Current Events > It's crazy how some people have almost 0 media literacy

(+) Yeah! (+)

I can get hoping that twists happen that would differ it from the obvious, but too often in random comment sections, I see people not understand basic foreshadowing.

Or they do but they fail to represent that in what they remember or think and say about the movie or game

Not everyone is looking for the tropes when consuming media.

I just don't pay attention to details and only engage with most visual media on a extremely surface level. In other words, I don't care about the foreshadowing or that X twist happens.

You expect me to remember all American names that I got 0 interest in?

Umbreon posted...

Not everyone is looking for the tropes when consuming media.

It's not even really about tropes. It'll be like showing someone in a sinister lighting, with a sinister laugh, and then them thinking he's not so bad. Might be an exaggeration, but its things that I feel should be obvious to anyone who's actually paying any attention at all.
Xethuminra posted...

Or they do but they fail to represent that in what they remember or think and say about the movie or game

warlock7735 posted...

I just don't pay attention to details and only engage with most visual media on a extremely surface level. In other words, I don't care about the foreshadowing or that X twist happens.

I feel like both of your posts are talking about people who don't pay close attention. In that case I have pretty much no issue. People who go out of their way to comment on ongoing things like a TV show or movie series though, they should understand this stuff, imo.

What's worse is the mis use of the term "plot hole" and I feel like ever since the dark knight rises released people have been throwing the term around when complaining about a film.

Easy to dismiss any bad opinions or takes when I see that term tossed around.

apocalyptic_4 posted...

What's worse is the mis use of the term "plot hole" and I feel like ever since the dark knight rises released people have been throwing the term around when complaining about a film.

Easy to dismiss any bad opinions or takes when I see that term tossed around.

Plot holes vs bad writing vs characters not being omniscient is an annoying thing. If a character doesn't do some action, it could be any of the three, depending on the context, but people can insist it's the other two.

warlock7735 posted...

I just don't pay attention to details and only engage with most visual media on a extremely surface level. In other words, I don't care about the foreshadowing or that X twist happens.

Sounds boring!

Idk what foreshadowing looks like

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Yep. That's what people don't get about high school English (or the humanities in general). It's supposed to help form informed, critical, and engaged citizens who are able and willing to analyze the world around them.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

One of the issues is that too many people don't want to learn to properly read. People talk all the time about how they weren't taught X or Y in school. But even if they had opportunities to, they wouldn't, in lieu of doing less or easier work.

Nerevar791 posted...

Sounds boring!

Honestly I kind of agree. Just watching something is fine, but I like seeing how other people interpret or take things they've read or watched. It's why I don't mind people having a different opinion on something, but not when they seem super dense.

It actually bugs me really bad when people interpret things in such an obviously wrong way, and are so insistent about being right. Very little writing in popular media is subtle, how do they not understand?

"Itachi was never supposed to faceturn he wasn't written that way at all in part 1!"

they've essentially re-trained themselves to view media differently. And it's unfortunate that they now believe/love to watch a lot of BS and crap

One thing that drives me crazy on the internet is when people come up with "rational" explanations that completely disregard any thought the writers would have put into the story.

Like the character Bill in The Last of Us has a big plotline about how important his "partner" was to him and Ellie steals a gay porn magazine from his safehouse. The obvious, obvious, obvious notion is that Bill is as gay as springtime, but I saw a post on this very site arguing that it didn't mean anything. Bill just scavenges and hoards tons of stuff, he probably just picked up a Twinkalicious by accident. And sure, that's a reasonable explanation, but it's also idiotic to think that's what the writers wanted you to get from that detail.

Evening_Dragon posted...

"Itachi was never supposed to faceturn he wasn't written that way at all in part 1!"

This one is interesting because I do think Kishimoto didnt do a great job with it.
Naysaspace posted...

they've essentially re-trained themselves to view media differently. And it's unfortunate that they now believe/love to watch a lot of BS and crap

Ive seen some people mention how a lot of right wing viewers misinterpret The Boys as a criticism of left wing ideals. I think thats pretty weird. Honestly when I think of it though, I think more of the story is gonna treat characters like Soldier Boy by the end of the season. To me, regardless of what people think about his character, it felt evident which way the writers wanted you to feel.

Ratchetrockon posted...

Idk what foreshadowing looks like

I think its when they(to use a basic example) give a character a Mirror Universe Spock goatee as a way of telling the audience that he is evil.

Tangentially related pet peeve, when people seem to get all their analytical skills from some youtube essayist and dont grasp why certain narrative tools are used >_>

Ive seen people abuse the phrase "show don't tell" as if any amount of exposition is bad. Generally speaking a lot of people seem to want hyper-decompressed storytelling and want every detail of a world to be fleshed out for them.

Also the insistance that every single character needs a personal arc to go through, forgetting that static characters can have just as an important and compelling role to fill as dynamic ones. >_>

pegusus123456 posted...

One thing that drives me crazy on the internet is when people come up with "rational" explanations that completely disregard any thought the writers would have put into the story.

