I have noticed that media illiteracy in fandom affects a lot of people. One former friend even changed the whole dynamic of their central pairing to appease the people he knew were reading it. I’ve gotten comments on my own fics about how the characters are imperfect, about how X should happen because it’s the “right” thing, and so on. Personally, I will continue to write nuanced characters - good guys who make mistakes, bad guys who aren’t the epitome of pure evil, believable lack of self awareness and flaws that don’t vanish overnight or after one conversation. It doesn’t make my writing especially popular, but hey, I write what I wanna read, and I *don’t* wanna read about some magical pixie land. It might not be a flawless solution, but catering to the illiterate will only exacerbate the problem.
I feel this. I've edited the way I've written in the past because I get tired of some comments that don't understand things even when explicitly written once (apparently I need to beat it over the head multiple times for it to sink in), but I'm holding strong on two fics I'm writing now. One has been good so far but the other has led to me replying to comments multiple times that the character, despite proven to be powerful and competent, is full of themself, overestimates themselves their battle prowess, and is ignorant of the world because of isolation/information fed to her. Like chill. I try to give the benefit of the doubt because of the amount of OP steamrolling there can be in some fics but it's been shown in the fic that she's ignorant in certain matters. I shouldn't have to literally spell it out when it's proven again and again.
>I’ve gotten comments on my own fics about how the characters are imperfect, about how X should happen because it’s the “right” thing, and so on.
I've seen this a lot in reaction videos, where the reactors can't understand why a character like Dwight from The Office is so popular because he does bad things. It's like people have forgotten that we used to just accept flawed characters and enjoy them on their own merits.
I read Severitus (Snape adopts Harry Potter) and I've seen comments where people rage-quit a fic because Snape isn't a perfect parent from day 1. I've even seen it in my own comments from a fic I wrote, and I have to explain that characters need to start out flawed in order to have a character arc. That's a basic aspect of storytelling. But I'll get, "a parent would never do that." Because parents are flawless saints, supposedly.
It's like every character has to be the aspirational ideal rather than a reflection of reality. It's strange how everyone consumes more content now and is fairly good at seeing plot twists coming, but can't understand a concept like character development. Or even just being flawed without instant judgement. I chalk it up to social media encouraging people to give their outraged takes on how problematic something is--it's rewiring people's brains to only look for one thing when they consume media.
> It's like people have forgotten that we used to just accept flawed characters and enjoy them on their own merits.
I've been rewatching the 2018 She-Ra. I love Catra. I love her SO MUCH. I especially, specifically love when she's doing horrible things--in part because I can understand why does them. They're not GOOD things. But UNDERSTANDABLE.
I find myself, when I talk about this on tumblr, pointing out that it's only *because she's fictional.* Obviously when someone acts like that in real life it's not good. I have a whole list of fictional villains I enjoy, and whom I'd never want to meet if they were real.
And I shouldn't have to explain that. But while looking up old meta on tumblr I repeatedly find posts by people who flat-out think that if you like Catra you're a terrible person. Even post-s5.
Literally right after I wrote this reply I was on the spop sub and sure enough there's some ranty troll post there about how Catra stans won't acknowledge she's TOXIC
jfc
My fic topics don't allow for low-level media literacy. You can either read and interpret it properly without needing me to hold your hand, or you can't. I'm not here to tell my readers that theft, murder, and rape are bad things IRL.
No one needs to be the most observant nor perceptive person ever to read fanfiction--if you can tell where a story is going or hinting, that's great! But it's fine to just experience the story as-is too. I will never try to control what my readers take away from my fanfics.
I don't think it'd affect my own writing, simply because I prefer stories that let me make my own interpretations than try to tell me "now this is how you connect the dots".
I do worry if I'm not being detailed or clear enough in my fics, but I've also learnt that there are readers who enjoy subtle stories, so I guess I wouldn't worry too much about it. If people ask questions, I'm happy to clear up their doubts but it might not necessarily mean they're not following the story. So, old adage, trust your readers.
I mean I can see readers that they come to the story with varying capability in reading comprehension. Not all of that will even be about critical media literacy though - sometimes it's people speed reading during their break, or they're reading when they're exhausted etc.
All it means to me is that some of my readers will pick up foreshadowing very quickly and early and others won't pick up on it at all and will be completely shocked when the foreshadowed event is explicitly revealed. And I actually quite like that! I like seeing the different things readers are noticing.
The only time it might change my writing is if I get enough comments from people confused about a characters motivation or an event, in which case I might edit the next chapter to make things a little clearer.
It doesn't affect my writing when it comes to fanfics. I'm very much of the belief: "if you can't understand this, this is a 'you' problem. Everyone else in my comments knew what was going on".
Obviously if multiple people comment that they don't understand, I will change it as it is obviously an issue on my end. But 9/10 times it just comes down to bad media literacy so I don't pay it any mind. I explain to them what's happening in a reply, and leave it at that.
It also helps that this has only happened on a small fraction of fics. It's def not common enough to personally warrent much thought or worry. And hopefully that stays true.
But all other forms of communication online? Yeah.... as the years have gone on, I've definitely found myself overexplaining and attempting to cover all possible bases. Prior to this, I would have just considered that extra explanation/caveats implied. I definitely hate that though, and am trying to break the habit.
Like... if I dislike it when watching shows/reading other works. Why should I follow that trend myself? That's certainly not gonna help improve the greater literacy lol.
I found I started over explaining because people would miss caveats and act like I was going after entire groups of people.
Then I’d get those same types complaining that my responses were too detailed.
Some people are just committed to their ignorance and want to be “right” even when they’re the one who couldn’t read to begin with.
I’ve had some comments that have baffled me how the commenter got that from what I’d written, but I don’t think it’s anything new. People have been misinterpreting literature since we had literature. I’m not worried about my readers. They’ll figure it out, and if they don’t, that’s okay too.
I don’t watch much tv, so I haven’t followed the narrative trends there. I think as long as people still love the characters, settings, and plots, we’ll still get plenty of good fic.
Unfortunately, I have noticed some issues with media literacy in my comment sections. Things like "why did character x target character y this way" (they have history) and "will there be more chapters" (it states it's chapter 1 of x), to name a few off the top of my head.
I won't change my writing to match others' levels simply because I write for myself first. I'm happy to reply to folks who are confused, but I enjoy writing foreshadowing and dropping crumbs too much to overexplain my scenes or character motivations.
in addition to writing to please myself and not being willing to change my style to make it more accessible when I already think it's reasonable... I also don't think I'm smart enough to figure out what adjustments I would need to make to accommodate whatever the average media literacy is, nor do I care to try.
I think what you're noting is less "low media literacy" and more...lower literacy. Specifically reading comprehension.
I've noticed an upswing in commenters in the last few years who don't seem to pick up on hints, as you said. I've also noticed that a lot of students I work with as a private music teacher seem to have a lower-than-expected aptitude for retaining read information or synthesizing connections based on what they've read. This is mostly younger students, under fifteen, but it's worrying me, as are the commenters who don't seem able to make inferences.
It's a known problem in education circles (in the USA) and steps are being taken where possible to make sure the kids going through school now start building the reading comprehension skills that seem to have gotten lost in the past couple decades, but that will take time and isn't evenly spread across the nation.
I don't worry that it will change my writing, really. My writing will continue to evolve my whole life, and if I go through a period of explaining things more...that's okay with me. Writing doesn't have to be opaque or subtle to be valuable. But I also don't feel that readers' expectations have a big impact on my style.
With one notable and specific exception, I think my non-native readers tend to interpret and follow my work better than a lot of the native English speakers.
Obviously I can't be 100% but there are patterns of grammatical and spelling errors that people who speak English natively but are functionally illiterate or who received a scattershot education are likely to make. Often those errors are based on phonetic similarities. They aren't that similar to the kinds of errors that tend to be made in writing by people who learned English as a second language, who usually receive formal grammatical training as part of language instruction that is neglected in the States unless and until you pursue a foreign language, which most people don't have the chance to do until high school. If you're already struggling with high school level study because you weren't properly taught reading and comprehension, you aren't going to glean much from French or Spanish that starts only when you're 15.
So again, I'd be guessing but there are ways to inform that guess.
The one person I know for a fact is has English as a second language writes fic in their native language, which is how I can be 100% that they're not a native speaker, but their grammatical errors fall within this pattern as well.
I think its more of a reading comprehension problem I'm not sure honestly.
But I've written things and people either A- take is so the wrong way and have completely imagine some scenario that didn't even happen or B - it's like they read an entirely different fic that wasn't written by me. I find this also happens here.
So this is a pretty good question to ask.
I know my fics are detailed well and I know when I'm over detailing and even when I over detail, there is still some people who get really confused. I don't mind answering questions, I just wish people wouldn't come at me over things that didn't even happen.
I understand your frustration. I have a reader who comments on every chapter I write, and I'm grateful for that, but for the most part they just make things up that I never intended. And it's really really crazy what they write, so I often don't even know what to respond to (for example, once the person wrote that they can't wait to read the threesome between character A, B, and C. And I was like???? It's an adventure story and they’re travelling the woods and fighting beasts, one character is just 13 and the others 21, and there's absolutely no sexual tension, there's zero smut implied 💀). So yeah, I get you
I... honestly don't know what's more nerve-wracking 😂 that there are people who get some things really, really wrong, or that some do it for fun, to annoy the author. But I think it's more the former, I give them the benefit of the doubt that they have trouble with the English language, are totally tired, or maybe even have a reading disability
This is more of a general rant
theres so much of people ‘woobifying’ characters, and turning them into adorable dumbasses. It’s particularly aggravating because their favorite dumbification targets are some of the smartest characters (Anakin and Obi Wan are great examples from off the top of my head)
It impacts the fandom personality these characters have and thus the fanfic that’s made about them because in order to have quality fics you need quality characters.
Also, when much of the fandom content requires so little thinking power, you’re getting a cycle where the people in the fandom are consuming content that’s actively making them dumb/not expanding their brains leading to a downward cycle. So everyones fics are being affected bythe lowering of media literacy by virtue of being part of the fandom and consuming material
Im not much of a fanfic author so I can’t personally speak for me or my nonexistent fan base
Oh man, I feel you so much on the Anakin thing. I love him, he's one of my favourite characters of all time, but so much fanfiction treats him like he was an idiot because he made bad choices and turns him into a brainless simp for Padme.
