With the world going to crap around us, it is nice to know that there are still some heroes out there doing good work. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling's tweets about otters are a light in dark places today, and I think we could all use a little break to enjoy these adorable critters.
After tweeting about the "[i]ncompetent clowns in power and the opposition turning into a solipsistic personality cult" making her "so ****ing depressed [sic]," Rowling asked her Twitter followers to "[s]end otter pictures." And boy did the Potterheads comply. More than 5,000 replies flooded Rowling's tweet thread with pictures of baby otters, kittens, puppers, and the occasional platypus. Celebrity dog Doug the Pug even got in on the action, tweeting a photo of himself dressed as Harry Potter, complete with a stuffed Hedwig.
Among the other Twitter-verified respondents to Rowling's otter request were Spider-Man: Homecoming star Tom Holland, Sister Outrider founder Claire Heuchan, vlogger Rosianna Halse Rojas, and singer-songwriter Neko Case. The celebs joined in with the Twitterverse's common folk to share cute animal pictures and videos with Rowling, who, like many of us, needed a mental health break from the horrors of 2017.
Check out Rowling's tweet and a selection of the responses below, and keep reading for a recap of the Harry Potter author's Twitter presence this year.
This isn't the first time Rowling has brightened the day for those of us troubled by the worldwide political turmoil of the last year or so. By Feb. 1, Rowling had already given us enough Twitter gold to warrant a roundup of her sassiest responses of 2017 so far. (Here's a personal favorite from Jan. 15, which makes it almost a birthday present for yours truly.) Two weeks after I covered Rowling's sass, she amazed us all again by turning Piers Morgan's own words against him, like some kind of Twitter countercurse. This summer, she shut down Tomi Lahren and her asinine comments comparing Donald Trump and Barack Obama with a little comparison of her own.
Over the last two decades, J.K. Rowling has brought so joy to the lives of kids who needed it the most, and so it's difficult to imagine or accept that she struggles with the same mental health issues as the rest of us. Hopefully, all of those otters brought some light to Rowling's day, and to yours. Here's to remembering that happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.