Like the character Bill in The Last of Us has a big plotline about how important his "partner" was to him and Ellie steals a gay porn magazine from his safehouse. The obvious, obvious, obvious notion is that Bill is as gay as springtime, but I saw a post on this very site arguing that it didn't mean anything. Bill just scavenges and hoards tons of stuff, he probably just picked up a Twinkalicious by accident. And sure, that's a reasonable explanation, but it's also idiotic to think that's what the writers wanted you to get from that detail.

Oh boy, this is pretty much the exact sort of thing Im going through now. Where it feels like people go out of their way to ignore very blatant clues.

I havent played the game, but based on what you said, sure, theres a less than 1% chance he isnt gay, but the writers werent setting all these very obvious clues up to say that.

PerseusRad posted...

This one is interesting because I do think Kishimoto didnt do a great job with it.

Ive seen some people mention how a lot of right wing viewers misinterpret The Boys as a criticism of left wing ideals. I think thats pretty weird. Honestly when I think of it though, I think more of the story is gonna treat characters like Soldier Boy by the end of the season. To me, regardless of what people think about his character, it felt evident which way the writers wanted you to feel.

Theyre trying to make a superhero show into politics. Nuff said.

Naysaspace posted...

Theyre trying to make a superhero show into politics. Nuff said.

The Boys was political from season 1 iirc. Regardless, its evident they arent for the right-wing, but there are some people who legitimately think that. Then people get upset when you say that not all interpretations of media are right.

When I saw Star Trek into Dankness people in the theater were legit crying when you know who died.

Huys do you not remember the magical undying hamster that was in the film 45 minutes ago for literrally no reason other than to be useful now?

Im not usually the fastest perdon to pick up on such cues myself, but it was the most blatant thing Id ever seen.

My pet peeve is when people use "tropes" when they mean "cliches" or "deconstruction" when something turned out slightly different than they expected.

Kim_Seong-a posted...

Ive seen people abuse the phrase "show don't tell" as if any amount of exposition is bad. Generally speaking a lot of people seem to want hyper-decompressed storytelling and want every detail of a world to be fleshed out for them.

Also the insistance that every single character needs a personal arc to go through, forgetting that static characters can have just as an important and compelling role to fill as dynamic ones. >_>

Ive got some interest in writing, and its very obvious a lot of wannabe writers dont really get how to translate what theyve read into what they want to write. So many books tell all the time. Reading a book that only had show would probably be infuriating.

I kinda get the appeal of wanting every character to get an arc, but its not feasible usually, and as you say, static characters have a purpose.

I'm good at engaging with non-fiction (or whatever claims to be non-fiction) and picking apart stuff like fake news

I'm a lot worse at engaging with fiction. I like it and enjoy picking it apart, but a lot of times I find myself not picking up on details that my peers did or reaching the "wrong" conclusions

"oh yeah man... those door frames... the door frames are because we never truly step into someone's life, we only gaze at it from the entrance"

i hate people raging about characters dying. not people getting disappointed that a character they like is gone, thats understandable, but people who feel like a character is ruined or being disrespected (or in some cases that the creator of a show is racist/sexist/whatever) just because they died, regardless of what happened in the rest of their arc. its so bizarre to me, like tons of the most memorable and most interesting characters in fiction havent been people that die during a story

Is it crazy? Is it really?

teep_ posted...

I'm good at engaging with non-fiction (or whatever claims to be non-fiction) and picking apart stuff like fake news

I'm a lot worse at engaging with fiction. I like it and enjoy picking it apart, but a lot of times I find myself not picking up on details that my peers did or reaching the "wrong" conclusions

Maybe you should try reading detective novels and crime fiction for a while. Itll help get you in the mindset of trying to figure out what will happen next. Reading books and watching TV can be a little bit like playing detective. Theres a shit ton of information laid out in from of you and theres a logical way that all of it can be tied together in the end. All you need to do is think things through and itll usually become clear where the writers are going with things

indica posted...

Is it crazy? Is it really?

I always assumed most people could pick up on basic foreshadowing if it was pointed out to them, turns out theyll waffle on it and say its not impossible.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

man, that fucking venn diagram meme has done more to harm media literacy than any english teacher ever could

Character development is the thing people misunderstand that most annoys me.

It seems like online, a disproportionate amount of people believe character development means someone needs to change or evolve over the course of the story, and unless someone does that theres no development.

The reality is no one has to change over the course of a story, the key to character development is just that a character gets fleshed out and seems like a real person. You could take the most boring, stock, brave hero archetype and not change the character at all over the course of a story, but so long as you explore motivations, how they react to different situations, speak to different people, and how they see and interact with the world you've developed that character into an actual person rather than a boring archetype.

Is this about Jojo Rabbit? Since its in vogue to hate on Waititi again after Thor 4.

Saw some incredible hot takes about it being pro-Nazi or something, because the Nazis arent depicted as complete monsters, knowing full well that the movie is framed in the eyes of a 10-year-old coming of age.

of course it's a pipe. what else could it be? you're just overthinking ithttps://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/9/2/AAUjppAADc30.jpg

warlock7735 posted...