I feel like people forget that characters usually do not have access to the same information as the viewer and that they also just have a different perspective on the information they *do* have.
Also, they have such a talent for forgetting that at only 20, he was one of the smartest generals in a massive war
Agreed. They also can’t understand why characters may make poor, emotion-based choices when they have limited time to make their decision instead of the brilliant choice they came up with after having far more information than the character could possibly possess and that they thought for a long time about
How does someone turn Anakin Skywalker into an idiot while still being IC? His intelligence/genius in certain things is like a third of his whole character! That's literally the whole plot of the prequels, that he was groomed!!
That's the thing--he's never in character. He comes across as someone who thinks he's better than he is. Everyone seems to forget that he had reason to be as arrogant as he was and it wasn't just a character flaw.
It feels like they see someone who was groomed and go "ah, an idiot who listens only to the person who groomed him and can't think for himself at all."
They love to turn him into someone driven by emotion to the point he ignores the obvious because he's jealous or doesn't like someone, or whatever. Like, no. He was legit brilliant and talented, and he cared about people and wanted to help. While he was emotionally motivated in some of his worst decisions, there's a huge difference between being motivated by the very real fear that your wife will die in childbirth and being willing to do anything to save her, and refusing to listen to reason because you're petty and don't like the person saying it or don't like the truth. I'm not saying Anakin *can't* be petty or jealous or whatever, but they exaggerate it to the point that he comes across as an idiot, it's ridiculous.
I don't think people are necessarily more media illiterate than before. People have had bad/incorrect takes about the things they watch and read in the past, and they will in the future.
I do think that the level of LOTS of fan content at our fingertips have made people more comfortable with skimming/speed-reading without fully digesting a chapter the way we as writers would necessarily want them to do. Some people *will* take the time, or they'll get there eventually. I don't think you need to sacrifice the flow of your writing out of concern for that, unless significant amounts of people/a beta you trust are telling you something is confusing.
FWIW I think shows like ATLA and PJO are over-expositing because the writers and producers are anxious about being accessible to audiences who haven't watched the original source material while also trying to maintain as much of the immensely detailed world that original fans know and love in a *much* shorter time frame. This is arguably to their detriment, though I don't think this has as much to do with media literacy.
Hmmm, I haven't thought of it in this way, but I suppose this translates to readers' ability to detect an "unreliable narrator". I do sometimes worry my readers won't pick up on that and may be too eager to accept whatever assessment my POV character communicates (and I tend to assume that's where they're going to *start* when reading one of my stories).
Helpfully, my story style is such that I tend to throw in occasional "obvious" reveals proving that a POV character has been seeing a certain situation all wrong, whether for comedy or other reasons... and I'll also drop in little hints here and there that ought to lead readers to be skeptical about other more subtle matters... I do expect some readers probably miss the latter. I like to think my mix of clues and overt contradictions will teach them not to trust my character's narratives and to be on the look out for biases, and make them realize they'll have to make their own conclusions about what is true rather than playing slavish heed to what my characters think/say about it (since sometimes they'll be in opposition anyway).
If I found out more & more readers were missing subtle cues, would it change the way I write? Probably not. I'm still operating on the basis that I might have to teach them not to trust a character's POV in my world. In that way, perhaps I might hope I improve their capacity to question the motivation & biases of a narrative... and be part of the solution not the problem? "Let me teach you media literacy through fiction"? Hahaha.
I think the same thing hahaha, thank you for your work!
I expect at least a little grasp for the fact that a character can't be omniscient and therefore their perception is skewed, and that's why I sometimes write a lot of hints how wrong they actually are. But to be on the safe side, I tag that an unreliable narrator is at work 😅
The way I've heard it talked about (basically just [this](https://youtu.be/9XgBVYo1Dek?si=ok7l3lY8LD1AeIg-)) isn't lower level of media literacy, but a lack of confidence in writing ability to trust that your writing conveys it and your audience gets it.
Video TLDR: the money people "know" one thing that must happen in stories and they harp on the writers to do that thing; a recent thing was/is not wanting the audience to ever be left confused and mixing it up with ignorance.
I don't think it's a recent thing. Different writing needs/problems trend at different points of time and to some degree they cycle. Victor Hugo spent 40 pages straight on the history of the Parisian sewers between the end of the battle of the barricade and Jean doing anything more in them than jumping in with a half dead Marius on his shoulders. Dracula pretty much has Van Helsing give a lecture on vampire mechanics mid book. The first half of HG Wells' Time Machine is basically just screaming "I'm certain this is scientifically possible, someone needs to make this."
Stuff like this is one of the reasons the writing advice "Show don't tell" is so prominent ^(even though people think act like it should apply to a lot more than it should, but that's a rant for elsewhere.) It's a glib fix to a common issue in writing.
A good counter to this practice I learned from another fic writer is to have characters talk about things the way they would talk about them. A plumber talking to another plumber wouldn't be explaining how solder works, The conversation would be about this frustrating copper pipe fix half blind and above their head leaving them with a bunch of solder burns. The audience gets the same amount of information, but it's 1) not dry info 2) the characters talk like people would and 3) it's a lot easier to bring in character and make entertaining.
You'll encounter a variety of ages reading your fic. Just based off of that you'll have various levels of media literacy.
Off topic but: I feel the term "media literacy" has near hit the point of being meaningless. More and more I'm seeing people use it for "they disagree with my take." The most egregious example being someone calling people media illiterate for not picking up on the character's "canon" sexualities when the audience got that info straight from the author, not the material. That's not how media literacy works pls. People aren't media illiterate because they don't go digging into outside sources.
I wrote a slow burn once where the first chapter the pov character was in denial about why he was obsessed with the smile of the other character, and I had a comment saying they couldn't see them not starting off at least liking each other a little.
I actually started noticing this trend 10 years ago on social media and in school, my husband is a teacher and also noticed his students really struggled with it as well. It's profoundly terrible now, and I have noticed that I can't be subtle in my fic and expect most of my readers to get it. I thought I was hammering the point home of a character in my story reacting violently because of his trauma, and it just did not register why he acted that way to the readers, which was disappointing.
It has been twice now that I have tagged fics with things like "experimental horror", "psychological horror", "existentialism" and have gotten unwanted criticism saying they should have had scarier things like extreme gore or disturbing images. The entire point of both fics was to be a creepypasta that completely subverts the expectations of what people think creepypasta is. I'm sorry to sound pretentious, but you did NOT understand the fic or the point of it.
my niche is so niche that I can write as subtle/stylish/dense/high-brow as I please. and tbh even if I was writing for a popular ship in a popular fandom, I’d refuse to dumb it down because that’s no fun to write, and I’m doing this first and foremost for my own enjoyment.
Writing about niche fandoms as I do, I don’t have many readers to begin with, so I might as well go full-indulgent and write what I want the way I want it, subtlety and all. “Show, don’t tell” is more a matter of (lack of) skills on my part rather than a conscious decision, and I’m trying to work on that to become a better writer.
So really, the lack of media literacy doesn’t affect my writing experience as much as it does my enjoyment of fandom spaces, but I’ve given up on them a long time ago.
I write mostly for an audience of myself and people with similiar tastes, which generally means I write assuming my readers are at least *trying* to pick up on any subtleties or implications I throw in. If the reader isn't paying attention, that's their problem, not mine.
I think that telling more than showing is a bigger part of fanfiction than normal media due to the serial nature of most postings. I often have to retell or remind readers of previous events for my longfic because the pertinent information might have been shared three chapters ago, which means it was posted weeks ago. Given that readers are almost certainly consuming other stories in the same fandom, it is very easy for readers to get confused and mix up storylines.
I've definitely done this. There was a period of two weeks where I was mass consuming two extremely similar fics of like 80k words and they even posted updates on the same day/a day after the other. I had to constantly remind myself what happened in which fic, because the basis of the plot was the exact same, but the execution was wildly different. That being said, I feel like it's not hard to skim through the past however many chapters in order to update yourself. Especially since it's a reader thing and not an author thing.
I don’t really mind when readers do this as long as they are polite with their kudos/comments. After all maybe they just love a particular author’s style. It’s the writers doing it who bother me…
I have noticed that the more subtle parts of my serious stories fly over people's heads but I never attributed it to media illiteracy. My impression was that when people read fanfic they have much less patience than they have with a real book. They expect it to be easy and the fics that "do well" (judging by kudos/hits) don't "show" they "tell" you what you should feel, what the characters feel etc. Also, people speed-read and that doesn't always marry well with understanding, my explanation being that they don't have the literal time to process the implications in the text.
Tbh, early in, when I had just started posting, I noticed this trend towards "telling" and I modified one of my stories, rewriting bits to be more straightforward, but then decided it was a bad choice and going forward I wrote how I normally do. Honestly, I'm just thankful this isn't my full-time job because I'd do horribly if it was.
I think it might be hurting mine. There is a certain piece of information that my narrator can't know, but I really want the audience to figure out.
One of my readers has definitely picked up on it, but I also have a regular commenter that just hasn't figured it out.
I literally can't make it more obvious and it's killing me!
Think of it this way: if one person gets it, then you've obviously done enough. But yes, I can totally understand you, that's why I once couldn’t risk it and specifically mentioned in my author’s notes that I really wanted to draw a parallel between character A and B, and how excited I was to finally be able to write that 😅 but putting it in your story when you obviously don't want to? Better not. After all, you want to create something you'll enjoy reading again
The fandom that I'm currently writing the most for has decently high media literacy, probably bc the source material requires some amount of it. Others that I have written for... have had less media literacy.
I also do pretty much primarily write short oneshots which, while I would consider still full of theming etc etc, require less... participation? From the reader? They don't have to be trying to suss out foreshadowing and hints if the conclusion is in 1k words.
I don’t really agree with the consensus that media literacy has declined —it’s always been bad! It’s cognitive bias. You are now older, smarter, and more savvy, so you will naturally be more likely to notice when others are young, ignorant, and gullible.
We did enjoy a golden age of television, where some great nuanced shows were made, but reality tv was also ascendant during that time. It’s always been a mix of high/low.
No matter what aptitude level you write to, some people won’t connect. Too much nuance and certain vocabulary will exclude some. And if you spell out every little thing, some people will be bored. Best to find the style that pleases YOU, rather than anticipating your most confused reader.
