If I can spare her, I'll try, but like I'm not going to promise you that I'm not going to kill her." But he kills... Yeah, so wait, but no one tries to kill Neville's... No. No. I thought Neville's parents were dead though. Neville's parents were tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange, and they are in St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Entries. Oh, okay, okay, exactly. 'Cause there's like, Laura about Neville... Neville could have been the chosen one. Yeah, but he was... 'Cause he just simply wasn't chosen. It's kind of part of it. Part of the prophecy is like Voldemort will mark you as his equal, so that's what Harry's scar is. It's like Voldemort choosing him, literally like physically marking him. And then... Okay, so he, sorry. So he goes to kill Lillian James and kills them, but then Harry fights back. He was an infant, and then like Voldemort... The Voldemort kills... Voldemort kills Lily. Well, he, Voldemort initially is going to spare Lily. We need to put a spoiler... I know. But also like, it's Harry Potter. Whatever you do. Voldemort does try to spare Lily in that he tells her to step aside, but she jumps in between his killing curse and Harry. That action creates a basically like super powerful magical protection around Harry, like the act of her giving up her life. Yeah, so James didn't even try? No, James was killed downstairs, and he did try to save them. Oh, okay, that's okay. But he's killed downstairs, and he like tells Lily to fight them up, and then Lily is upstairs in Harry's nursery. Voldemort kills James, he goes upstairs. Lily jumps in between them. Because of that act, a killing curse rebounds off Harry. It's Voldemort, and Voldemort becomes this weird ghost. Yeah, so he loses his skin. Yeah, he loses his skin. This is kind of like, edit this, you know? There's a lot, it's like a resurrection story. It's all in there. But basically from the beginning, Snape is like, "This mysterious, is he bad? Is he not bad?" Bigger, and then we find out that like, he did turn before the end of the war, and then he like dedicated himself to protecting Harry because he loves Lily, but he's still an asshole to Harry. So you're still abusive to this kid for no reason, because you don't like his dad, because you're mad that his dad got with your girl. But I'm also like, move on. Well, that's the girl, that's like the thing where it's like, "This is fucking weird." And like, people get Harry Potter tattoos that say like, "Always on them." 'Cause that's what he says about Lily is they're like, is Dumbledore's like, "After all this time." And he's like, "Oh, it's like I will always love her." And it's like, "You called her the wizard inward, and you tried to kill her family." But also, like, there are a lot of single wizard bitches. - There's no evidence that Snape ever had a romantic relationship with literally anyone else, except for in fan fiction where he was bucking all the time. - Ridiculous, I'm gonna eat some of them. - Oh yeah, no problem. - So, by the year 2000, the Snape fandom is like super duper cooking. And 2000 is when we get gobbled of fire. So now, at this point, we do know a little bit about Harry's dad and his friends, Lupin, Sirius, and the fact that they have like this long-term animosity from when they were kids, where they both like, in the fifth book, Harry definitely sees his dad bullying Snape, but it also kind of, you kind of find out like they both antagonized each other. - Yeah. - Like they-- - Mutual abuse as they said. - Mutual abuse, but Snape was, James was actually like cool and had a bunch of friends and Snape was like a weird loner. But anyway, so we, but what we know by a book for is like a little bit about that. We haven't seen that scene where Harry like goes into Snape's memories and like remembers sees him being bullied. We don't know anything about him loving Lily or any of that stuff yet. We just know that like he was kind of bullied by Harry's dad and that he's like sad and has a dark past. So it's a lot of fodder for fan fiction. - Then live journal is like a huge place for this is going on. Were you ever a live journal person? - No. Too much writing. - I was very much a live journal person because of fan fiction and fandom stuff. There was like a lot of talking about the fandom on there and then there was a lot of fan art on there. I saw crazy fan art on there. Early 2000s, I can't speak for fan fiction now. I think now there's like ethics around like who, people talk about ethics around like who you can ship and stuff like that. Like, children, like children, characters and all this stuff. - None of that was being talked about when I was-- - People do that, sorry. People