We once read a book called "Feed" in high school - a ham fisted anti-capitalist book. Wherein citizens are 100% connected to an internet like service that only exists to sell them products. 90% of the class couldnt get it. Even when the teacher sat down and explained the entire plot of the book they still couldnt wrap their head around it.

    • TrudeauCastroson [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      blows my mind people couldn't even get the themes of parasite which are so obvious it felt like I was being beaten over the head with it.

      To some people it's just a movie about crafty poors taking advantage of nice rich people.

    • UlyssesT [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      "Show don't tell" is such a staggeringly effective psyop that when I brought it up on Hexbear before, someone really took it personally and went to bat for "show don't tell" as if I threatened the very concept by criticizing its limitations and the malicious intent behind its generations-ago propagation.

      Yes, it can be entertaining and even useful, but there was a bit of irony to that person mentioning how "tell don't show" was just like the Catholic upbringing they utterly hated, yet that person was dogmatic about "show don't tell" being superior and something of a requirement for a "good" story, no matter what.

      • KobaCumTribute [she/her]
        ·
        3 years ago

        It really is wild how "show don't tell" went from being advice about literally showing background details in a visual medium instead of just having characters stand around on stage talking about mundane stuff into being a literary advice that actually means "tell, but only tell gently and as obtusely as possible to make it hard to understand what you're on about."

        And then you can go and make the most hamfisted message possible and literally have the narrator say your message clearly and explicitly and people still won't get it, because they're so conditioned to media being deliberately pointless and empty or open to interpretation. You can unironically go and make a character whose entire thing is that he's a really stupid, self-defeating bigot and chuds will still go "omg so based this guy gets it" and fanboy over him.

        • RowPin [they/them]
          ·
          3 years ago

          56% of Americans are below the literacy level needed to interpret complex information from a text, which I read as 60% of Americans can't understand metaphor and 90% can't understand a subtle one.

        • Coca_Cola_but_Commie [he/him]
          ·
          3 years ago

          open to interpretation

          I know there are good things that end being "open to interpretation" where there's supposed to be enough context that the reader gets the point without it being explicitly stated, but there's way more shit things trying to be good that just never had any point to make in the first place.