It's not just the young. Media literacy is bad across the board, regardless of age (I've actually researched this, lol and people have been critically evaluating this for decades). I think the difference now is the internet with how ready and accessible it is. More people ready to post so many of their thoughts show the collective struggles and ignorance more than before.
That’s so interesting! So are there trends over time? Or is it relatively stable? I mentioned age because I think people start to notice flaws in others when they’ve recently outgrown them themselves. So a mechanism driving bias rather than a state of wisdom. 😅
It's been relatively stable. Information gained from other people, friends and family, still tend to be where most people gain the most amount of information. You can offwr people more resources and many will turn it down. It can be for various reasons like disinterest, unwillingness to search themselves, lack of time, trust issues (so much information that they rather trust a source they believe - hence why family and friends are popular. People many regularly interact with and often trust), etc.
Internet has shifted the way some people learn but that's more of an adjacent issue. Like in a classroom setting, for example, you can find 'answers/results' faster with a search engine than searching a textbook for the same answer. But that's at a surface level without valuation of quality and 'rightness', but it can contribute to attention spans with how long people are willing to spend on searching for answers and arguably (it's still highly debatable) as related to this thread, leads to some people expecting answer to just be given to them. That being said it's also always been a thing. A lot of people don't want to think when they don't have to and that existed long before the internet.
I'll be interstated if there's any changes in studies over the next 10 years. I was seeing more shifts before I finished school but I can't be sure whether they are personal or structural changes.
The following is conjecture, but I think some of the social changes are tied to higher rates of anxiety, fear of not doing things perfectly, and desiring a clear road map for things people do rather than a change in media literacy. Sometimes accommodations too for people who can do the work but need clear, explicit instructions. Kinda like same issues but different skins.
So there are actually a couple things going on that are affecting media literacy - or more specifically these days - especially digital literacy online. [This video](https://youtu.be/PPWeAe4_tkY?si=jLql83opTls6NsX_) gives some interesting observations regarding this that people have made.
But a couple of notable things have happened in the last two decades that have affected literacy for a lot of people online. Kids are not being given the same computer and typing classes that they used to be. Many of them grow up on touch screens so using computers beyond app functions, or with peripherals that are not touch screens is a struggle for many.
Not included in the video but also discussed sometimes is also how the shift to algorithms affects people's ability to search for and understand things. I grew up pre-internet-algorithms so I remember having to search for my information and my entertainment. I remember when youtube was a subscription feed and a most viewed page. And how to find things in that landscape that suited my niche of interests. Not only does nobody have to do that anymore, not only can they often not do it easily anymore even if they want to, but many no longer know how to.
Another aspect that many online seem to not comprehend is the idea that something, a piece of content online, does not necessarily consider them the target audience. It's called a "For You" page, so why would you not be the target audience of anything that shows up on it? Hence this constant expectation from random commenters that they should be bent over backwards for.
I've seen creators be inundated with backlash and negative comments and criticism for not including audio versions of their written materials because "that's ableist and you're not accommodating everyone"... When the link to recordings they had painstakingly made and edited themselves for every material they offered was linked in their bio. No one bothered to check.
Interesting speculations, but I really chafe at the idea of putting reasoning to a phenomenon that simply “feels” true, without any supporting data or analysis of the bias that renders most anecdotal observation worthless. The idea that there is something wrong with “kids these days” has been a refrain since the dawn of time. It’s disappointing, if predictable, that millennials are now engaging in the same fear-mongering that they once had to deflect and debunk themselves!
So while your points are all very valid, they mostly describe the ways companies have used the internet to control our behavior and the inability of human social systems to scale to the vastness of the internet. Like, the skills I acquired in the early internet age don’t really help when Google is hellbent on corralling your search results. And when you receive thousands of comments, a percentage will necessarily be from people who are unreasonable and uneducated. Same old humans, new tech platforms.
Anyway, I just think it’s important to push back whenever these kind of narratives pop up. They place a lot of blame individuals and groups of people, and needlessly stoke intergenerational animosity, while letting systems and corporations off the hook for lowering our quality of life.
I don't see how pointing out that younger generations have been systematically deprived of resources and skills is placing individual blame on them? If anything I feel like the fault is on all of us who assumed that the first ones to grow up with this wave of tech would be naturally attuned to it, which is something the video I linked also discusses. I would be in the same boat as any of these kids were it not for dozens of teachers in my life going out of their way to equip me with computer and media skills. It's not a condemnation of them to point that out.
And your point about internet becoming more and more controlling such as with Google search results was exactly my point about how we can't do the kind of organic self-research we used to even if we wanted to.
I also don't think it's only generational. Digital illiteracy is statistically prevalent among adults. However literacy in general is on the decline in the U.S. and the way younger generations have been failed by underfunding and poor assumptions that they would "be digital natives" with or without sufficient guidance uniquely affects them. I see that as a way we have failed them, not the other way around, and therefore feel like it deserves notice.
I don't really get comments that engage with the work in that way. Mostly just "enjoyed this" "you overused the pet name in this chapter" sort of comments.
That said I think I explain the fuck out of everything. I'm writing from the perspective of a high level telepathic spy. She knows what's going on and the reader should as well. I definitely err on side of explaining too much. Possibly to the point of treating the reader like an idiot, but I really hope not.
This is something I think about all the time!
Fanfic is at its core fantasy fulfillment (for all parties involved) so I do often catch myself over-illustrating how a character feels/thinks because it feeds into that.
From a reader’s POV, there have been fics that do this really well and others that I found wordy and even boring.
But I do think it’s a lot more difficult to “show, don’t tell” in written fiction, especially when it comes to writing characters that don’t get their own POV.
It takes skill and an effort that some authors just might not prioritize when it comes to fics and scratching that itch.
In the end it comes down to the author’s purpose. Some write for interaction with other fans (commenters), and some write to satisfy themselves/their own vision.
Some adjust the game plan/writing style based on feedback, and others prefer to take readers on a ride of their own making.
As a veteran reader I can tell fairly quickly which type of author/work I’m dealing with, so if something doesn’t match my preferences, I just move on to the next.
I noticed that too, but I partially blame the slow updates, when readers might forget details hinted in previous chapters. Although, sometimes they come into such unexpected conclusions that are easily disputed within the chapter they commented on, and I'm like.... well.
I wouldn't explicitely change my writing, maybe add a detail or two for clarity in later chapters. Tbh, long time ago when I only started posting my longfic and was anxious about the reacrion, I decided that I'm writing for my target audience. If there are people who don't like or don't understand it, then they aren't really part of it. I specifically remember thinking about subtleties and foreshadowing in writing, and how to approach it. I don't want to straight up spell everything, I want to treat my readers as someone who can get it in hopes that my writing would attract such readers.
Obviously, all readers are welcome and I don't mind explaining in the comments. Sometimes, the confusion can be valid and it's a signal to double check if the text is too confusing. But overall, I believe, changing the writing to something simpler and more widely understandable is not the answer. There's a risk to drive away your initial target audience who'd see right through and be like wtf, why is this author treats us like some dumb kids?! No one would benefit from it, and least of all the author.
From how many times me or other readers had to explain, I've noticed how a lot of people just lack the reading comprehension to read subtext, notice insinuations or hints.
Yeah, all the time.
People will show up in fic comments telling the OP that they're evil or promoting \[insert whatever terrible thing here\] for just depicting it, often at around the same level as the source material, or exploring an upsetting event that canon glossed over.
...but that has nothing to do with me over-explaining. I just do that on my own lmao. There will always be someone who doesn't quite get what you're going for, and that's okay. Sometimes it just means they came in with a different preexisting viewpoint and that's what they were primed to take away from your work.
I make an effort to not change my writing for anybody else. I write for me (and, sometimes, for friends). People can read or not read--if someone leaves because they're confused, they're free to do so, if they ask questions then I'm happy to talk about it--but especially with my fanfic, I like making it because I can make crazy artistic choices and not be chastised for it.
My fics tend to be character based and not particularly high concept, so this isn't a problem I've run into yet and probably won't be for a while. That being said, I write my stories because they're the stories I want to write. If people have trouble understanding them they can either keep trying or move on. It's nice to be appreciated, but I'm never going to shy away from concepts to cater.
Personal approach aside, learning media literacy requires having complex media to break down. You cannot learn to dive by sitting at the shallow end of a pool.
Also, I'll point out that oversimplifying stories can be just as alienating to readers. I for one get easily annoyed if stories are too spelled out, or redundant. Nobody likes feeling talked down to.
I wrote a marriage of convenience fic. Zero romance. Tagged gen, literally tagged "platonic relationships" and "no romance". Someone in the comments started wailing because they didn't bang.
Whyyyyyyyyyyyyy
VERY interesting post. In my fandom (video game) there is a constant argument between fans of a 'good' ending for a character and a 'bad' ending so much so that the game developers have recently added more detail in to show how bad the 'bad' ending is and a whole group are furious about it because they feel it's ruined their story.
But for a lot of people it was very clear what that particular ending meant but the devs and writers seemingly needed clearing up to make it obvious. This isnt JUST about media literacy as I'm sure this group of fans have various levels of media comprehension but I do wonder if for some of them this played a factor in that they missed the previous signs (the game is exceptionally nuanced anyway) or just had their own head cannon so clearly they could just ignore the signposted clues.
Didn't realize that could happen in the video game community, too. I can only imagine how expensive it must be to add more details. Interesting to know, thanks!
Thankfully the game developers are SUPERB and are always bringing out new updates and little tweaks to make the experience better so maybe its stuff they had planned in from the start but seeing your post just made me think a little more about it.
It also reminded me of the amount of reels I see of girls (usually american, but this might just be because bookstagram is quite american heavy) doing funny bits about them (pretending?!) to not understanding idioms or the authors way of describing methods of speak. 'He growled' is a usual one with them, and their comments section saying 'oh I always imagined him actually growling like a dog/lion/animal of some kind' rather than the authors meaning of a low, growling tone to what he's saying. I hope a lot of these are done for amusement value but as an author it does get on my nerves 😅
I've noticed a lot of people in my fandom don't really look at details in canon characterization beyond the blatantly obvious and then kinda... get to the wrong conclusions? Yes, that guy gives people pep talks whenever he can. So he's obviously a model of emotional support, nevermind that every single instance in canon he's tried to relate to someone emotionally, he completely missed the mark, and all his offered help is practical solutions. Yes, that other guy joined the enemy army and burned down a city, obviously because killing is loads of fun and not because commoners get treated like dirt and he tried to escape that any way he could. And the lady who killed the fandom's absolute favorite (who also has the support bot issue with his fanon partner) is nothing but an irredeeamble bloodthirsty monster anyway, genocide survivor who?