do that now. Like on Black Twitter, there's this whole discussion because they'll use like memes of D.W. like from Arthur or Arthur and be like, when I get that dick so hard and you're like my booty hole or something and it's like a picture of D.W. Like, and it's like, she's a child. Like you can't be doing it. So it's like similar ethics. - Yeah. - Conversations are happening. But I was outside when I was kid. I was playing, I had a pool in my house in Florida. I had a trampoline. I was rough housing. I was in choir. I was doing shit. - I was absolutely on these forums and then going to play practice. And I'm wandering around my neighborhood like causing light trouble. But I spent a lot of time on these forums and let me tell you, if those conversations were happening, I was not aware of them. I saw all manner of pairings, drawings of things I'll never forget. It was sexual. A lot of fan fiction is extremely sexual. So live journal is a huge place where the snake fandom starts coming together to talk about snake writing long essays about snake and what they think about snake. And there's a semi-famous one. I mean, none of this is that famous. - I mean. - From a user rattle snake root. It's an essay called Dear Miss Rowling. Why don't you care about my good guy syndrome? And it ends with the line, please Miss Rowling, stop telling lies about this character. He is a good guy. So that kind of speaks to this idea that snake is a character that Jakey Rowling is like getting wrong and that he is somehow separate from her and not like someone she literally made up. - Okay, and they're just saying like, you're making him an asshole and he's not an asshole. - Yeah, you're making him out to be a bad guy and like, he's not. And it's like, well, he's whatever she writes down, but they don't believe that. They believe and will come to believe that Jakey Rowling is like a conduit of this story and that she got some parts of it wrong. But that snake is actually the more powerful being that exists for real. It's like the gospels. - Interesting. - Like she is but a human vessel for the story of Deborah's snake. - You know, it's imperfect. - It's interesting 'cause similar conversations happen with real housewives where it's like, why are you editing this footage to make this person look like a bad person when it's like, just a bad person? Like, it's like, Andy Cohen doesn't have that much fucking control, but some of them do do Villanellis. - And at least there is in that world, like a plausibility of like stuff that we're not seeing. - Yeah. - Like, Jakey, like-- - Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, this is-- - This is for the invention of the one, but though I will say, they are kind of the original Jakey Rowling haters in the fandom. So they were ahead of their time in that way. They were like, you're fucked up. - Yeah. - It's just their reasoning was because they thought she was being mean to Severus's name. So-- - I think she don't care, yeah. - So 2000 to 2003 is known in Harry Potter fandom as the long summer because that's when we waited three years to get order of the unit. And that's when I think a lot-- That's when I really got involved in fan fiction stuff 'cause people are waiting for this book to come out and they don't know what it's gonna be. And Voldemort has just come back to power at the end of the last book and we get the first death in the books. So it's like a really intense cliffhanger. - 'Cause prisoner of Azkaban. - Goblet of fire. - Goblet of fire is Cedric Diggory. - Yes, Cedric Diggory dies and Voldemort comes back to powers. And then we're left for three years and that's the longest gap there's ever been between books and people, there's a lot of fan fiction. Everything's cookin' and stirring. That's when I wrote my fan fiction. So 2005 Order of the Phoenix comes out and then we get that famous scene where Harry goes back into Snape's memory and we see young Snape being bullied and then we see him call Lily the withered Edward. - So it's in this environment that snapism begins to grow. - Okay. - So the most famous snapist, they're the most famous snapists, were three women named Conchita, Rose, and Tanya. - Oh God. - I don't have their last names and I'm not going to, I don't want to. We need to, Conchita, Rose, and Tanya did what they did and they've moved on in their life. - I hope so. What do they do at least, am I? - So Rose and Tanya are kind of more leaders than Conchita but I think Conchita is like a facilitator of different websites. He eventually starts a tribute website to Snape after his death, after the seventh book. So Conchita is like, it's kind of like Rose and Tanya over here, Conchita over here, though