#increasing literacy

[ideas-ideasideasideas]

Headcanon that instead of signing his threats Red Hood uses semicolons liberally (and correctly) because nobody up to their eyeballs in crime in his part of Gotham uses semicolons. ‘Don’t even try to run; I know all of your hideouts’ is a Certified Red Hood Threat. ‘I’m always watching; every minute every second’ is someone impersonating Red Hood.

[rashomari]

disco elysium fandom. y'all are super cool ily but we DESPERATELY need to talk about media literacy and some of y'alls perception of the characters. cus recently i've seen way too much discourse where jean is either the spawn of satan or kim is the second coming of Christ. GUYS. GUYS. they are BOTH flawed individuals, they are both extremely human characters and reducing then to either JUST their positive or negative attributes is such a disservice to the masterpieces of writing that they are.

kim especially to me is so interesting to discuss on how the fandom treats him as a God (i get it dw i love him dearly but he's not a saint) since we view him exclusively from harry's perspective, y'know the guy who basically pulled him out of his depression coma and stopped him from spiralling even more and potentially killing himself, so of course harry is more likely to ignore kim's flaws and, by proxy, the player is too

[shesmore-shoebill]

Not to get TOO far up on a soapbox here but I love Shayne's take here and vehemently agree with it. Oftentimes media is trying to do a specific thing and its helpful (and more fun!) to approach analysis while being conscious of the question of "did it do that thing or not"

Sometimes media is intended for deep and in depth analysis. Sometimes its intended to let u look at kickass explosions and go "wow", or watch pretty people kiss. Sometimes its for both!!! but. not always.

[stil-lindigo]

Thank you for making wonderful art and writing up commentary and technical elements about it! The comics are stunning on their own but being guided through the other storytelling elements involved unlocks a whole 'nother layer of appreciation!

i find a lot of fulfilment in the creative notes sections of my work so i'm very happy you guys like it too. back in high school, i remember having the time of my life dissecting poetry (most of it was by wilfred owen, who had such intense imagery, it was so great to sink my teeth into) and i just thought that, y'know, i'd love to one day make something as creatively dense. doing notes scratches that itch of being seen for me, even if it's purely self-indulgent. it also just helps me keep a record of where I'm at creatively. I'm hoping that I'll improve my craft over time, and going back to see the origins of my process will be an interesting experience.

[lhazar]

Following the hotd tag is crazy sometimes. People making posts raging about how disgusting one side or the other is and telling irl people to off themselves for having a preference, like they’re actually living in the show for real and anything these characters do have real consequences irl. Never have I witnessed so many people in a fandom that needs to touch some grass. None of these characters are real but the people you’re suicide baiting and swearing at are and it does nothing but make you look absolutely deranged

[navree]

you’re opinions are so valid (and personally i think correct). to me, bridgerton is to period dramas as riverdale is to murder mysteries. ridiculous, camp, and will eventually loose the plot. i like it! i find it somewhat entertaining. i do know not everyone will like it and that is okay !!! bring back the media literacy of differing opinions !!

you're so lovely ily!!!!

Bridgerton actually has one up on Riverdale in that I think Bridgerton was aware that it was candy fluff with no substance from day one and crafted accordingly whereas Riverdale 100% wanted to be a good show but happened to be created by a hack who can't write and then had to adapt (I don't care what anyone says about how it was always campy, I was there, I remember Roberto's talentless ass trying to reign himself in for season 4 but it not working and deciding that if we were all laughing at his genuine attempts anyway we might as well be laughing with him instead). And yeah, it is what it is, which is a crazy endeavor where racism is dead but classism and sexism and imperialism are very alive and also the Bridgertons have the most chemistry with each other as opposed to any of their love interests.

Some people like that. I do not, also because for some reason the writing just sets my teeth on edge in a way that makes me physically incapable from not saying "for the love of God" out loud at least once an episode. That's fine, there are shows I like that I'm sure other people don't, I don't go around getting upset about it.

[excitedrainbow]

so so excited for Burrow’s End and so so frustrated with the biggest parasocial fans telling anyone who was discussing what other TTRPG systems could be used that they should never question the expert GMs, please just leave us to our (loving!) conversations!

there are always going to be dickheads who talk shit and rudely tag in the people/performers they’re referring to, but most of the time any fan critique or discussion I see of D20 comes out of being big fans of both the show and TTRPGs, is super respectful, and no one is tagging in anyone involved with the show. yeah some of us get tired of how often DnD is used in the recent games, because it isn’t always the best system for the story and there LOADS of other TTRPGs that would be cool to use!

for this season, most of the discussion went DnD???? Again???? > wait it looks like there’s a bunch of combat and monsters > probably not suited for Wanderhome/other suggested TTRPGs > what other animal TTRPGs could work > Aabria is an incredible GM and she’s worked with other systems before so her choice of DnD for this story is interesting, let’s see how this works out for the story > oooh this is what Aabria has said about using DnD, ok cool, can’t wait to be emotionally hurt im so tired of seeing a loud minority of people increasingly butting in on respectful conversations to say “they like DnD! they play however they want to! they’re the performers why do you question their choices?” Or “omg how dare you have the audacity to question them” or other bullshit like that. if all you want to do is never have conversations about TTRPGs or cast/GM choices etc. and never want to hear any respectful critique or discussion then I think your fandom experience is going to be poorer, but that’s your choice. you don’t have to start shit with other people just because you can’t stand that they’re lovingly but thoroughly discussing/critiquing this form of media and not putting the cast on pedestals. parasocial attachments to vaguely famous people aren’t new things but god they are getting worse and making the experience of fandom more awful