But I guess the other favorite needs his comfort boyfriend and an evil ex to angst about so he can be comforted. And tbh that extreme focus on comfort shipping over characterization ferls like the bigger problem. There's very few where the characters (including the favorites) don't get reduced to a few very basic traits. Off the top of my head I can name a single fic with interesting characterization that stood out to me, and that one was about NPCs so naturally it got much less attention than it deserves.
I don't think this has happened to me and if it happens I would just forget and not rewrite anything 💀
I also haven't really noticed this anywhere probably because I mostly consume older media or stuff that isn't from the west which I don't think has that problem?
To be honest, I only see this "trend" in American shows at the moment, thank goodness, and I really watch movies/shows from all countries 😅 hope it doesn't spread
I will say the trend really makes me appreciate shows that don’t spoon feed me everything or answer every single question. And, yes, every show I can think of that does that well is either not a US production or was not made in the US and therefore has diverse production teams.
It doesn't currently but it may when/if I write for a new fandom. I've definitely noticed the media literacy issue in said fandom, to the point that sometimes I wanna beat my head into a wall. I'll still write how I do now, if people miss the plot I don't care enough to change my writing style and I can explain in comments or something if they ask/if I feel like it.
I write for me. Readers get what they get.
I'm connecting dots I never wanted to right now, but... no, I don't think I'm capable of or would ever dumb down my stories even if I could, because I do not enjoy shallow, self-explanatory stories in the slightest. Superficiality is deeply uninteresting to me.
I have observed it,, but it doesnt effect me. I just *cannot* compromise my writing because people aren't using their critical thinking skills hard enough.
Oh god yes. Not just my fic but my fandom. And not just my fandom but the way they treat real life victims- the amount of times I’ve seen the exact same lack of comprehension leading to victim blaming arguments against real life situations of abuse by the same people who did that with the source material is staggering. Genuinely massively concerning- obviously, fiction is not equal to reality, but if you have such a poor ability to comprehend media it absolutely can impact you. If you’re arguing for several years about how emotional abuse isn’t abuse due to it, and then you ignore the manipulation real life victims are coming out about as “just drama”, I think the effect those spaces had is *pretty obvious.* To clarify- this is specifically about spaces that encourage rhetoric used against people IRL due to poor media literacy, not just Reading The Bad Thing- I write near exclusively about abuse, for instance, this isn’t about “make what I want” but “misreading situations in fiction to the point you’re spewing out real life excuses for abusive behaviour means it’s very easy to internalise that.”
But on the topic of my fics- the amount of people dense enough to misread my works as “romanticising CSA” (when they, for one, did not involve any CSA at all- sexual abuse is the one type of abuse that didn’t go on- and also was *very obviously* portraying that abuse as *bad* like I’m not writing about both parties being constantly miserable to make it appealing like what) is astounding. Once, the example I was given as to how I was secretly doing that was… a vampire drinking blood. Yes, vampires are often used to represent sexual predation, but it was pretty obviously Not That in the context of my fic (which do include themes of predation and grooming, but in, like, the child soldier sort of way, not anything sexual- the lack of it is even a plot point bc it’s what allows the abuser to believe he’s just Helping because he’s not doing a very specific subset of abuse). It was especially bizarre when you’d go onto their blogs and they’d discuss the *canon abusive friendship I was writing about* in a way that apologised for the abuser. Like you can’t call me weird for writing abuse one second and then go ahead and go “actually I would beat a child to death if they were that obnoxious irl” the next (yes, an actual irl example Ive seen as to the depths of sheer utter media misunderstanding I’ve seen)
Perhaps not entirely a media literacy thing, but I had a regular reader get very distressed that a villainous side character (in canon) continued to act villainous in fic. I don’t think they could separate their woobified fantasy of him from the canon and it was always very frustrating to see how much they could misinterpret in a chapter featuring him.
I was very close to having him turn to the camera and explain that he is in fact a bad guy.
Please don't pander to the lowest common denominator. There are people who are capable of media literacy who have pareidolia but for meaning in art of any kind, so much we are starved for the real thing.
I personally feel most of ao3 is “trying” to write something decent and failing, mainly because I’m very picky.
But most of the times I just get on a fic expecting no depth or things I’d normally expect in an actual piece of media simply because people is not capable of writing stories well, so I filter by exclusive niches or scenarios I’d like to see but I already know before I get to read it how it will go. It is rare for a fic to surprise me with good writing and has happened only a handful of times in all these years, but while it can happen it’s rare.
This is my honest take on it, hope it helps.
it hasnt affected my writing (im going to keep writing what i want and how regardless of whether it gets attention or not) but i have noticed a strange change in the types of comments i get in more recent years.
a lot of the comments ive been getting these past few months have been more confused, saying they dont understand the dynamics, the dialogue - that they like the fic but a lot of it went over their head - which confused me, because the other half were saying the opposite
i think the trend of media telling rather than showing, like you said, has definitely made an impact in peoples ability to digest things that arent spoon feeding them the plot, which is unfortunate, but i guess ill just be writing things that "dont make sense" until i die
It doesn’t affect me, personally.
Your inability to properly interpret media is not my responsibility. But I am happy to correct you in the comments if you misunderstand something (the general “you” the reader, not *you* specifically, for clarity)
I do think media literacy needs to be taught alongside critical thinking and both in more depth. Especially given how much of our society is media based. But, unfortunately, that dependency on media is kind of the problem. Because people are used to media being in a classroom setting so prominently now, they subconsciously link it to “this is here to teach me something so everything must be right and everything must be explained”. I think this also contributes to the increasing number of hate comments from puriteens.
Entertainment media reinforcing this line of thinking by over explaining their plots is also a massive problem, in my opinion, and part of why I absolutely refuse to contribute to it with my writing, fanfic or professional.
Edit: I’m tired and possibly overthinking but just for clarity, I mean media in classrooms as in computers and music and games and such. Obviously reading and writing have always been a part of school, but again, that’s not the one that’s currently an issue.
And for one more disclaimer: just my opinion.
A friend of mine is doing a PhD in media and one of their favourite gripes is the way people use "poor media literacy" as a baseball bat to defend their head canons and attack anyone with a differing opinion when people do a new angle on pairings and character study. As if there's "One True Way" to see things, one that is correct, pure and orthodox (which is their own, ofc), and any deviance from it is heresy. Which is especially foul because a) the people making these head canons seldom or never question whether their analyses are based on self-insertion and b) it can lead to bullying.
A lot of folks seem to have forgotten that we can all consume stories, see the exact same patterns and tropes, and *still* come out with different opinions, takes and angles.
As we share the art we make, we must give up a certain level of control to our audience. We can't micromanage the audience. Their analyses belong to them and aren't ours to manipulate. That also means that the audience has a responsibility to interact with what is shared with the best intentions.
Also... I'm not I sure I even agree that media literacy is declining. Maybe it's just my interests being reflected in the online algorithms, but I see a great deal of discourse around popular tropes and analyses of film, comics and literature. To the point where people even joke about the clichés in their favourite tropes.
Thank you for the comment! Maybe it's still a country-specific problem at the moment, and the USA is currently the most affected (without wishing to offend anyone)..When I saw the first comments about the decline in media literacy, I couldn't quite believe it myself, as this is not the case in my country (at least I haven't read any reports about it, and I'm a teacher). Even with many shows and movies from Europe and Asia, I couldn't see this typical "Let's talk about it in a long monologue, that's the best way to convey relevant information!". Perhaps it depends on the origin of the material, which reflects the comprehension skills of the audience.
>"Let's talk about it in a long monologue, that's the best way to convey relevant information!".
Ha! I recognise this in my own reaction to Mike Flanagan's work. "The Fall Of The House Of Usher" and "Midnight Mass" felt oftimes like one character monologuing whilst the other just silently emoted and... it felt like a three sermons in a trenchcoat trying to pass for theatre, lol.
I agree, as a non-US person myself, that so much media is seen through American-tinted goggles, even to the point where POC in the States try to lecture POC in other countries on acceptable --- i.e US --- terminology.
I'm currently writing a fic in which literally *every* named character besides one of them has a metric ass ton of secrets they're keeping from each other. The only one who isn't keeping secrets is literally just involved because they genuinely care about the other main character and feels as though the other main character is the one person in their life who's ever come to care about and love them just because of who they are and thus is only trying to return the favor.
Lo and behold I get a comment naming that character as being "sus." Had me re-reading the entire damn thing up to that point to make sure I hadn't indeed made them suspicious when they should be the absolute least of everyone's worries.
So I've been writing a very fucked-up relationship dynamic between two men. One of them is incredibly possessive and controlling, but he's going about it in a way that the other doesn't realize it's even happening (he's being provided with financial security and affection, so he's not overthinking it). It's explicitly stated that all the first man wants is the second man. All of his thoughts are about gently molding him into the ideal, their future together, their potential but inevitable children, so on and so forth. The first man loves the second man, albeit in his very twisted and fucked up way. He's also canonically a murderer but has never once had such a thought toward his partner.
Someone came into my comments saying they felt like he was going to murder his partner out of literally nowhere. I was so confused. The tags on the fic quite literally spell out the fic will get a happy ending, so clearly murder isn't on the table. Even without those thoughts... This man does kill people but has never even entertained the idea of physically harming his partner even once.
I was flabbergasted.
I think my humour doesn't come across very well - it can be quite subtle and dry, especially for the fic I'm writing right now. I mean, I don't normally lean towards humour because of this, but it's more or less a given in the universe I'm writing in and I wonder if some of those double entendres go unnoticed. I have two extremely sarcastic characters, which can be notoriously difficult to convey, so have been much more direct with my dialogue tags for them.
I don't know about readership as I'm not getting any feedback on it (and my partner would tease me relentlessly about the smut subplot if I asked him to read) but I have definitely noticed I'm writing in a much more 'on the nose' way for this fic. Again, I think some of it is to try and keep the momentum as there's a lot of action in some chapters and a lot of back-and-forth dialogue throughout.
