No one but Lord Voldemort would be pleased by this.
Displaying a seeming lack of knowledge of the books they borrowed from, unvaccinated people in the United States are now referring to themselves as “purebloods” as a way to strut their superiority over the inoculated.
Just so we’re on the same page, “pureblood” is a term popularized by J.K. Rowling in the Harry Potter series which pertains to those coming from “pure” wizard ancestry as opposed to those whose bloodline intermarried with non-magical people. Prominent “pureblood” families like the Lestranges and the Malfoys aligned themselves with the Dark Lord Voldemort and had a hand in terrorizing the wizarding world.
There is a darker connotation to being a “pureblood” as it perceives those who aren’t one as lesser to them. The same can be seen in this famous exchange between “pureblood” scion Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger, whom the former calls a “filthy little Mudblood.”
Spells and sorcery aside, the term has now been turned into a hashtag on TikTok and as such gained significant traction among conservative circles. One such influencer, Lyndsey Marie, shared a post last week where she appended the hashtags #harrypotter, #pureblood, and #unvaccinated.
“From now on, I refuse to be referred to as ‘unvaccinated,’” she said on camera. “I want everyone to now call me Pureblood.”
The clip has since garnered over 300,000 views and has inspired a score of other social media users to stick the label onto their own platforms.
“Man, are you pureblood? Yeah, I’m pureblood,” said TikTok user @drakapuffdaddy in a video. “No more ‘unvaxxed’ – pureblood!”
“In like five, ten years, maybe less, all the people who are unvaccinated –we’re gonna be hunted,” TikTok user @leeannstar23 warns. “It’s gonna be like ‘Resident Evil.’ We’re gonna be the antidote, because everyone else is fucked, and we’re gonna be the only ones with pure blood.”
Neither these influencers nor representatives of Rowling have provided a comment regarding the online “pureblood” movement.
The trend could not come at a more unfortunate period. Today, many parts of the world including the US are struggling against a surge of COVID-19 infections that stem from the more contagious Delta and Mu variants. Despite this, only 54% of the American population has been fully vaccinated.
According to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), unvaccinated Americans are 11 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than inoculated folks and are 29 times more likely to be hospitalized due to severe illness upon catching the deadly virus.