[ston-rampler]

genuinely i can't stand it when someone online goes, "The kids these days don't even know X and they haven't even heard of Y! What has our society come to? Surely this is the end of days!" like that's not just how kids work. kids start out not knowing most things. the great part is that they are extremely teachable! this is a fixable problem

[teledyn]

If you were to shut down 100% of all aviation everywhere, worldwide, every airliner, private jet, Cessna flying clubs and helicopters, everything, and done right this moment, you will have saved a whopping 1.9% of our CO2 emissions.

ONE POINT NINE PERCENT

Humans are not great at big numbers, and especially bad at comparing big numbers. The media knows this, and constantly exploits it to manufacture targets for you to hate. Hate is Big Business.

imagine being that fucking rich and that fucking careless.

[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.

[a-typical]

The risk perception gap is especially harmful when it comes to science and health topics.

The risk perception gap: excessive concern about things that pose little risk and insufficient concern about things that pose greater risk

Vaccine Hesitancy and Anti-Vaccine Rhetoric:

One of the most prominent examples of the risk perception gap is with vaccine hesitancy, where the perceived risk of vaccine side effects or the impact of vaccine ingredients is often much higher among the public than what is supported by scientific evidence.

In contrast, the benefits of vaccination and their ability to prevent deadly diseases (remember, measles is back) are underestimated. That is true with nearly all vaccines nowadays, with many people diminishing the substantial positive impact that vaccine have on individual and collective health (I discussed the harm of prominent figures, like Andrew Huberman, doing this here). As a result of this gap, vaccination rates for preventable illnesses are declining, and increased outbreaks of diseases that were previously eliminated or well-controlled are rising.

Food safety:

Conversely, risks associated with trace levels of chemicals used to grow crops are vastly exaggerated. This creates fear around more affordable conventional food items based on misinformation and misunderstanding of chemistry and toxicology when there is no credible scientific evidence to support these claims.

[emstargazer]

The more that I learn about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the more it makes sense to me why I feel like I'm so far from self-actualization. Also, there was always this fear in me of not truly living which now I think might've been caused by a fear I wasn't entirely aware(or more accurately didn't want to admit it was there) of which as comedic as it will sound is the fear of truly living. Albeit it looks bad on paper, I don't blame myself for it since I do have a pretty clear image of how I turned out to develop such defense mechanisms. Maybe it's some form of Jonah's complex? Fuck if I know, have to look deep into it.

[littlegal100]

agreed. No one is saying you can't ship pairings but also learn to appreciate the story for what it is without making it about ships. Learn to analyse the media without adding your prefered HCs and embelishments you usually do in fandoms.. It's an important thing to do..

How do I tell people that sometimes if you turn your shipping brain off you can interact with media better

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

If there was one animal literacy thing I could change with a wave of a wand, it would be increasing people's understanding of how dangerous megafauna are. I think that in the US (and probably other Western countries too), we're so removed from wildlife and even large domesticated animals that people really have no perspective on how much a big animal can fuck you up. Even if they're "gentle."

This is a discussion going on on Twitter, too, the last few days: there was a thing where an Iditarod musher shot a moose to protect their team, and a lot of people are confused as to why that needed to happen. Apparently this moose had been hanging around the course for quite a while and was becoming quite dangerous to the sled dog teams. Moose are territorial and not to be fucked with. Everyone from Alaska or areas with moose are like "yup, that's just reality."

Same thing with the bison birth I watched last year. Folk really thought the staff should be in the habitat on the ground with the bison herd, helping with the birth. Sure, that's what we do with cows if we have to, but... bison are definitely not cows and, again, will squish you.

People tend to get it more with the predators. Few people will argue that a cougar or an alligator or a bear isn't dangerous. I think people kinda go both ways on wild pigs / boars depending on their experience. But herbivores or things that don't look traditionally pointy... it just kinda doesn't click.

Any large animal is probably stronger than you think and more likely to hurt you than you realize. Be it a dolphin, an elk, a sea lion, or even an emperor penguin... just don't go near them, buds.

[mx-paint]

It does get really annoying when people misunderstand the message of a game and it's storyline but sometimes we have to also understand that sometimes it's the fault of how it's being told

[booksinmythorax]

Ok, real quick, speaking as a librarian, you absolutely cannot despair about the adult literacy crisis and shame adults for reading fiction books you do not personally care for or think are "challenging" at the same time. It doesn't work with kids, and it doesn't work with adults.

Here's how to increase someone's reading level:

1) Let them read whatever they choose without shame or judgment. Maybe get them talking about it using open-ended, non-leading questions to encourage critical thinking and comprehension.

2) Let them get bored after a while and seek out different books.

3) Repeat.