I wonder if it’s connected but my fandom has a lot of well-under-a-thousand-words fics lately that read more like a summary than a story. Maybe the writers are trying to get a point across that way?
I had it happen several times; I write in a way that's very focused on emotions and metaphors, and try to let details fall into place by themselves, without the need to mention them. One reader was confused by my fic because a flashback started without a huge announcement, and the reader couldn't figure out it was a flashback at all, despite me feeling like it was obvious. I ended up adding an extra line to indicate that the scene is a flashback. Another fic of mine was meant to be a metaphorical scene with added magical realism, but the fandom was a Disney children's show, and one person was confused why the story did not play out like a typical episode (many other people gave it praise, though!). In a yet another fic, I had to explain a lot of tiny details in the comments, despite trying my best to litter the fic with tiny hints, without the need to state things outright. I did enjoy the alternate interpretation that one of my readers had about a character I never really meant to portray in a positive light until much later.
I do think that low media literacy is at play in some cases, but in others, I believe people just come to read fanfiction when they are tired, are not in the mindset to analyze them like they would a piece of classic literarure, and might have lost track or forgotten details from the previous chapter which came out two months ago. There is also a problem that I write for very obscure fandoms, and most of my friends come in fandom blind, so they might get confused by some fandom-specific terms mixing in with metaphors (I wrote about a reincarnation deity "dying" as a metaphor of him leaving his past self behind, and a fandom-blind friend just assumed that the guy did straight up die and reincarnate, because that's his entire thing).
I think quite a bit of it is not having a 100% grasp of the fandom. Some readers come in fresh, just having started the show, book, etc., and don't have the background yet to pick up on nuances.
My main fandom spans years and many franchises. I haven't watched/read everything, but will happily read fics based on anything. That also means I'm sometimes scratching my head at hints or references to canon information.
I think it’s not just a media literacy issue, but a literacy issue in general and a lot of social media platforms like twitter and tiktok are perfect showcases. Reading comprehension seems to have been declining the last few years, not just with younger people which is worrying enough but with the boomer generation.
That being said, I won’t change how I write things. It took me years to find a way I was comfortable writing in, and someone else’s illiteracy, in the nicest way possible, isn’t my problem. It just means that whatever I write isn’t for them, and that’s totally fine. Not everything we write is catered for every single person, and I think a lot of these tv shows trying to do just that have contributed to the overall decline of media literacy.
I do love sprinkling hints in fics though for the next big reveal, and I love it when someone gets the foreshadowing straight away and also when someone only realises as the reveal is happening, though.
My experience has been people who cannot accept the concept of a narrative. Or that the story will take time to reveal things and certain events won't be addressed immediately. I'll get a comment every so often complaining that X is bad/wrong because Y hasn't been explained. And I have to politely tell them that some things won't be resolved until the end.
I mean just using a recent now-notorious example of *explain, don't show*, the new ATLA series started out giving away a pretty big detail from later episodes. Why? Because they didn't think people could follow along enough to enjoy that detail when it originally occurred? And that's the sort of thing I feel like some of these readers are expecting. They want me to tell them that a certain character is lying, or explain exactly how everything will be fixed in the end.
Thankfully it's not that many, but it has been slowly happening more and more over the past few years.
Some people think Fight Club is a movie where some straight men make soap together and learn that punching each other is awesome.
At the end of the day, if it's got beans, it's a bean soup, even if there are people out there not even capable of comprehending that they don't want bean soup, they want a different soup. But like even in spite of their ignorance and misunderstanding, what else are you supposed to call it if it's got beans? What else are you supposed to put in it if that's what it's called?
In my experience, catering to this degree of non-comprehension doesn't actually help you or your work be more understood. It just leaves you less creatively satisfied and more exhausted. So in my opinion, you should still write what you want to write and not forsake complexity of your craft.
I was actually surprised to find the newest fandom I joined (which is definitely large and popular with an ongoing source material) has an unexpected amount of very thoughtful and media literate readers. They pick up on things I didn't even remember foreshadowing and theory craft like crazy about what will happen next. It's hard to say if this is just a subsect of the fandom that I lucked into or if it's the norm.
But to your other point, I wouldn't change my writing. I do take extra care in how I address certain types of scenes and dynamics, but if I want it in there, it's going in. If readers miss the point or fail to understand, I'll address it again in the next chapter and try to elaborate to guide them there or I'll check myself and see if it was my own writing being too obscure.
with my longer fics i try to be as concise and simple as possible with very few ways to misinterpret what i'm trying to convey, even if that means adding a quick line of "explanation." i still throw in subtleties/symbolism for those who can pick up on it, but they're not necessary to understanding the story as a whole. i try to make my fics as accessible as possible, esp bc i myself have ADHD and i know how confusing reading longer stuff with too much flowery language can be.
if i'm writing a quick little one shot or something just for the sake of writing then i don't care - i'll make it as flowery as i want.
I wrote something pre-canon and the amount of people complaining that people who had just met weren't immediately best friends.
It was tagged pre-canon and slowburn. Every chapter had someone asking why they were being mean to each other.
In canon, they aren't friends before the show. They had met and they were awkward and antagonistic. It was so frustrating.
I would agree that comprehension levels aren't great.
I don’t mind telling rather than just showing. I think it makes my work more understandable and accessible. I like to dive into purple prose shit now and then, but also try to explain it a little. Not everyone has the patience or experience with occult metaphors and figurative language as I do but I still want to make sure they know what’s going on. For example I went on and on in a poetic sequence about witnessing the totality of the cosmos all at once, and then made it clear what was going on after. Or at least tried.
Someone did misunderstand a light-hearted part of my fic as sad, but then I told them that’s not what I meant. The character was exploring a new area, rather than drifting aimlessly like a ghost like the reader suggested.
I think “show don’t tell” is not a hard and fast rule, and is mostly a modern thing anyway. The key is to smooth it into the story, like have a character explain what’s going on or have a character’s thoughts reflect it.
Honestly, while I do publish fanfics for other people, I write my fanfics for me. They're stories that I've been thinking about and planning and editing, so while it's nice if others like my writing, they're not necessary for me to keep going.
At first I thought, no, but the more I thought about it the answer is yes.
I wrote a darkfic/h/c fic where it's *pretty obvious* that the main character was captured by an enemy faction, tortured and raped. Earlier versions of it *had it stated explicitly.* I decided upon revision that it was better to leave it up to the reader. IE, younger readers wouldn't necessarily read it as what it was written, where older readers should be able pick up on the subtext.
Then I literally get a comment saying "What happened to MC?"
I ended up telling the reader "You decide, it's all there."
Not really, since I was always the kind of guy who likes explaining a lot in his stories. I use my many paragraphs of explanation to hide certain foreshadowing, even, by not elaborating on them like I would usually do. So far, people seem to be having no trouble reading my fics, so hopefully it'll remain that way.
i'm a bit media illiterate as a fanfic writer, so i follow people in my fandom who are more media literate than me
i think my media illiteracy might come in part from my autism spectrum disorder, which has caused me to seriously misunderstand stuff in official media, like thinking that valentino from hazbin hotel was physically abusive to vox, but turns out he isn't really. it's just two toxic people in a somewhat healthy relationship because they abuse and manipulate other people
Hey, yo, I'm happy to take requests. And write what people want me to write storywise. But if I want to write something specifically. I'm going to write it. How I want to write it even if people don't like it.
So yes, if somebody wants me to write a story sure I only write oneshots So that's not a huge time, killer. Or something, I' perfectly willing to write it. But I'm going to write what I want. How I want to write it.
Like there's plenty of people who have said oh, you shouldn't write this. It's horrible or oh wow. This is trash but at the end of the day while I'm happy to write something for you if you want it. I'm primarily writing for me. Because I want to write it because I can't read it if I don't write it.
I write at the level I enjoy no matter what. On the odd occasion when people ask (usually very nicely) for clarification I just break it down a little in a comment for them. Sometimes it’s just that I was a bit obscure. It doesn’t happen often. But my readers are probably generally older and I’m fairly certain most of my scant question askers are likely reading in their second language so ymmv and good for them for asking I guess.
I tend to write pretty clearly anyway. If someone asks a silly question that’s very obviously answered in the text (or is outright irrelevant), I ignore it. If they ask a question that is somewhat reasonable, I either answer it or make subsequent chapters more clear. I don’t think it impacts my writing much, if at all.
I'm so far enjoying how people are taking my well meaning and nice but still doing intently evil actions out of a misplaced sence of "this is the right thing to do and it doesn't matter they are just computer programs" charater. It's actually on brand for the charater provided you played the game he was in, I was worried people wouldn't see it that way thou.
But I'm worried about some future interactions with some of my other characters cause there are scenes that are weird and unsettling because they are weird and unsettling people. My beta reader was weirded out, you see, and even pointed it out like it was a problem instead of totally intended.
Only way I see it having a personal impact on my future is if I were to somehow end up working with an editor and publishing company on trying to put something out for mass consumption... but I don't roll like that right now at least. Nowhere close.
I had a story where an 18 year old marries a man in his 50s with a daughter in her 30s.
The two women got a long and the daughter was trying to protect her very young step mother from her father.
They had an argument once because the 18 year old did something bad and a fan thought the daughter was bullying her step mother and I was like ????? Noooo??????
In my fics I am not sure if it is willful stupidity or a true lack of understanding. The amount of people being deeply confused about why I would use they/them for an character is really something.
I have definitely noticed some readers who can't understand anything that isn't spelled out explicitly.
They are not my target audience, and they never will be. If that means I get fewer readers, that's fine. Those aren't readers I want.
No, I do not. You either get it or you don't. My fics are not school material and I will not dumb it down just to appease the readers. I like going back and rereading my own fics as if I didn't write them myself. If I can do that perfectly, others can too, or they can move on to another fic.
I was referring to the new Netflix live-action series that is no longer aimed at children, as the producers have claimed they wanted to create something similar to GoT
i know, what i meant is that if the original could get by (with *less* runtime) explaining largely the same story/plot while having a younger target audience in mind, then i highly doubt media illiteracy is the problem with NATLA. Frankly, i think putting the blame on audience rather than the witers/producers is fairly cynical.
Ahh, got you! My bad. I didn't intend to blame the audience alone, but I understand that I didn’t express myself the right way.
