Snapeism

English

Etymology

Snape +‎ -ism

Noun

Snapeism

1. (fandom slang) A new religious movement, emerging in the mid-2000s in online Harry Potter fandom, centered on the fictional character Severus Snape, with its female adherents professing a spiritual connection or astral marriage to him.
   • 2014, Zoe Alderton, "'Snapewives' and 'Snapeism': A Fiction-Based Religion within Harry Potter Fandom", Religions, Volume 5, Issue 1, page 220:

     The question of what it takes to be monogamous with Snape is one of the many theological battles that plagued—and eventually destroyed—Snapeism.

   • 2018, Markus Altena Davidsen, “The religious affordance of fiction: a semiotic approach”, in Markus Altena Davidsen, editor, Narrative and Belief: The Religious Affordance of Supernatural Fiction, unnumbered page:

     Alderton argues that Snapeism is a fiction-based religion, but the evidence she presents demonstrates that it is a very poor example of the category.

   • 2023, Samuli Laato, Sampsa Rauti, & Juho Hamari, "Resemblance of religion and pervasive games: A study among church employees and gamers", CHI '23: Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, April 2023, unnumbered page:

     However, Harry Potter fans have also formed religious cults of their own, one of the most popular examples being "Snapeism", a religion focused around the character of Severus Snape [2].

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:Snapeism.

Related terms

• Snapewife