The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that lack of media literacy, lack of compassion towards autistic people and lack of literacy in human interactions in Western countries are actually a result of people who should be teaching kids functional literacy simply not doing that.

i should be allowed to get restraining orders on people who genuinely passionately dislike a) skyler or b) jane

I'm putting this to a poll because I need to know how my fellow human beings process the world.

I work at a motel, and there's a big NO VACANCY sign hung up at eye level on the office door. You can't miss it. It is literally the first thing you see when you visit us; it either says VACANCY or NO VACANCY in big glowing blue neon letters, and yet every single day I will have multiple full grown adults, fluent in English, presumably American or Canadian based on the accent, who completely ignore the sign and ask if we have any rooms. I need to know if they're stupid or selectively literate.

Thoughts on ml movie below the cut (not really looking for any response, just to drop my thoughts somewhere, but y'know standard spoiler warning too)

Really mixed bag? Like genuinely and truly. There were parts of it that made me laugh! The humor was genuinely fun and I loved the use of cuts! There were parts that were really great! And the visuals are unquestionably stunning.

I'll abstain from an opinion on the musical numbers since that isn't really my cup of tea and I can't judge em

And I'm willing to let rest that this is a retelling, and it's a cool take on the story in terms of what got brought back (mime guy from the pv??? Amazing so glad that got given a proper use) and even the characterizations are fine in my book, especially given limited runtime.

But I think that this movie (and this seems like a common problem in the show too, at least to the point through s3 where I had stopped watching) (and the marketing too tbh) is that it tries to do too much with too little substance. It spreads itself too thin. What even IS the theme here? Is it the love over death thing? Is it self-acceptance? So much was stuffed in that it was all tell and almost no show.

It pays lip service to the original idea of trying to put another Real Girl Superhero into the spotlight and simply by virtue of the mechanism that the agreste family plays in the story, aka them as the driving force of the plot, it's hard to handle it and have Marinette still be clearly the main character. In retrospect, there's almost a bitter irony to Adrien cockily proclaiming that he's the main hero and Marinette is the sidekick. I think if Marinette had really had her growth focused clearly in one direction it wouldn't have been so bad, but the multiple themes really eat away at forming a cohesive picture about her and her growth and cementing for the audience that she's the star. I guess the "she-hero" bit just bugs me an exceeding amount.

As a result of the allotment of character complexity, it almost feels like Gabriel is the most compelling character, even though he's still sort of flattened into a two-dimensional version of himself. He's an asshole to Adrien at the beginning, like pretty blatantly, and then explains away everything at the end and boosh suddenly everything is ok. I didn't even pick up that he had any sort of atonement or one-on-one time with the French judicial system, outside of the implication of him going to jail by trusting Nathalie with the secret of Emilie. So like. I guess the things that make Gabriel most compelling are his longer hair when he was younger and his absolute scuzzy gutter dad look lmfao.

(side note, part of me lived in fear of being spoiled of the parts of the show I haven't watched, but I guess if there were such spoilers I missed em. It just surprised me that they were willing to play their hand on Gabriel=Hawkmoth with so little fanfare, but then again maybe I shouldn't be asking so much when it was already all spread so thin)

So like

Yeah

It didn't necessarily have me staring raptly at the screen, but most of my gripes are of the same flavor that I have for the show anyway.

There were much worse uses of my afternoon 😂

Today’s study session is excruciatingly boring. Conjunctions, clauses, and netiquette. I know I wouldn’t take this business communications course if I didn’t need my literacy credit. It bores me to tears some days.

My motto for the semester? Good enough. It’s helped me through many study sessions and assignments.

My Garden

Words are everywhere. Words live inside my mind, on the television, all around me on the daily commute. They stand sentry on the side of every building, on road signs, on the road itself. They spring out from brightly-colored cereal boxes, on and inside every book, all around the grocery store. Words are infused into every part of existence, informing and declaring and questioning and everything in between.

Inside my head, the world is so large. It spreads everywhere, encompasses everything I have ever known, and most of what I ever will know. There are so many spaces in the world, filled by so many people who speak and write and hear and see and touch so many words inside their own lives. In all of these words, how do my words stand out, how do they take root and flower into something that has meaning and importance? How, inside and between and around all of the words in the world, do I begin to even find my words before bringing them up and giving them my own perspective and intention?

The words ‘executive dysfunction’ seem intimidating at first, both of them big words that stand at attention, taking up space and multiple syllables. The words ‘executive dysfunction’ are still intimidating with closer attention, holding the definition of so much internal struggle. The words ‘executive dysfunction’ hold court inside my brain, attracting questions and what-ifs and bouncing off exasperation and various half-executed attempts to uproot them from the back of my mind.