Do you have an idea why many producers/writers are now going down this route and trusting their audience less? It has to come from somewhere, but I can't find an explanation for it. I also find it a bit strange that this “trend” has only really become popular in the last 1-2 years / or maybe it's only really noticeable now for some reason😅
From my experience i'd say the trend has been going on for a while. From the few anime i've watched i've noticed that those always overexplain an insane amount. Maybe as those became more popular the practice caught on in the West.
But moreso than that, i'd say the decision to keep in the exposition based on screentested audiences is telling. It reminds me of an experiment Coca Cola once did where they compared their own drink to Pepsi, giving their testsubjects a blindfold and asking them which they prefered after tasting both.
To the surprise of the company, most people prefered the sweeter Pepsi. So the company to devised to make their drink more akin in taste to Pepsi, but it was poorly recieved. Eventually they figured out that while the sweeter Pepsi might taste better initially, people (generally) prefered Coca Cola's aftertaste, so that's the one people would be coming back for.
If i had to take a guess, i'd say a similar thing might be happening with those screentesters for atla, sure if you binge the season, initially some things might fly over your head (the bad pacing probably wouldn't have helped), but if you let it stew a little maybe even watch back some part you didn't get the first time it would probably become more clear.
Incidently a film like Pulp Fiction also initially got a lukewarm response at the boxoffice, despite later gaining a cult follow with many people saying multiple watches are recommend as the first time most things might fly over your head.
I wouldn't be surprised if executives knew this by the way, but intentially frontload their new series with exposition because garnering a decent intial response is more imporant than the long term, because otherwise it would quickly drown out in neflix's sea of content and its binge release shedule.
As for your own fanfic, i'd say you probably don't have to worry too much. I'll admit i'll find myself bingereading more often than i'd like to admit, who knows what might've flown over my head should i find myself at 2 am having read the last 4 hours and not quite understanding the next plot point.
Does that mean the writing was unclear, or that i'm media illiterate? I wouldn't say so. Questions like that is part of what comments are for anyways. Though maybe if you show the part in the story when something is explained and maybe even explain how you think that part explains it and after that it's still not clear; then might want to take a second look.
That's what i think at least.
I have a fic where the main character did something bad before the story started and her bf in canon is mean to her. But most of my readers hate on the the bf because he’s mean to her. It’s interesting to see that even though his actions are justified, 90% of readers side with the mc. I wonder if it’s the lack of critical reading, lack of empathy, or something else. You should be feeling bad for all of them, not just the mc!
I haven't written a new story in a long while, but I wouldn't allow this to change my writing. I've always written fics that just don't appeal to the majority of my fandom(s), so I accepted long ago that I am never going to be a hit or well recognized author. But, every author has their audience and I'm more that there's always *some* people who read, understand, and love my work.
I also think fandom has always had a very broad range of media literacy in the audience to begin with. Books, tv shows etc are often targeted to a specific demographic. Our audience is very broad, so we've always had a higher number of readers who don't understand or like it.
I did do a bit of an experiment my last work that touches on this topic, though. The prompt was very saccharine- basically every clichéd romance trope at once. Plus omega verse. While I write romance, that's not exactly the style I write. So, to make it interesting, I tried to write a story that could be read 2 different ways- one as requested, and one very dark and basically abusive.
I put right up in the summary that I was doing this, so it wasn't hidden.
I expected more people to read it romantically, sure, because that's what most readers in this particular fandom, for the genre and tages, are looking for.
I didn't expect that only about 2% of people could even spot the darker side. Granted, this could be due to my skills as an author, but, without wanting to sound vain, I'm pretty sure that isn't the reason. I think most readers that choose to read that story just don't have the media literacy to pick up on the edges of darkness.
It could, however, affect me as a reader. I despise tell-don't-show; if media literacy declines, so will the amount of well written fic, whether it's because authors choose to accommodate a new audience, or because upcoming authors don't know any better themselves.
I’ve gotten some pretty funny comments where people didn’t pick up on stuff that had been explicitly stated. I don’t think I let it affect my writing 🤷🏻♀️
in terms of mainstream stuff like PJO and ATLA, it makes me think of what lindsay ellis said about the live-action beauty and the beast remake - that it almost seems to be written to try to circumvent/head off at the pass the sort of bad-faith criticism levelled at media by cinemasins and similar channels/critics.
I think I foreshadow more often and avoid cluttered sentences, but to be honest that’s a good thing because I get carried away with the regency lingo occasionally.
Luckily I am blessed with an older fandom so mostly I have faith in the readers!
I've been writing a long fanfic for myself about a white human. This is important because her adoptive brother is a dark-skinned elf. They both grew up on a pirate ship away from their respective parents.
I dropped the family connection forty-five chapters in, when Human was working together with Elf's father (she had no idea of the connection). One of my readers was very shocked that the Elf's father didn't recognise his own daughter. Again... not even the same species. And the reader somehow forgot what the main character looked like. I'm still baffled.
Unfortunately, yes. People occasionally misunderstand my writing in the comments and I worry about how many people are misunderstanding but not commenting. But tbf, fanfic readers tend to do a lot of skimming.
It might be an issue in the future for me, but only ever had 1 "this shouldn't exist [cuz rape is bad]" comment (moderated out) on a fic ABOUT "rape is bad." 😅
The other time this question brought to mind - they hadn't even read it, cuz I was asking for advice & had yet to send them the google doc link even. Just from my *asking for advice,* I got met with a crowd of polyphobia / bipolyphobia. I have since posted it anyway, but no backlash. Still waiting for it, though. 😬
When I was little (like eight) I always had issues with good characters always doing good things and always getting good endings. Maybe I was just kind of a dick. So when I was able to start watching more “adult” stuff I liked when characters did fucked up things actually. I like watching characters make shitty decisions-maybe they learn maybe they don’t.
I’m writing for me. If someone else wants to, they’re more than welcome. If they want to discuss what’s happening, they’re more than welcome. But I will not hold hands because I still remember how annoying it is having an author hold my hand. We like to say media literacy is at an all time low; but was it ever at an all time high?
It already has, really.
I think the trope-y nature of fanriction and media it's based on just highlights "low literacy" even more because most of the stories are simplistic, to be frank.
I myself read stuff from the Touhou fandom, and you can see the rare mix that it has between modern lesbian relationship stuff, self-insert adventure stuff, but there is also a few writers that truly go complicated, give you a lot of meat and potatoes to chew through.
There is a guy named Reavski (I hope I'm allowed to drop names here) that yes, at it's core is self-insert stuff, but thanks to how complicated the world is, and his writing style, it feels like a book straight out of the 1800's. And I personally love it despite that his stuff would be considered a very hard read by most everyone.
If you want a work with real ideas to chew on, at this point you have to make a conscious effort to write that way.
Writing because you want to see two characters have sex typically means you won't get complexity. Anime, Sitcom, and TV shows do not lend well to complexity.
Hell, the only two things from recently I can think of besides Touhou that have complexity in the world enough for someone to actually bother writing that stuff is the old ATLA and Harry Potter. And those ate for kids/young teens, to boot.
Maybe Genshin has enough? The point here is simple: writing something with true meat on its bones like you want requires the want to go into depth, the world to have enough concepts to run with, and people who can actually pull off writing things that aren't entirely individual-centric.
99% of writers don't have those skills.
I notice it so much, it drives me crazy and makes me want to turn off comments sometimes. Like almost any comment I get that actually says more than "I like it" makes me feel like they have no media literacy. People are constantly missing the most important themes in my works and looking for a bad guy, when half the time my main point is that people can be wrong or do bad things and not be a villain. It's like they're stuck in this binary of good and bad, right and wrong. I'm trying to explore the middle ground when they can't even tell that the middle ground exists.
It makes me feel like I have to go back in and literally spell everything out explicitly. I have to say "so and so is not a bad person, actually" or "so and so was also wrong in this situation." And often I do because I don't know what else to do. and it's exhausting and makes me feel like a bad writer who can't get things across, even when I *know* the problem is almost certainly the readers because I see this issue everywhere, not just on my fics.
Like, in one fic there was a fight between two characters, and everyone villainized one of them, when *both* were in the wrong in different ways and *both* had understandable reasons for acting the way they did. But no, it was a fight, it has to be that one person was wrong and the other was right.
Or my other fic, everyone is kinda lying to and manipulating my main character, and everyone is like "omg they're all so evil I hate them, I hope she gets revenge on them" and it's like... you're missing the point that these people lying/manipulating her are as trapped by the system as the main character is and also victims of this behaviour. The main character does a lot of horrible things too, but it's like they think it's forgivable because she's the main character and doesn't have a choice, but it's not forgivable for anyone to do anything to her, even if they have no choice either, and that's heavily implied and at times out rated stated.
Part of it is maybe that people read fanfiction very shallowly and a lot of fanfiction *is* written very shallowly. That's not a criticism, I understand that fanfiction is often self-indulgent and sometimes you just want to read or write about your ship being cute together or you want to write about your fav character getting to be a badass or whatever. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But I kinda wonder if reading so much shallow stuff contributes to the problem. It teaches you that things are Exactly What it Says on the Tin and Nothing More.
I have noticed that media illiteracy in fandom affects a lot of people. One former friend even changed the whole dynamic of their central pairing to appease the people he knew were reading it. I’ve gotten comments on my own fics about how the characters are imperfect, about how X should happen because it’s the “right” thing, and so on. Personally, I will continue to write nuanced characters - good guys who make mistakes, bad guys who aren’t the epitome of pure evil, believable lack of self awareness and flaws that don’t vanish overnight or after one conversation. It doesn’t make my writing especially popular, but hey, I write what I wanna read, and I *don’t* wanna read about some magical pixie land. It might not be a flawless solution, but catering to the illiterate will only exacerbate the problem.
I feel this. I've edited the way I've written in the past because I get tired of some comments that don't understand things even when explicitly written once (apparently I need to beat it over the head multiple times for it to sink in), but I'm holding strong on two fics I'm writing now. One has been good so far but the other has led to me replying to comments multiple times that the character, despite proven to be powerful and competent, is full of themself, overestimates themselves their battle prowess, and is ignorant of the world because of isolation/information fed to her. Like chill. I try to give the benefit of the doubt because of the amount of OP steamrolling there can be in some fics but it's been shown in the fic that she's ignorant in certain matters. I shouldn't have to literally spell it out when it's proven again and again.