they are all interacting. They are super active on live journal and they're basically putting out what we would know called content. Some of it is fan fiction that is like, it is just fan fiction, starring themselves and Snape but I guess it's like supposed to be like divinely inspired fan fiction. And some is them claiming to have had all of these experiences with like the magical Snape entity who they can talk through on the astral plane when they're dreaming. - I don't know, okay. (laughing) Any question? - No, I have, like the, okay, no. But they, okay, so Snape is other people who, it's not just the fandom, it's like they have religious. - Yeah, so like they're just Snape fans who don't think that he's like a secret astral being. - They just wanna like fuck him in his fandom. - Yeah, there are, there are just everyday women fantasizing about fucking Snape and writing about it. They are separate from the Snapeists who have taken it now to the astral plane. - Okay. - They are like a subset of a subset of a fandom. So it's not like a huge group of you are doing this but it's enough that there's kind of an interesting online record of their beliefs. So what are, oh, also I will say that all three Conchita, Rose, and Tanya all also would complain about being unhappy at home with their husbands. So anyway. - Well, girl, let's dial it in and talk to your husband. - Yeah, I'm like, there's something there. So let's talk about their beliefs. The Snapeists beliefs are basically a multiverse theory where the Harry Potter books are this imperfect account of Snape's actions in the Second Wizard War. But he is, Snape is this super powerful being that can travel from his universe where the Harry Potter books are a real thing that happened to our universe where they are at this book by J.K. Rowling. He can travel between worlds 'cause he's very powerful. So he's not a God in the sense that like he created the universe, he's more a God in like a Greek God sense, almost like he's super powerful. And he can do stuff for you and he can fuck with you and he can like. - So the two universes are the ones that we exist now and the Harry Potter one, is that what they're saying? - Yes, I think that they would probably say that there are other universes like that exist, but their primary concern are the two, one in which if Severus Snape is real and he can travel from that universe to our universe. - I mean-- - To fuck you in your sleep. - I mean, call Marvel, baby. This is-- - I know, I'm like content. This is literally like X-Men right now. - Awesome. - I know, it's like they were doing JKR hate first, they were doing multiverse theory, like. So also in their belief, Snape is like an omniscient being, like he can see and hear them at all times and he can like save them from bad situations. So there's one instance where Tanya says that her workplace was being burglarized and she heard Snape's voice call to her and like tell her to go defend herself. And also that he once physically shoved someone who was attacking her. So this is a direct quote from Tanya. "I believe that Severus Snape exists independently of JKR. He is a living feeling spirit. I believe anything is possible and that Severus does visit those that he chooses to." So Tanya is also the only one who claims that she personally can channel Snape and she also says that Snape channels her husband, which you can imagine why he would do that. I mean, yeah, like, I wonder if the Salem witch child, if they were just writing fan fiction and people are like, you guys are fucking off. We have to bring you up the stake or drown you. - Listen, if you go back, if you watch the three hour long save lives video, she goes back deep into like the history of fandom. Like this is not new behavior. It's just being channeled through the character of Severus Snape. But people have been obsessing over like creating sexual obsessions for a very long time. Let's see. Oh, okay. Snape wives, they would usually have like a sacred poster room or space where they would do like Snape stuff. I don't really know what the Snape stuff was. I guess they would say prayers to him or light a candle. I don't really know. They do call him master in a very creepy way. - That is creepy. There's rules against calling him like diminutive names like sev or sevipu. That's like just considered disrespect. - Oh, it's like like God damn it. Like that's like, yeah. - Yeah, it's like considered. Yeah, like you shouldn't be calling him a cutie name. He's God basically. - At least I hate this. - You're gonna hate what I have for you next even more. Because they also got married to Snape, Millie on the after plane. And I have their wedding vows and I was wondering if