What if the words are hiding something behind their literary fortress, something important that has burrowed itself into the connection between my brain and my spine, feeding off of my good intentions like a tick and atrophying the nerves that web between my thoughts and my actions? Does the fault then lie with the tick, for stymieing my action? Does it lie with the words, for spinning and multiplying and dripping apart in meaningless puddles of alphabet soup? Or does it lie with me, for cowering in the dark spaces of my mind, seeking refuge from the overstimulating everything, hunching around the little flame that whispers, “If we don’t see it, it can’t hurt us. If it isn’t in front of us, it doesn’t matter.”

A slippery shadow lurks at the peripheral of my consciousness, wavering in and out and suggesting that the fault lies with me. The words sting, thinly veiling guilt and shame and accusations of impotence. I don’t like that feeling. I don’t like what it means when the biggest and most overwhelming obstacle was planted with hope and care by the beginnings of my self.

A stuttering light dances around between the back of my mind and my train of thought, various voices reminding me that nothing comes from nothing. That these coping mechanisms once served me well, until my garden grew larger and suddenly the neat little beds didn’t fit so well anymore and silky streams of seaweed shadows sprouted in the space between one frame and the next.

I’ve never liked gardening. I don’t like sweating, or straining untrained muscles and encouraging sore back and thighs and arms. I’ve never liked being responsible for the removal of every minuscule weed invading indistinguishable plant stems and toiling among bugs and dirt and sun.

Shadowed under my hair and my skull, gardening sounds like painful pulls and constant awareness.

Constant awareness and unavoidable pain sounds so much like my own personal hell.

But again I’m faced with the unruly walls of my poor sentient garden, overgrown with hesitation and frustration and anxiety and avoidance and impotence and insecurity and inattention.

Anything worth doing is worth doing well. Anything worth doing is worth doing half-assed. Anything worth doing lays dusty and unattended among the cacophonous, too-bright alphabet soup of the overstimulating everything.

How the hell am I supposed to reach it?

Hey, you! Yes: you! Random person on the internet! I need to talk to you about something.

Nearly everything on social media (yes, that thing too) (yup, so is that) (yes, especially me) is marketing. That’s a morally neutral statement. It’s not “good” or “bad” or even “morally grey”. It is the way we have organized the internet, especially platforms on the internet.

If people are fighting for attention, eyeballs, interest… you’re going to get marketing. In this truth, people have different goals: entertainment, education, money, etc. That’s all still morally neutral.

Where it gets morally bad is when you buy into the marketing without any research. Where it gets even worse is when people tell you if you fact check the information you see on social media, *you* are morally bad. Why don’t you just buy into the marketing? Why don’t you just accept the buzzwords? And a lot of it seems to be an updated redux of “tolerate my intolerance!” (Which evolved to, “Hey, I’m just asking questions” then to “What if it’s really true? What if [blank innocuous thing] is the root of all evil?” And now it’s, “We have to do something!!! There’s no time to fact check!!! If this is really happening, there’s no time!!!”) Which I should not have to explain… is bad.

Let me explain anyway though: the increase in urgency and making it time sensitive is meant to send you into a panic. That fear/anger/anxiety response tells you you need to do something, right now! But it’s so difficult to know what… don’t worry, don’t freeze, don’t think, they have the answer! Do this right now! You have to! There’s only a few seconds left! You NEED TO DO THIS YOU—oh you’ve done it. Phew, crisis averted! You’re our hero! Now make sure to tell all your friends or nothing you did matters and you will be d—ned for all eternit—thanks for sharing! We need more people like you!

The difference between this and something actually time sensitive is something that is legitimate will 1) often not work you into a panic, because they’re just trying to make you more informed/legitimately interested, 2) they will give you actionable steps and 3) the tone is completely different. Here’s another example:

Hey, everyone. I’m sorry to say this but [politician] has betrayed our [community]. We met with [politician] and they promised us they would fight for our [very specific purpose, usually with its own specialized vocabulary]. Today they voted against that. But we’re not giving up! Please, pressure [government body] to change their minds about [issue] and vote again in our favor! This would [specific impact]. We are also working on this [alternative solution]. Please donate here! We’ll keep you all updated and together, we will will achieve [favorable result]. We won’t back down! Thank for your support!

Even if the legitimate advocacy is angry, devastated, resigned, or scared, you will still see the elements of specific information and solutions pertaining to a specific situation, especially using jargon pertaining to the specific situation, urging you to learn more or ally with them without 1) centering yourself, 2) accidentally spreading bad information, or 3) accidentally harming other communities in solidarity with theirs. Learning more and supporting movements is supposed to be an *ongoing process* not a “winner-takes-all” sporting tournament, with you as the star and hero.

If people are telling you not to get a second opinion about something that isn’t easily verifiable (especially if there are no primary sources to consult), that’s morally bad marketing.