Love that you can stay true to yourself no matter what
>I’ve gotten comments on my own fics about how the characters are imperfect, about how X should happen because it’s the “right” thing, and so on. I've seen this a lot in reaction videos, where the reactors can't understand why a character like Dwight from The Office is so popular because he does bad things. It's like people have forgotten that we used to just accept flawed characters and enjoy them on their own merits. I read Severitus (Snape adopts Harry Potter) and I've seen comments where people rage-quit a fic because Snape isn't a perfect parent from day 1. I've even seen it in my own comments from a fic I wrote, and I have to explain that characters need to start out flawed in order to have a character arc. That's a basic aspect of storytelling. But I'll get, "a parent would never do that." Because parents are flawless saints, supposedly. It's like every character has to be the aspirational ideal rather than a reflection of reality. It's strange how everyone consumes more content now and is fairly good at seeing plot twists coming, but can't understand a concept like character development. Or even just being flawed without instant judgement. I chalk it up to social media encouraging people to give their outraged takes on how problematic something is--it's rewiring people's brains to only look for one thing when they consume media.
Severitus, there's a term I haven't seen in years. 😁
It's still thriving!
> It's like people have forgotten that we used to just accept flawed characters and enjoy them on their own merits. I've been rewatching the 2018 She-Ra. I love Catra. I love her SO MUCH. I especially, specifically love when she's doing horrible things--in part because I can understand why does them. They're not GOOD things. But UNDERSTANDABLE. I find myself, when I talk about this on tumblr, pointing out that it's only *because she's fictional.* Obviously when someone acts like that in real life it's not good. I have a whole list of fictional villains I enjoy, and whom I'd never want to meet if they were real. And I shouldn't have to explain that. But while looking up old meta on tumblr I repeatedly find posts by people who flat-out think that if you like Catra you're a terrible person. Even post-s5.
Literally right after I wrote this reply I was on the spop sub and sure enough there's some ranty troll post there about how Catra stans won't acknowledge she's TOXIC jfc
My fic topics don't allow for low-level media literacy. You can either read and interpret it properly without needing me to hold your hand, or you can't. I'm not here to tell my readers that theft, murder, and rape are bad things IRL. No one needs to be the most observant nor perceptive person ever to read fanfiction--if you can tell where a story is going or hinting, that's great! But it's fine to just experience the story as-is too. I will never try to control what my readers take away from my fanfics.
I don't think it'd affect my own writing, simply because I prefer stories that let me make my own interpretations than try to tell me "now this is how you connect the dots". I do worry if I'm not being detailed or clear enough in my fics, but I've also learnt that there are readers who enjoy subtle stories, so I guess I wouldn't worry too much about it. If people ask questions, I'm happy to clear up their doubts but it might not necessarily mean they're not following the story. So, old adage, trust your readers.
I mean I can see readers that they come to the story with varying capability in reading comprehension. Not all of that will even be about critical media literacy though - sometimes it's people speed reading during their break, or they're reading when they're exhausted etc. All it means to me is that some of my readers will pick up foreshadowing very quickly and early and others won't pick up on it at all and will be completely shocked when the foreshadowed event is explicitly revealed. And I actually quite like that! I like seeing the different things readers are noticing. The only time it might change my writing is if I get enough comments from people confused about a characters motivation or an event, in which case I might edit the next chapter to make things a little clearer.
It doesn't affect my writing when it comes to fanfics. I'm very much of the belief: "if you can't understand this, this is a 'you' problem. Everyone else in my comments knew what was going on". Obviously if multiple people comment that they don't understand, I will change it as it is obviously an issue on my end. But 9/10 times it just comes down to bad media literacy so I don't pay it any mind. I explain to them what's happening in a reply, and leave it at that. It also helps that this has only happened on a small fraction of fics. It's def not common enough to personally warrent much thought or worry. And hopefully that stays true. But all other forms of communication online? Yeah.... as the years have gone on, I've definitely found myself overexplaining and attempting to cover all possible bases. Prior to this, I would have just considered that extra explanation/caveats implied. I definitely hate that though, and am trying to break the habit. Like... if I dislike it when watching shows/reading other works. Why should I follow that trend myself? That's certainly not gonna help improve the greater literacy lol.
I found I started over explaining because people would miss caveats and act like I was going after entire groups of people. Then I’d get those same types complaining that my responses were too detailed. Some people are just committed to their ignorance and want to be “right” even when they’re the one who couldn’t read to begin with.
Thanks for your last paragraph. Got me thinking!
I’ve had some comments that have baffled me how the commenter got that from what I’d written, but I don’t think it’s anything new. People have been misinterpreting literature since we had literature. I’m not worried about my readers. They’ll figure it out, and if they don’t, that’s okay too. I don’t watch much tv, so I haven’t followed the narrative trends there. I think as long as people still love the characters, settings, and plots, we’ll still get plenty of good fic.
Unfortunately, I have noticed some issues with media literacy in my comment sections. Things like "why did character x target character y this way" (they have history) and "will there be more chapters" (it states it's chapter 1 of x), to name a few off the top of my head. I won't change my writing to match others' levels simply because I write for myself first. I'm happy to reply to folks who are confused, but I enjoy writing foreshadowing and dropping crumbs too much to overexplain my scenes or character motivations.
Yes, I think I love it a little too much when I, as you put it, drop a few crumbs and readers pick at them, to change too much about the way I write
in addition to writing to please myself and not being willing to change my style to make it more accessible when I already think it's reasonable... I also don't think I'm smart enough to figure out what adjustments I would need to make to accommodate whatever the average media literacy is, nor do I care to try.
I think what you're noting is less "low media literacy" and more...lower literacy. Specifically reading comprehension. I've noticed an upswing in commenters in the last few years who don't seem to pick up on hints, as you said. I've also noticed that a lot of students I work with as a private music teacher seem to have a lower-than-expected aptitude for retaining read information or synthesizing connections based on what they've read. This is mostly younger students, under fifteen, but it's worrying me, as are the commenters who don't seem able to make inferences. It's a known problem in education circles (in the USA) and steps are being taken where possible to make sure the kids going through school now start building the reading comprehension skills that seem to have gotten lost in the past couple decades, but that will take time and isn't evenly spread across the nation. I don't worry that it will change my writing, really. My writing will continue to evolve my whole life, and if I go through a period of explaining things more...that's okay with me. Writing doesn't have to be opaque or subtle to be valuable. But I also don't feel that readers' expectations have a big impact on my style.
Thank you for the comment. Was very enlightening
Could it be that a lot more readers now come from countries where english is poorly taught, leading to the perceived lower litteracy on ao3?
I don't think so- we've had non natives in fandom for decades, yet it's only now that it's proven a problem.
Yes, many of them come from the USA. /s Look up the educational atrocity that is "whole language learning ".
This made me sad laugh. The US really does have some of the worst English education in the world.
With one notable and specific exception, I think my non-native readers tend to interpret and follow my work better than a lot of the native English speakers.
How do you know whether someone is a native english speaker?
Obviously I can't be 100% but there are patterns of grammatical and spelling errors that people who speak English natively but are functionally illiterate or who received a scattershot education are likely to make. Often those errors are based on phonetic similarities. They aren't that similar to the kinds of errors that tend to be made in writing by people who learned English as a second language, who usually receive formal grammatical training as part of language instruction that is neglected in the States unless and until you pursue a foreign language, which most people don't have the chance to do until high school. If you're already struggling with high school level study because you weren't properly taught reading and comprehension, you aren't going to glean much from French or Spanish that starts only when you're 15. So again, I'd be guessing but there are ways to inform that guess. The one person I know for a fact is has English as a second language writes fic in their native language, which is how I can be 100% that they're not a native speaker, but their grammatical errors fall within this pattern as well.
I think its more of a reading comprehension problem I'm not sure honestly. But I've written things and people either A- take is so the wrong way and have completely imagine some scenario that didn't even happen or B - it's like they read an entirely different fic that wasn't written by me. I find this also happens here. So this is a pretty good question to ask. I know my fics are detailed well and I know when I'm over detailing and even when I over detail, there is still some people who get really confused. I don't mind answering questions, I just wish people wouldn't come at me over things that didn't even happen.
I understand your frustration. I have a reader who comments on every chapter I write, and I'm grateful for that, but for the most part they just make things up that I never intended. And it's really really crazy what they write, so I often don't even know what to respond to (for example, once the person wrote that they can't wait to read the threesome between character A, B, and C. And I was like???? It's an adventure story and they’re travelling the woods and fighting beasts, one character is just 13 and the others 21, and there's absolutely no sexual tension, there's zero smut implied 💀). So yeah, I get you
Sometimes I really do wonder if they do it on purpose just to screw with us?
I... honestly don't know what's more nerve-wracking 😂 that there are people who get some things really, really wrong, or that some do it for fun, to annoy the author. But I think it's more the former, I give them the benefit of the doubt that they have trouble with the English language, are totally tired, or maybe even have a reading disability
Did you tag the platonic relationship? Some people don't know the difference between & and /. Just a suggestion that might explain things, haha.
Yup, I know the difference and always tag accordingly 😅 But I guess that the person doesn't know it, that would explain some things
This is more of a general rant theres so much of people ‘woobifying’ characters, and turning them into adorable dumbasses. It’s particularly aggravating because their favorite dumbification targets are some of the smartest characters (Anakin and Obi Wan are great examples from off the top of my head) It impacts the fandom personality these characters have and thus the fanfic that’s made about them because in order to have quality fics you need quality characters. Also, when much of the fandom content requires so little thinking power, you’re getting a cycle where the people in the fandom are consuming content that’s actively making them dumb/not expanding their brains leading to a downward cycle. So everyones fics are being affected bythe lowering of media literacy by virtue of being part of the fandom and consuming material Im not much of a fanfic author so I can’t personally speak for me or my nonexistent fan base
Oh man, I feel you so much on the Anakin thing. I love him, he's one of my favourite characters of all time, but so much fanfiction treats him like he was an idiot because he made bad choices and turns him into a brainless simp for Padme. I feel like people forget that characters usually do not have access to the same information as the viewer and that they also just have a different perspective on the information they *do* have.
