"And I shot his ass down and he fucking brrrrrrZzzzKAPOW right into a fucking barn it was awesome."

I'm pretty sure red supporters are willing to donate valor for the Führer.

inb4: i didnt vote for him - then im not talking about you

The current literacy crisis in a nutshell. Literacy is much more than simply being able to read individual words. A large part of literacy is being able to look at a work, and infer the intended audience. And most of the time, the target audience is not “me”.

But algorithmic feeds have effectively destroyed our ability to detect when something isn’t aimed at us. We have become so accustomed to having everything in our feeds laser-focused to our specific interests and worldviews. Before algorithmic feeds were common, people would see something not aimed at them and they would move the fuck on. They would go “meh, not for me” and keep going. But now people tend to get hostile because they feel like they’re being left out, or being singled out.

And we have literally started seeing it reshape the way our media is written. News articles come with blatant “this is only meant for {target audience}” disclaimers. Recipes come with disclaimers. Opinion articles come with disclaimers. Tutorials come with disclaimers. Maybe not always stated so bluntly, but the idea is the same.

Let’s say I make a TikTok about the proper form for throwing a baseball. It’s focused on muscle groups, limb placement, the way you balance as you proceed through a throw, proper follow-through, etc… Obviously aimed at people who are already comfortable with (and are capable of) throwing a ball. But I’ll still need to add some sort of brief cutaway “and this is only really meant for the people looking to perfect their form. If you can’t throw a ball due to disability, or if you’re just not interested in baseball, you can probably just keep scrolling” disclaimer. Because if I forget that disclaimer, I’ll be inundated with all manner of “{but I have a shoulder injury,} {but I’m in a wheelchair,} {but I’m blind in one eye and don’t have good depth perception,} {baseball is stupid,} {I have a bad back and can’t rotate my trunk,} what about me” comments.

TikTok calls it “Bean Soup Theory”, because of a (now infamous) post about a bean soup recipe. The comments were full of angry “but what if I don’t like beans? What should I substitute instead of beans? What about meeeee” comments. If you don’t like beans, don’t make bean soup. It seems obvious. But people have literally lost the ability to infer when something is (and more importantly, when it isn’t) aimed at themselves. Since algorithmic feeds are tailored specifically to our interests and worldviews, the default expectation has become “I am the target audience.” Even though the vast majority of media isn’t aimed at you, that expectation still bleeds into how you interact with the media you encounter.

Anyways, \rant. It’s just something I’ve been seeing more and more these days, and it has become a constant reminder that literacy rates are plummeting.

Many who serve aren't heroic, they had no other options in their small, backwards, stupid towns

They don't immediately get smarter and virtuous simply because they were in the military

Conservatives don't care about truth or consistency. It's just in-group loyalty and out-group hostility.

If you accuse them of being hypocrites, it won't land because to them they aren't. They have maintained in-group loyalty the whole time.

Man shoot fish in a barrel and thinks he's a stud

The ragebait was hanging so low there.

It's drawn his mouth closed too. In every single undoctored photo I've ever seen of him, he has his mouth open like someone has photoshopped the cock out of the frame.

The claim I've seen, and maybe it has been walked back, is that Iran has developed ballistic missiles capable of reaching the mainland US and is close to creating a nuclear weapon, presumably to put on such a missile. There's been no evidence shown of such missiles or their launch sites. The evidence of the nuclear weapon is the same as the last so many times.

I've just never understood the Yank (or the English) fetishisation of "veterans".

"Thank you for your service" and all that BS!

Except that it was out of cowardice more than any moral objection.