Meanings
- slanglifestyleA 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.
The question of what it takes to be monogamous with Snape is one of the many theological battles that plagued—and eventually destroyed—Snapeism.
2014, Zoe Alderton, "'Snapewives' and 'Snapeism': A Fiction-Based Religion within Harry Potter Fandom", Religions, Volume 5, Issue 1, page 2202 more examples
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.
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 pageHowever, 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].
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
Origin
Cite this entry
Snapeism. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Snapeism
“Snapeism.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Snapeism. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “Snapeism,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/Snapeism.
Source: Snapeism on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.