You may be wondering why I’m framing this as “morally bad marketing” instead of “propaganda” (which is literally correct). That’s *also* marketing. I’ve found that propaganda is a loaded word in most contexts, and if you tell someone they’ve fallen for it, they’ll get defensive. However, if I frame it as a scam and focus my attention on the people manufacturing the scam (whether that’s outrage, bigotry, etc) sometimes it jolts people into realizing how flimsy the premise actually is. Which is very!

If people aren’t using their own activism and infrastructure to gain acceptance and solidarity. If people are using other movements’ platforms to get attention to their own (like stealing hashtags), especially if they use *different phrases and jargon* to gain acceptance in different communities, and keep coming up with new rhetoric every time their ideas don’t penetrate the demographic they’re targeting—these are all red flags of a size that could blanket Texas. Discarding one marketing strategy for another takes time, especially with decentralized communications. If multiple strategies are being employed at once on a large scale: I highly doubt that’s decentralized at all. If it looks like a sales funnel, talks like a sales funnel, etc…

Further, if you see a sudden proliferation of accounts that don’t seem organic, or someone is selling One Weird Little Trick to complete your life, cure your ails, bring about World Peace! [Blank] hates it!

You need to flee. I need you to understand my *very* clearly on this—you need to *flee* immediately. The *best case* scenario is you are being tricked out of currency.

No one doing this is *ever* selling solutions. They are feeding you fear and self-loathing, then selling you the feeling of control. “You can do it! You can change the world! We can do it! We can do it together!” But never, ever once telling you what “it” is. At least not at first. It’s always a lifestyle, a thing, a movement. “Sure the world has gone to pieces [true] but you’re better than the last people who messed up [source?] you can fix it! Just let us tell you how [no, this is a cult, RUN]”

And, again, this can apply to anything, including: companies selling you ‘lifestyles’, companies selling you that one super niche product that will fix your life forever, up to and including literal propaganda campaigns.

The thing is: it’s not about you. It’s about what they can take from you, while you smile happily, feeling privileged (so, so proud) they took it. They let you market for them while they took your money, time, humanity, etc! And it’s all because you’re so wonderful! And brave! And subversive! And whatever else you want to see yourself as!

I can’t believe tweetdeck would get shredded right before Elon wants people to pay for it. tweetdeck is the only good feature twitter has. If you can’t post and retweet between multiple accounts there’s no reason to use it? What else does twitter offer people who have to segment their presence across multiple accounts? 

Since I work on 18+ material but also like to, you know, have a personal life and friends who may not also like what I’m working on, it’s nigh impossible to use the damn thing now. There’s like, no point? AND THIS GUY WANTS PEOPLE TO PAY MONEY TO USE THE THING HE BROKE? 

Also, wow! happy disability pride month! right on the heels of the supreme court dismantling rights for lgbtq people in pride month, the website disabled people us to gather/share resources due to it’s wide accessibility is now extremely inaccessible. 

I love viren dragon prince so much as a character and he’s so complex and juicy and he is a manipulative mastermind who is so entrenched in his personal bs that even he believes the lies he’s spun and he sees himself as the hero and this is all very fascinating and poignant bc we should all be on guard about if what we’re really doing is actually good and true or if it’s destructive and reactionary and perpetuating some really nasty shit bc trying to get two kids ASSASSINATED and launching an invasion with the help of elf satan whispering in ur ear is not where its at my brother.

and I swear to god so many ppl who I see who stan Viren are like “but hes the hero actually” no he fucking isn’t! this is a children’s show yall are supposed to be over 13 to be on this site how are you missing the point so goddamn badlykyrbgkhdsbhvbdfhvbhdb like i can see exactly how he landed at the conclusion he did the point is that it’s easy to see how everyone landed where they have thus far and just bc its explainable doesnt mean its Right. help

i want to do unspeakable things to that dilf but im starting to develop an allergy to him via the rancid takes i see

so the thing is. the majority of people cannot.

The Bank of Canada: Home to the Million-Dollar Banknote

Written by Delvin In the realm of currency, there are numerous fascinating facts that capture our curiosity. One such intriguing aspect lies within the Bank of Canada, which holds the unique distinction of being the sole institution worldwide with the legal authority to issue banknotes valued at an astonishing $1,000,000. This rare denomination has an allure that transcends its monetary value,…

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Like, I'm not saying that this is a good thing, but it's kind of bleakly entertaining how over the course of my life my skill set as an online researcher has gone from being:

Hugely valuable in the late 1990s and early 2000s because the discoverability of information in public-facing databases was fucking terrible and nobody knew how to organise anything; to

Effectively useless throughout the 2010s because search engines enormously and rapidly improved and computer literacy was at an all-time high; and

Back to being hugely valuable once again because SEO bullshit and the proliferation of AI-generated content have degraded online discoverability back to pre-2000 levels and computer literacy is in accelerating decline due to mobile devices deliberately obfuscating basic functionality so that app vendors can sell it back to you with embedded advertising.