you-- - All three of them? - Or any Snape wife who wanted to would get married to Snape on the after plane. I was wondering if you would read their wedding vows allowed for us. I know-- - You're breaking out in hers. - I know like spiritually if you feel uncomfortable because maybe you'll be married as ever as Snape as a result, but. - These are longer. These are longer than my brother's wedding. (laughing) - And I wrote my brother. It's wedding vows. I copied it from wedding.com. - They are love. - They are lengthy. - I promise to be always faithful in body and mind and never love another man. I promise to love and cherish you all of my life. I promise to respect and honor you all of my life. I promise to dedicate all my life to you. I promise to stand by you in the good and bad times. I promise to protect and guard you and prevent you from any harm. I promise to provide anything you need for you. I promise to take the best care of you. I promise to use your name with the respect it deserves. I promise to wear the ring with your name in it. As a symbol of my love, I promise to obey you no matter what. I promise to respect your wishes and not be selfish. I promise to look after you in sickness and in health. I solemnly promise all of this to you, Severus Snape. My only love. May these words create a strong loving bond which can only be broken by death. If I break the promises made or treat you not in the manner I should be, I'll make sure I'll die. May all the good forces and spirits bust our love internally so it will be done. I have a question. - What if you were just immediately sucked up into like a vortex? - Exactly. - I'm like, oh my God, this is just after a Snape just appeared and took a million away. Honestly, better than like some of the, this guy messaged me today and was like, hey, what's up? You want to smoke, meet up and smoke? And I'm like, what happened to you? Good morning. - Yeah, like high queen. - High, no, no. - We're getting to get high queen, you want to smell? - I think it's, I think it was, hey, beautiful. Do you want to smoke? - Okay. - But still, I'm like, can we talk a little bit? - Yeah. - Like what's going on? - No, and Snape would never do that. - Okay, my question is, how did the Snapeists feel about Alan Rickman? - I think that Alan Rickman features actually heavily into the fantasizing about Snape. Because I think-- - Alan Rickman was straight, right? - Yes, I believe, yeah, I think he was. - Yeah, I think he was. - He is right too a woman. I think that Alan Rickman helped. I think that Alan Rickman helped. - So they like Alan Rickman. - I think they like Alan Rickman. My best, I don't-- - 'Cause I'm like, if they think that Snape exists, what about the man who is Snape? Like, are they stalking him? What's going on? - They're not stalking him, because I do think they think he exists independent of Snape this entity, so-- - Okay, but not J.K. Rowling. - But J.K. Rowling is channeling him. I don't know if they thought that maybe Alan Rickman was channeling him as well to do the performance, but one of the big facets of this, which I did find because there is literally an academic paper on Snape wives. Hold on, let me find. It's by Zoe Alderton, and it's called Snape Wives and Snapeism, a fiction-based religion within the Harry Potter fandom. And she has a bunch of screenshots of old stuff. She-fan, and a lot of it is like Rose, Tanya, and Conchita, photoshopping these weird pictures of them as brides with Alan Rickman, Snape. So I do think that they liked him as a-- - What school did she fucking write this paper? - That I don't know, but it was her PhD candidacy paper. - I mean, it really fucking good. - I mean, it is super interesting, and it says a lot of stuff about-- - Yeah, I wish I had like multiple lives existing at once because I would get a PhD. I would go to law school, be a judge, get a judge TV show. I would do a lot of things, but-- - I know, either because you were a super powerful being, they could travel with their girls. - To travel, I would get a PhD, and I would wanna write a PhD thesis on the difference between soap operas in different cultures. - Ooh, someone should give Millie money to do it. Okay, this is gonna take us. So all of this is happening, kind of between 2000 and 2005 is where the Snape wives are like, we're really, really cooking online. So that's like books, I actually have a little calendar here. - And is it in America or all over the world? You know, I imagine it is probably primarily America in the UK-- - Oh my, that's George Bush's book. - I just realized that I was thinking of Rose and Conchita and Tanya as American, but I don't actually know that. - Well? - I don't actually know