#stop dumbing down adult level reading material unless it's specifically being made for adults with reading comprehension

[icarusredwings]

Tags + slight off topic rant about media literacy

Thiiisss some things are better left unexplained or for reader interpretation. We are in the point of media literacy where we SHOULDN'T have to have someone hold our hands for every single line or work

This does NOT apply to disabled or young readers, or readers who english is their second language, so do NOT take this as literacy level shaming.

This is about grown adults expecting every single thing media wise explained. This is actually WHY common sense is becoming less common, because everything is automatically told to people. I have witnessed a full grown woman with children ask her husband if a METAL bowl was microwavable and he said "i dont know read the bottom"

Ive also seen adults at teacher meetings protest at school that their student got a question wrong. The text was along the lines of "Harry was feeling blue" and the question asked "What is harry feeling?" With the options of sad angry happy and tired. I kid you not parents were arguing that the awnser is "blue" not sad.

Adult literacy is endangered at this point. Many of them are becoming incapable of deciding things for themsleves based on the context they have or can not identify an awnser without directly being told.

You may disagree with me if you wish, but I feel sometimes less words are better. Let people figure it out.

Even in the tags is a wonderful example. I just know somewhere out here is going to say 'what does uousrlf and gew mean??' Knowing full well they can figure it out themsleves with context clues. It is not quirky or silly or cute or "different" to be illiterate.

I'm sooo sorry but if you can not figure this out and you do not have a reason other then lacking common sense and spot reading, you may have not experianced proper education growing up and encourage you to better yourself.

The world NEEDS people to KNOW how to operate without every minor thing being written out word for word. Esspecially in a time where media is so easily munipulated and so many people can loudly broadcast their opinion that very well may be false or properganda thats meant to hurt others.

Please please PLEASE do not let big media and AI take away your ability to comprehend without someone holding your hand and explaining every step of the way.

As human beings, we have the responsibility to work on ourselves so we as a species do not crumble. Stop dumbing things down. Stop using more words to make up for bigger, complicated words. Stop submitting to the idea the the world is too dumb to understand you.

By submitting to this idea that you must replace large words with smaller ones, especially in fanfic, is ludicrous. How will people learn the big words and learn to differ things for themsleves if we must instantaneously lay it out for them while literacy is being produced.

I'm kind of feeling off put by how much of the Ao3 community is agreeing that they do not read fics under a certain amount of words.

Saw a comment saying "I dont read anything under 100k words" and Sooo many replies agreed. As someone who is extremely proud of their 12, 20, 40k fics It kind of makes me want to stop posting there entirely.

I know I shouldn't feel discouraged from posting there, but like.. if you guys aren't even going to read it, why should I?

I write for fun in my free time as a disabled father of two. I know I'm not going to have time to keep up with the highschool/ college writers and thats fine, but Im confused because people say "Ugh I really want a fic where __" and I say "hey! I have a fic where __!" And they say "Oh it's short" when it's half, or an entire novel length.

So idk. I don't want to see anyone complaining about not being able to find fics of what you like if you exclusively only read a certain number and act as if its our jobs as hobby writers who are unpaid to make every fic over 100k.

Thats just my thoughts on it..