Old people who don’t know how to use the internet are a menace to store owners.

USian booktok fauxgressives and the fascists who attend school board meetings, in perfect indistinguishable harmony: if you're going to tell a story you need to be very careful with what kind of evil your antagonists get up to because why would you write something that bad if you weren't thinking about it, which also makes you bad and a deviant. also don't you dare depict them doing anything sympathetic, readers won't know the difference and might become terrible people because they saw one in a book once and felt bad for them. also also if you write your protagonists doing or even thinking a Bad Thing then you deserve to be summarily excommunicated from publishing entirely because you're excusing bad behavior, which is going to immediately compel readers to go do it- opening screen for a Thai series about extremely gay mobsters: 'sup. This is quite obviously fictional and for entertainment purposes. Don't try this at home or anywhere, obviously. Enjoy!

my writing has become so dry and stilted now after like the longest time of doing nothing but writing lab reports and science research papers its like whenever i have to do ANY form of writing for my internship whether thats just writing an email to the volunteers or whatever i feel like i sound so strange

I'd been seeing videos on Tiktok and Youtube about how younger Gen Z & Gen Alpha were demonstrating low computer literacy & below benchmark reading & writing skills, but-- like with many things on the internet-- I assumed most of what I read and watched was exaggerated. Hell, even if things were as bad as people were saying, it would be at least ~5 years before I started seeing the problem in higher education.

I was very wrong.

Of the many applications I've read this application season, only %6 percent demonstrated would I would consider a college-level mastery of language & grammar. The students writing these applications have been enrolled in university for at least two years, and have taken all fundamental courses. This means they've had classes dedicated to reading, writing, and literature analysis, and yet!

There are sentences I have to read over and over again to discern intent. Circular arguments that offer no actual substance. Errors in spelling and capitalization that spellcheck should've flagged.

At a glance, it's easy to trace this issue back to two things:

The state of education in the United States is abhorrent. Instructors are not paid enough, so schools-- particularly public schools-- take whatever instructors they can find.

COVID. The two year long gap in education, especially in high school, left many students struggling to keep up.

But I think there's a third culprit-- something I mentioned earlier in this post. A lack of computer literacy.

This subject has been covered extensively by multiple news outlets like the Washington Post and Raconteur, but as someone seeing it firsthand I wanted to add my voice to the rising chorus of concerned educators begging you to pay attention.

As the interface we use to engage with technology becomes more user friendly, the knowledge we need to access our files, photos, programs, & data becomes less and less important. Why do I need to know about directories if I can search my files in Windows (are you searching in Windows? Are you sure? Do you know what that bar you're typing into is part of? Where it's looking)? Maybe you don't have any files on your computer at all-- maybe they're on the cloud through OneDrive, or backed up through Google. Some of you reading this may know exactly where and how your files are stored. Many of you probably don't, and that's okay. For most people, being able to access a file in as short a time as possible is what they prioritize.

The problem is, when you as a consumer are only using a tool, you are intrinsically limited by the functions that tool is advertised to have. Worse yet, when the tool fails or is insufficient for what you need, you have no way of working outside of that tool. You'll need to consult an expert, which is usually expensive.

When you as a consumer understand a tool, your options are limitless. You can break it apart and put it back together in just the way you like, or you can identify what parts of the tool you need and search for more accessible or affordable options that focus more on your specific use-case.

The problem-- and to be clear, I do not blame Gen Z & Gen Alpha for what I'm about to outline-- is that this user-friendly interface has fostered a culture that no longer troubleshoots. If something on the computer doesn't work well, it's the computer's fault. It's UI should be more intuitive, and it it's not operating as expected, it's broken. What I'm seeing more and more of is that if something's broken, students stop there. They believe there's nothing they can do. They don't actively seek out solutions, they don't take to Google, they don't hop on Reddit to ask around; they just... stop. The gap in knowledge between where they stand and where they need to be to begin troubleshooting seems to wide and inaccessible (because the fundamental structure of files/directories is unknown to many) that they don't begin.

This isn't demonstrative of a lack of critical thinking, but without the drive to troubleshoot the number of opportunities to develop those critical thinking skills are greatly diminished. How do you communicate an issue to someone online? How do look for specific information? How do you determine whether that information is specifically helpful to you? If it isn't, what part of it is? This process fosters so many skills that I believe are at least partially linked to the ability to read and write effectively, and for so many of my students it feels like a complete non-starter.

We need basic computer classes back in schools. We need typing classes, we need digital media classes, we need classes that talk about computers outside of learning to code. Students need every opportunity to develop critical thinking skills and the ability to self-reflect & self correct, and in an age of misinformation & portable technology, it's more important now than ever.