that. - We don't know. - So it's happening primarily between the releases of "Gahler Fire" and "Half-Blood Print." By the time the final book is coming out, it's already sort of starting to wane. Like the final book comes out in 2007, it starts to fall off in like 2006 when the Snapeists are featured on a live journal called "Fandom_Wank." - Okay. (laughs) - Wank is drunk off. - Yes, so this "Fandom Wank," I guess, is like a live journal that was dedicated to showing like the weirdest parts of a fandom and like making fun of them, basically. - Oh, like "Snark" and like-- - Yes, it's basically like a "Snark" page. - "Snark" or "Shaming." - Yes. - Like it's called "Shaming" on Reddit, it's called "Snark." - Yes, that's exactly what it is. - Okay, I thought it was like poor and-- - No, no. - And making fun of them. - It's making fun of them. - Oh, they're like wankers. - Yeah, and like, I don't know, I feel like saying like "Wank" was popular in 2006. - Well, I'm British. I told you-- - Yeah. - French guy would say "Wank," like-- - Yeah, like-- - To me and Jack. - I also use-- - You use all the way to-- - Like internet circles, I don't know. So anyway, they appear on fandom wank and now like their spot has been blown up. So they were like, they were basically in their own little corner of the weird internet, fantasizing about Severus Snape, having sex with them in a dream-- - Marrying him. - Marrying him, whatever, minding their own business really in this corner of the internet. But once they are hosted to fandom wank, now they start, fandom wank starts cyberbullying the Snape lives and they're being mean to them. And now they're kind of like getting, I don't know, harassed online, I guess, because of this stuff and now like, people are infiltrating their little worlds. - Okay, you know what this reminds me of modern day example, our first grass, whoever, Club Chalamet-- - Yes. - Where it's like, it was just this weird woman who was in her middle age and she just loved Timothy Chalamet and then a bunch of people found her and they kind of make fun of her, but-- - Yeah, it is. - She's living her life, did you see that? - I think Club Chalamet is happier with her life than the state wives are. - Yeah, no, she's not like fake stuff. - Yeah, no, shit. I'm like, this bitch is trapped but late. - Yeah, she's going to London, she's going to Rome, she lives in LA, she's going, whatever. - She's doing whatever she wants, but it is similar in that it's like-- - It's just a bunch of weird middle age ladies doing their, they're not hurting anybody, you know? - You know what, I'm sorry. She is the one that's like, Snape channels her husband, they're probably having insane sex. She's like, dude, whatever, whatever, you fucking what? We are fucking-- - Yeah, whatever, I'll pretend to be so rude. - I will, I'll pretend I'll win. - Yeah, he's getting, he's getting his back blown out. - Absolutely. - There are married couples that wish they had that level, what is it, is somebody gonna match my freak? - Exactly, he was matching her freak 100%. - Oh, 100%. - And I do think there was a point where she was like, my husband told me Snape isn't real, but then I do feel like he probably, like the first time she was like, Snape is channeling you to fuck me, and then that, they did that, he was like, yeah, no, the Snape thing's totally real. (laughing) Yeah, whatever. And honestly, I hope she was fucking happy. She thinks she's getting laid by some of her Snape. He knows he's getting laid by his wife. - Well, whatever, yeah, like, listen. - Do whatever you gotta do. - Okay, so while the cyber bullying is happening, also, Conchida is having a falling out with Rose and Tanya, because Conchida has gone public with her feelings that Tanya cannot actually channel Severus Snape. - Wow, shots fired. - Yeah, basically, Conchida's like, I don't actually think you're channeling Severus Snape. - You're lying, we are the real ones, but you're not. - Yeah, she's like, I think whatever he thinks is like, maybe you channeled him at one time. - Oh shit. - But I don't think that you're channeling him with the frequency, I don't think that you're chosen by him in this way. Also, in my research, I read that Conchida was like an advocate for other Snape wives who were being silenced by Rose and Tanya. So like Rose and Tanya would like, they would post bitchy stuff that was like, Snape does not like a giggling little fan girls and like all of it. - Which is really funny. - Okay, not the misogyny in the Snape. - I know, I know. - Yeah, it always comes in, it always comes in. So I think Conchida would be like, you guys don't actually know like what Snape wants and like we're all dedicated to Snape and like, you