#because this is the result

[veveisveryuncool]

what happens when you find a forgotten world of people that looked like you?

[faeriekit]

"This fic was ai generated—" Cool, so lemme block you real quick

[visenyaism]

do you have any ideas about why so many students are struggling with literacy now? I know that illiteracy and reading comprehension have been issues for years and most americans read at like a 5th grade reading level but I’m curious why it seems to be worse now (pandemic? no child left behind?)

It is everything. There’s not one answer. I could talk about this forever so instead I set a five minute timer on my phone and wrote a list of as many of the many things that are causing this on a systemic level that I could think of:

It’s parents not reading with their kids (a privilege, but some parents have that privilege to be able to do this and don’t.)

It’s youtube from birth and never being bored.

It’s phasing out phonics for sight words (memorizing without understanding sounds or meaning) in elementary schools in the early aughts.

It’s defunding public libraries that do all the community and youth outreach.

It’s NCLB and mandating standardized tests which center reading short passages as opposed to longform texts so students don’t build up the endurance or comprehension skills.

It’s NCLB preventing schools from holding students back if they lack the literacy skills to move onto the next grade because they can’t be left behind so they’re passed on.

It’s the chronic underfunding of ESL and Special Ed programs for students who need extra literacy support.

It’s the cultural devaluing of the humanities in favor of stem and business because those make more money which leads to a lot of students to completely disregard reading and writing.

It’s the learning loss from covid.

It’s covid trauma manifesting in a lot of students as learned helplessness, or an inability to “figure things out” or push through adversity to complete challenging tasks independently, especially reading difficult texts.

It’s covid normalizing cheating and copying.

It’s increasing phone use.

It’s damage to attention span exacerbated by increased phone use that leaves you without an ability to sit and be bored ever without 2-3 forms of constant stimulation.

It’s shortform video becoming the predominant form of social media content as opposed to anything text-based.

It’s starting to also be generative AI.

It’s the book bans.

what did I miss.

[aluminia]

OK I saw a poll about something similar and now I am curious

-Assume it's a celebrity you like and that they haven't made a statement about this sort of thing.

-The celebrity in question is just casually out and about, they are not part of an event or panel.

-By "go up to them" I mean saying hello or asking for a picture

-If you have to talk to them as part of your job it doesn't count unless you also ask for something similar to the above.

-This is a judgement free zone, there is no correct answer I am just curious.

Inspired by this poll

[callisteios]

Hi, feel free to take my new uquiz to discover what kind of vampire you are!

[videogamepolls]

This Wikipedia article has a more comprehensive list

[pachix]

https://www.geoguessr.com/vgp/3007

[coddda]

I wish we could have met in some other way.

Lawlight Week Day 2: Soulmates

If you saw me repost and re-edit this several times uh No you didn't </3

Still frames/Individual gifs:

If you know what every frame is from you get a free cookie. by the way

[katsinspats]

Tragic: Guy you based your entire villain backstory on doesn't even remember you

[botanyshitposts]

confirming the Ethiopian wolf pollination hypothesis seems so straightforward in theory, like just erecting anti-wolf barriers around some of the hot poker plants and seeing if those get pollinated at the same rate as the other ones, but also I feel like it could be some lab’s 6 year long project that ends up in Nature and answers more questions about wolf dessert time than I could ever think to ask. and also it would give more beautiful photos of wolves between 3 seconds and 1 hour into passionate nectar indulgence. so hopefully with the media attention they’re getting they can do that

[craigslisthorses]

LET'S PLAY "MAURY"

So we are waiting on DNA results on this baby because his color is just a lil questionable. So I'm gonna share pictures of the sire and dam along with "their" baby and yall gonna say "You ARE the father." or "You are NOT the father" and when we get results back I'll let yall know. Sire- (Sired by a grey stallion, and a chestnut mare with a history of bays, blacks, and chestnuts only in his pedigree.)

Dam- (Sired by a black tobiano out of a sorrel mare. No sabino or roan in either pedigree, only spots and blacks and bays in hers)

THE BABY- ^that's also him nursing in above picture

His owner insists she brought her stallion to the farm to collect, was directly handed the semen, and it went right into the mare.

[cracklewink]

Harmony Syndrome Part 5/5

The last chapter of my mlp infection AU! Thank you to everyone who followed along. Some final thoughts on my twitter @cracklewink if anyone's interested : )

[pangur-and-grim]

OKAY I HAVE MONO? that’s the devil making me sick right now??

I started feeling it July 10th, but I think all the recent events have been prolonging its severity. the doctor said “just try to rest and take it easy,” and I was like “HHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH YEAH YEAH, will do!”

[benevolenterrancy]

i'm sure this joke has been done before but i'm new here so now it's my turn -- the bing-ge vs bing-mei extra sure is something huh

[inkskinned]

the thing is there's like, a point of oversaturation for everything, and it's why so many things get dropped after a few minutes. and we act like millennials or gen z kids "have short attention spans" but... that's not quite it. it's more like - we did like it. you just ruined it.

capitalism sees product A having moderate success, and then everything has to come out with their "own version" of product A (which is often exactly the same). and they dump extreme amounts of money and environmental waste into each horrible simulacrum they trot out each season.

now it's not just tiktokkers making videos; it's that instagram and even fucking tumblr both think you want live feeds and video-first programming. and it helps them, because videos are easier to sneak native ads into. the books coming out all have to have 78 buzzwords in them for SEO, or otherwise they don't get published. they are making a live-action remake of moana. i haven't googled it, but there's probably another marvel or starwars something coming out, no matter when you're reading this post.

and we are like "hi, this clone of project A completely misses the point of the original. it is soulless and colorless and miserable." and the company nods and says "yes totally. here is a different clone, but special." and we look at clone 2 and we say "nope, this one is still flat and bad, y'all" and they're like "no, totally, we hear you," and then they make another clone but this time it's, like, a joyless prequel. and by the time they've successfully rolled out "clone 89", the market is incredibly oversaturated, and the consumer is blamed because the company isn't turning a profit.

and like - take even something digital like the tumblr "live streaming" function i just mentioned. that has to take up server space and some amount of carbon footprint; just so this brokenass blue hellsite can roll out a feature that literally none of its userbase actually wants. the thing that's the kicker here: even something that doesn't have a physical production plant still impacts the environment.

and it all just feels like it's rolling out of control because like, you watch companies pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into a remake of a remake of something nobody wants anymore and you're like, not able to afford eggs anymore. and you tell the company that really what you want is a good story about survival and they say "okay so you mean a YA white protagonist has some kind of 'spicy' love triangle" and you're like - hey man i think you're misunderstanding the point of storytelling but they've already printed 76 versions of "city of blood and magic" and "queen of diamond rule" and spent literally millions of dollars on the movie "Candy Crush Killer: Coming to Eat You".

it's like being stuck in a room with a clown that keeps telling the same joke over and over but it's worse every time. and that would be fine but he keeps fucking charging you 6.99. and you keep being like "no, i know it made me laugh the first time, but that's because it was different and new" and the clown is just aggressively sitting there saying "well! plenty of people like my jokes! the reason you're bored of this is because maybe there's something wrong with you!"