Two days ago Cracked.com wrote this article entitled “5 Ways People Are Taking Harry Potter Waaay Too Seriously,” and way #4 is the Intercollegiate Quidditch Association. The point of the article, of course, is to make fun of the most boisterous segments of the Harry Potter fandom, and Quidditch is no exception:

“And if we told you a bunch of schools had organized a Quidditch league, you’d say, “Aww, that’s so cute.” Which is why we put “Intercollegiate” in the title; this isn’t elementary schools, or perhaps kindergartens for the specially-differently-abled. Real actual universities like Princeton, McGill and Boston University have full-fledged Quidditch teams. Possibly as a “if we have to cut budgets we know where to start” measure.”

Still, there’s no such thing as bad press, right? The article links to UW’s Intercollegiate Quidditch Trailer youtube video (viewable on the “media” page), and in the two days since the article was written the video got an incredible 50,000 hits… and counting. Even if most of the commenters are under the impression that we’re…well, a lot of things that it wouldn’t do to reprint, that’s still 50,000 more people who have just been exposed to the awesomess that is Quidditch.

The article does end on a positive note, however, leaving us with this caveat:

“Though we will say that once jetpack technology becomes common and inexpensive, this will be the most awesome f***ing sport in the world.”

True dat.