guys aren't the all-end-all of like who is dedicated to Snape and you don't get to decide. - Rose and Tanya actually know each other in real life. They're the only Snape wives who know each other in real life 'cause they live nearby, but I realized I don't know where that nearby is. It's gotta be U.S. or the United States, I feel. - U.S. or the United States, or the United Kingdom. - U.S. or U.K., I feel. So Rose and Tanya start having a father. - Oh shit. - And this is pretty much considered like the final nail in the coffin between the cyber bullying, Conchida splitting off and kind of creating her own segment of the Snape wives and now this. - Rose starts to become obsessed with the NCIS character Agent Ibs. - I'm sh-- (laughing) - Okay, I have to look this guy up. Is it the old one? I'm gonna look him up. - Look at Agent Gibb. - What? But I mean, in a way that it's like channeling him? - Not in the same level as Snape, but like Agent Gibb's starts becoming a second year. - Yeah, it is the one that I thought. - Okay. - What? - Everyone could really Agent Gibb. - He literally looks like, I mean, he looks like he could play Joe Biden in a movie. - Yes, he's like an older like silver fox type guy. - But not even like the hottest one, I don't know. - No, I don't find him particularly hot, but again, like these are, he's strong jaw. - You know, he looks like he looked like the Golden Bachelor. - So, okay, Rose starts photoshopping images with Snape and Agent Gibb's together. And Tanya does not... - Sorry, Golden Bachelor is hotter than Agent Gibb's. - He's Tanner. He's got that crazy fan. Okay, so Rose starts photoshopping, Snape and Agent Gibb's together. And Tanya's like, that's disrespectful. You can't photoshopped, Snape and Agent Gibb's together. 'Cause Snape is like their God and Agent Gibb's is... - Yeah, that is using the Lord's name and... - Yeah, that is, if you actually believe in Snapeism, that is disrespectful to photoshopped Snape with Agent Gibb's. - Okay. - I think we can all agree it was disrespectful for Rose to photoshopped Agent Gibb's and Snape together. If Snape is an omniscient, powerful God who's helping them. - There is something like telling that, you know, your one crush is like an in-cell wizard racist and the other one in the cop. - That is interesting, you know? - This girl would kill on Tinder. 'Cause it's all fucking cops and in-cell wizard racist and actual racist. - So, okay, the combination of three or three things mean that like, okay, by the time the last book is released, there's a little uptick in the Snape wives because Snape is killed and some of them don't wanna believe he's really been killed and some of them are like, like, Conchita starts a page that is like, in tribute to him, she believes he's been killed, but then there are other ones who try to start a petition for JK Rowling to, like, bring him back to life, but it does only get 220 signatures. So, this is not a huge movement, but they made a big splash. - Okay. - By 2010, they have basically disappeared from the internet because, again, this is the old internet. It's all happening on like, archived forums and live journals and all this stuff. None of these profiles were tied to, like, people's real, full names and images and all of that shit, so. - And now Facebook and shit, now you can see, you know. - Yeah, now you can, you know, but again, I looked at this academic paper. She does have, like, you can't find pictures of Rose, Conchita, and Tanya, but for the most part, like, their full names are not out there. Most of the other people who participated in this, they took down all their pages, kind of because of the cyber bullying, also because they probably grew out of this weird thing, but it's gone from the internet unless you do, like, way back machine or, like, one of those, like, things that archives pages, it's not easy to find any of this anyway. They kind of wiped themselves off the face of the fandom, which I feel like is so, I feel like the thing that's interesting about this is it is, like, the perfect encapsulation of an early internet thing, because now, like, you just couldn't, you couldn't be a snake wife and be writing as much as these women wrote, and, like, putting out that much content and that many blogs and all of that stuff and not have it be tied back to you. - Yeah. - Like, your LinkedIn would be tied to it at some point. - Yeah, also the, I mean, that is kind of, like, the criticism of the current internet now is that there aren't as many fringe fun sites. Like, there used to be, like, websites that just exist for this one thing, and now it's all through Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or these social media