Some unvaccinated people on TikTok are calling themselves 'purebloods,' a term from 'Harry Potter' used to refer to wizard-only bloodlines
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Cheryl Teh
Sep 16, 2021, 11:07 IST
Some TikTok users have started co-opting the term "pureblood" - a word which has its roots in the Harry Potter universe - to refer to their unvaccinated status. The term has darker connotations, however, because it was used to refer to "pure" wizard bloodlines and followers of the series' main antagonist, Lord Voldemort.
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Some unvaccinated people are calling themselves "purebloods" on TikTok.
People have been using the hashtags #purebloods and #unvaxxed, declaring they want to be known by the former term.
The term comes from the "Harry Potter" series and refers to families with an unmixed wizarding ancestry.
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In a nod to the "Harry Potter" series, some unvaccinated people are calling themselves "purebloods" on TikTok.
People have started using the hashtags #purebloods and #unvaxxed on the sharing platform and saying they want to be known by the former term. In J.K. Rowling's books, the word "pureblood" is used to refer to wizard families with a "pure" bloodline, or an unmixed ancestry that has never intermarried with non-magical people. It also comes with a darker connotation of superiority over those whose bloodlines are a mix of magical and non-magical ancestries.
The Tiktok users who called themselves "purebloods" in the TikTok videos above did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Insider.
The darker connotations of the word 'pureblood'
In the "Harry Potter" series, prominent "pureblood" families like the Malfoys and Lestranges aligned themselves with Lord Voldemort and exacted a reign of terror on the wizarding world.
The connotation of non-"purebloods" being perceived as lesser was also made clear in a famous exchange between Harry Potter and his childhood nemesis, "pureblood" scion Draco Malfoy.
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During the exchange, Malfoy calls Potter's friend, Hermione Granger, a "filthy little Mudblood," a derogatory slur for descendants of non-wizards.
Rowling's representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider on the use of the word "pureblood" to describe the unvaccinated.
The trend is surfacing at a time when America is grappling with a surge in COVID-19 infections and more contagious variants of the virus, like Delta and Mu.
According to The New York Times' COVID-19 vaccine tracker, at least 63% of people eligible to take the vaccine in the US have received one dose. Only 54% of the vaccine-eligible American population has been fully inoculated.
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