I just don't pay attention to details and only engage with most visual media on a extremely surface level. In other words, I don't care about the foreshadowing or that X twist happens.

Pretty much this. If Im watching a movie or something, Im not going to be thinking deeply about what is going on.

blackrider76 posted...

Is this about Jojo Rabbit? Since its in vogue to hate on Waititi again after Thor 4.

Nah. It is about something in particular, but I dont think anyone on CE is likely to read it. But I saw it happening with The Boys recently, so this kinda thing has been on my mind a lot.
Lvaneede posted...

Pretty much this. If Im watching a movie or something, Im not going to be thinking deeply about what is going on.

Just in case, Ill say again that I dont mind this, i mindlessly watch movies a good amount as well. I mainly take issue when people discuss the movie, and kinda plug their ears when theyre told what something (thats not meant to be ambiguous) means.

PerseusRad posted...

Honestly when I think of it though, I think more of the story is gonna treat characters like Soldier Boy by the end of the season. To me, regardless of what people think about his character, it felt evident which way the writers wanted you to feel.

I'm pretty sure most of us knew how the writers wanted us to feel, we just think they didn't do a good job of making us feel that way. When your entire season's arc revolves around the fact that Soldier Boy is supposed to be worse than Homelander, you really need to do more to convince the audience of that fact. As it stood, it felt like they just had Starlight and MM repeatedly saying he's bad while not really having Soldier Boy do much to make the viewer feel that way. They did a better job convincing me that Blue Hawk was a racist even though he was a far less important character this season.

FuriousFox posted...

I'm pretty sure most of us knew how the writers wanted us to feel, we just think they didn't do a good job of making us feel that way. When your entire season's arc revolves around the fact that Soldier Boy is supposed to be worse than Homelander, you really need to do more to convince the audience of that fact. As it stood, it felt like they just had Starlight and MM repeatedly saying he's bad while not really having Soldier Boy do much to make the viewer feel that way. They did a better job convincing me that Blue Hawk was a racist even though he was a far less important character this season.

I agree that they messed up with Soldier Boy. I'd say they probably messed up with a lot of characters that season. They wanted us to sympathize with Annie/MM, but their argument was really weak. Unfortunately, it also felt fairly obvious that it wasn't quite as nuanced as it could have been. I say that, but Soldier Boy as an individual was still a bit nuanced, the characters around him were less so.

pegusus123456 posted...

One thing that drives me crazy on the internet is when people come up with "rational" explanations that completely disregard any thought the writers would have put into the story.

This one really gets the blood pressure up.

Evening_Dragon posted...

This one really gets the blood pressure up.

see, I take the opposite approach. I think you should completely ignore what the writers wanted you to think (partly because you can't know that anyway) and just focus on the actual content of the work

I get genuinely irritated when people try to figure out or analyze foreshadowing or tropes of what is going to happen later in a story. Just sit your ass down and watch it instead of trying to spoil yourself or spoil it for others. Leave it as an unanswered question, it's more enjoyable to consume that way.

warlock7735 posted...

I get genuinely irritated when people try to figure out or analyze foreshadowing or tropes of what is going to happen later in a story. Just sit your ass down and watch it instead of trying to spoil yourself or spoil it for others. Leave it as an unanswered question, it's more enjoyable to consume that way.

Difference in preferences. I get your perspective for sure, but I like trying to figure it out. Its all about execution, and sometimes there are good twists that still make sense, that people werent able to exist. I wouldnt push it on someone else, but if its a discussion about that sort of thing, and one person is being obtuse, thats where I get annoyed.

YookaLaylee posted...

Maybe you should try reading detective novels and crime fiction for a while. Itll help get you in the mindset of trying to figure out what will happen next. Reading books and watching TV can be a little bit like playing detective. Theres a shit ton of information laid out in from of you and theres a logical way that all of it can be tied together in the end. All you need to do is think things through and itll usually become clear where the writers are going with things

I enjoy detective fiction like Poirot and Sherlock Holmes and have read a lot of it. I never felt the need to figure out what would happen next. I always put myself in the role of a passenger going along for the ride, and not the driver

teep_ posted...

I enjoy detective fiction like Poirot and Sherlock Holmes and have read a lot of it. I never felt the need to figure out what would happen next. I always put myself in the role of a passenger going along for the ride, and not the driver

Ive never been big on mystery novels myself. Im not sure if Im supposed to try and figure it out myself or not. I know some people do, but it feels like the preferred answer naturally changes as more information is revealed.

teep_ posted...

I enjoy detective fiction like Poirot and Sherlock Holmes and have read a lot of it. I never felt the need to figure out what would happen next. I always put myself in the role of a passenger going along for the ride, and not the driver

Pretty much this. Sometimes characters have to act stupid to make the story work. "let's split up to cover more ground" is 100% always going to result in something stupid or someone dying, but that's the point. Characters are there to advance the plot and enable the story, they're not there to be audience inserts to make you feel fulfilled, smart, witty, attractive, or relatable.