sites that, like, kind of monopolize it, use it for ad space, use it for everything, and, like, you have to kind of have your name and address tied to every single thing because they want to sell shit to you. - And even if you're, like, a person who has, like, a burner account or whatever, and you're, like, people can try, I think you, in a lot of cases, you can trace things back to people and figure out who somebody is, even if they don't have, like, their username, whatever, I mean, it's cake sticking. This is, like, true early internet shit where, like, if someone's just posting as Rose to live journal, like, you're not gonna find Rose. You're not gonna find Tanya, and you're not gonna find Conchita unless you find these old pictures that they posted of themselves, Photoshop, with Snape. But I don't think anyone is also, like, hugely motivated to out their identities at this moment. Please don't out Conchita Rose and Tanya now. - No, they're like it. They have to be in their, like, 60s now. - So, they do disappear from the internet, and then this is a quote from that academic paper that I think sums everything up in a nice way, and then we'll get our final thoughts. So, with all of the big name fans gone or fighting with each other, snapism kind of fell apart. The death of snapism has been attributed to numerous things. Some snapists blame J.K. Rowling for handling Snape's spirit so poorly and not writing the truth. Still, others say it was all Snape's plan. He is omniscient, after all. Snape created the world, and he can end it, too. But most snapwives just vanished quietly into the background without saying anything. The leading live journal pages and frenzied fanfic as they left and leaving only archive.org pages in their wake. - Okay. - So, that is the story of the snapwives. A little blip of an internet movement, but a layered and interesting one, to say the least. - Yeah. I don't know why you have to make a religion out of it. Like, that's so, but I guess like, you know, I mean, I think we're living in interesting times now as like, for so long, community has been around, your community has been around people who are your same race, your same class, and religion. And as religion becomes less relevant, truly, people are creating new communities everywhere and in different ways, like, and it's interesting that this is one of them, but, you know, a soul cycle and all that shit. Like, there are like different communities that people find like whatever, but it's just, it's interesting that these women-- (mumbles) In this particular way. Well, it's also like, like, back in the day, nuns were considered to be like married to God and what-- - And I'm sure they wrote fan fiction about God. - Yeah, well, if you read back to like how some like women would like talk about certain saints and stuff, there was weird sexual obsession. I think it has to, I am like, why make it a religion? And I'm like, because then it's like you have this, I think these women were bored and lonely, and not happy with their husbands, and they were like, what if there was this like sexy, bad boy, superpower guy who was actually like with me all the time and like watching me, and he could like help you get like a two-for-one deal, like cute, like-- - And protect you and all that stuff. - Yeah, like all the stuff that a God provides you, he was providing them, and I guess they just, you know, they probably all started just writing the sexy fan fiction, and then you get deeper and deeper into writing the sexy fan fiction, and you're getting so much like more validation and joy out of the fan fiction world that you're like, what if? Maybe your brain is like, what if I just made this real? - Yeah, but it's wild. - It is wild, and it's wild that they're all married too. It's, yeah, I hope they all think. (laughs) - I hope that wherever they are, they could be among us at any time. You could be near a snake wife at any moment, and you would never know, because they faded into obscurity in a way that I don't think exists for people online anymore. - Well. - All right, well, we'll log in on the show. - Well, I won't stop talking about this. - And I will show you their pictures offline. - Yes. - Everyone else, don't try to find them, but you can read the essay if you want. - We'll link the essay in the show notes. - Yeah, we can link the essay, and I'll link that. Like, if you wanna watch a three-hour long YouTube video that uses this as like a framework to talk about, like, literally like what makes a religion, what the history of fandom, it's like a deeper philosophical look. I'll link that as well. But, guys. - Until then, go touch guys. - That was a hit down podcast. (keyboard clicking)