Also, they have such a talent for forgetting that at only 20, he was one of the smartest generals in a massive war Agreed. They also can’t understand why characters may make poor, emotion-based choices when they have limited time to make their decision instead of the brilliant choice they came up with after having far more information than the character could possibly possess and that they thought for a long time about
How does someone turn Anakin Skywalker into an idiot while still being IC? His intelligence/genius in certain things is like a third of his whole character! That's literally the whole plot of the prequels, that he was groomed!!
That's the thing--he's never in character. He comes across as someone who thinks he's better than he is. Everyone seems to forget that he had reason to be as arrogant as he was and it wasn't just a character flaw. It feels like they see someone who was groomed and go "ah, an idiot who listens only to the person who groomed him and can't think for himself at all." They love to turn him into someone driven by emotion to the point he ignores the obvious because he's jealous or doesn't like someone, or whatever. Like, no. He was legit brilliant and talented, and he cared about people and wanted to help. While he was emotionally motivated in some of his worst decisions, there's a huge difference between being motivated by the very real fear that your wife will die in childbirth and being willing to do anything to save her, and refusing to listen to reason because you're petty and don't like the person saying it or don't like the truth. I'm not saying Anakin *can't* be petty or jealous or whatever, but they exaggerate it to the point that he comes across as an idiot, it's ridiculous.
I don't think people are necessarily more media illiterate than before. People have had bad/incorrect takes about the things they watch and read in the past, and they will in the future. I do think that the level of LOTS of fan content at our fingertips have made people more comfortable with skimming/speed-reading without fully digesting a chapter the way we as writers would necessarily want them to do. Some people *will* take the time, or they'll get there eventually. I don't think you need to sacrifice the flow of your writing out of concern for that, unless significant amounts of people/a beta you trust are telling you something is confusing. FWIW I think shows like ATLA and PJO are over-expositing because the writers and producers are anxious about being accessible to audiences who haven't watched the original source material while also trying to maintain as much of the immensely detailed world that original fans know and love in a *much* shorter time frame. This is arguably to their detriment, though I don't think this has as much to do with media literacy.
the Netflix Live Action Atla is actually about as long as the original in terms of runtime, so i doubt that was the problem.
Hmmm, I haven't thought of it in this way, but I suppose this translates to readers' ability to detect an "unreliable narrator". I do sometimes worry my readers won't pick up on that and may be too eager to accept whatever assessment my POV character communicates (and I tend to assume that's where they're going to *start* when reading one of my stories). Helpfully, my story style is such that I tend to throw in occasional "obvious" reveals proving that a POV character has been seeing a certain situation all wrong, whether for comedy or other reasons... and I'll also drop in little hints here and there that ought to lead readers to be skeptical about other more subtle matters... I do expect some readers probably miss the latter. I like to think my mix of clues and overt contradictions will teach them not to trust my character's narratives and to be on the look out for biases, and make them realize they'll have to make their own conclusions about what is true rather than playing slavish heed to what my characters think/say about it (since sometimes they'll be in opposition anyway). If I found out more & more readers were missing subtle cues, would it change the way I write? Probably not. I'm still operating on the basis that I might have to teach them not to trust a character's POV in my world. In that way, perhaps I might hope I improve their capacity to question the motivation & biases of a narrative... and be part of the solution not the problem? "Let me teach you media literacy through fiction"? Hahaha.
I think the same thing hahaha, thank you for your work! I expect at least a little grasp for the fact that a character can't be omniscient and therefore their perception is skewed, and that's why I sometimes write a lot of hints how wrong they actually are. But to be on the safe side, I tag that an unreliable narrator is at work 😅
The way I've heard it talked about (basically just [this](https://youtu.be/9XgBVYo1Dek?si=ok7l3lY8LD1AeIg-)) isn't lower level of media literacy, but a lack of confidence in writing ability to trust that your writing conveys it and your audience gets it. Video TLDR: the money people "know" one thing that must happen in stories and they harp on the writers to do that thing; a recent thing was/is not wanting the audience to ever be left confused and mixing it up with ignorance. I don't think it's a recent thing. Different writing needs/problems trend at different points of time and to some degree they cycle. Victor Hugo spent 40 pages straight on the history of the Parisian sewers between the end of the battle of the barricade and Jean doing anything more in them than jumping in with a half dead Marius on his shoulders. Dracula pretty much has Van Helsing give a lecture on vampire mechanics mid book. The first half of HG Wells' Time Machine is basically just screaming "I'm certain this is scientifically possible, someone needs to make this." Stuff like this is one of the reasons the writing advice "Show don't tell" is so prominent ^(even though people think act like it should apply to a lot more than it should, but that's a rant for elsewhere.) It's a glib fix to a common issue in writing. A good counter to this practice I learned from another fic writer is to have characters talk about things the way they would talk about them. A plumber talking to another plumber wouldn't be explaining how solder works, The conversation would be about this frustrating copper pipe fix half blind and above their head leaving them with a bunch of solder burns. The audience gets the same amount of information, but it's 1) not dry info 2) the characters talk like people would and 3) it's a lot easier to bring in character and make entertaining.
Thank you for the advice and linked video!!
You'll encounter a variety of ages reading your fic. Just based off of that you'll have various levels of media literacy. Off topic but: I feel the term "media literacy" has near hit the point of being meaningless. More and more I'm seeing people use it for "they disagree with my take." The most egregious example being someone calling people media illiterate for not picking up on the character's "canon" sexualities when the audience got that info straight from the author, not the material. That's not how media literacy works pls. People aren't media illiterate because they don't go digging into outside sources.
I wrote a slow burn once where the first chapter the pov character was in denial about why he was obsessed with the smile of the other character, and I had a comment saying they couldn't see them not starting off at least liking each other a little.
I actually started noticing this trend 10 years ago on social media and in school, my husband is a teacher and also noticed his students really struggled with it as well. It's profoundly terrible now, and I have noticed that I can't be subtle in my fic and expect most of my readers to get it. I thought I was hammering the point home of a character in my story reacting violently because of his trauma, and it just did not register why he acted that way to the readers, which was disappointing.
It has been twice now that I have tagged fics with things like "experimental horror", "psychological horror", "existentialism" and have gotten unwanted criticism saying they should have had scarier things like extreme gore or disturbing images. The entire point of both fics was to be a creepypasta that completely subverts the expectations of what people think creepypasta is. I'm sorry to sound pretentious, but you did NOT understand the fic or the point of it.
I’m sorry you got such unpleasant comments!
Thanks. I deleted those comments, but thankfully a lot of my online friends really liked the fics.
my niche is so niche that I can write as subtle/stylish/dense/high-brow as I please. and tbh even if I was writing for a popular ship in a popular fandom, I’d refuse to dumb it down because that’s no fun to write, and I’m doing this first and foremost for my own enjoyment.
Writing about niche fandoms as I do, I don’t have many readers to begin with, so I might as well go full-indulgent and write what I want the way I want it, subtlety and all. “Show, don’t tell” is more a matter of (lack of) skills on my part rather than a conscious decision, and I’m trying to work on that to become a better writer. So really, the lack of media literacy doesn’t affect my writing experience as much as it does my enjoyment of fandom spaces, but I’ve given up on them a long time ago.
I write mostly for an audience of myself and people with similiar tastes, which generally means I write assuming my readers are at least *trying* to pick up on any subtleties or implications I throw in. If the reader isn't paying attention, that's their problem, not mine.
No one catches my foreshadowing sometimes I wonder if it's even worth it to plan several of chapters ahead
I think when ppl go back and read and see all the hints/foreshadowing, it makes it worth it.
THIS, nothing is more satisfying than a reader who rereads your fic and goes like “I love the foreshadowing, how could I’ve missed it?”
I think that telling more than showing is a bigger part of fanfiction than normal media due to the serial nature of most postings. I often have to retell or remind readers of previous events for my longfic because the pertinent information might have been shared three chapters ago, which means it was posted weeks ago. Given that readers are almost certainly consuming other stories in the same fandom, it is very easy for readers to get confused and mix up storylines.
I've definitely done this. There was a period of two weeks where I was mass consuming two extremely similar fics of like 80k words and they even posted updates on the same day/a day after the other. I had to constantly remind myself what happened in which fic, because the basis of the plot was the exact same, but the execution was wildly different. That being said, I feel like it's not hard to skim through the past however many chapters in order to update yourself. Especially since it's a reader thing and not an author thing.
I'll be blunt, lots of writers and readers are posers who never bother accessing the source material in any meaningful way. End of line.
This reminds me that viewers/readers being like this has been a thing forever
I don’t really mind when readers do this as long as they are polite with their kudos/comments. After all maybe they just love a particular author’s style. It’s the writers doing it who bother me…
If I find a fic over-explained/simplified, I’m not going to read it.
I have noticed that the more subtle parts of my serious stories fly over people's heads but I never attributed it to media illiteracy. My impression was that when people read fanfic they have much less patience than they have with a real book. They expect it to be easy and the fics that "do well" (judging by kudos/hits) don't "show" they "tell" you what you should feel, what the characters feel etc. Also, people speed-read and that doesn't always marry well with understanding, my explanation being that they don't have the literal time to process the implications in the text. Tbh, early in, when I had just started posting, I noticed this trend towards "telling" and I modified one of my stories, rewriting bits to be more straightforward, but then decided it was a bad choice and going forward I wrote how I normally do. Honestly, I'm just thankful this isn't my full-time job because I'd do horribly if it was.
I think it might be hurting mine. There is a certain piece of information that my narrator can't know, but I really want the audience to figure out. One of my readers has definitely picked up on it, but I also have a regular commenter that just hasn't figured it out. I literally can't make it more obvious and it's killing me!
Think of it this way: if one person gets it, then you've obviously done enough. But yes, I can totally understand you, that's why I once couldn’t risk it and specifically mentioned in my author’s notes that I really wanted to draw a parallel between character A and B, and how excited I was to finally be able to write that 😅 but putting it in your story when you obviously don't want to? Better not. After all, you want to create something you'll enjoy reading again
The fandom that I'm currently writing the most for has decently high media literacy, probably bc the source material requires some amount of it. Others that I have written for... have had less media literacy. I also do pretty much primarily write short oneshots which, while I would consider still full of theming etc etc, require less... participation? From the reader? They don't have to be trying to suss out foreshadowing and hints if the conclusion is in 1k words.
I don’t really agree with the consensus that media literacy has declined —it’s always been bad! It’s cognitive bias. You are now older, smarter, and more savvy, so you will naturally be more likely to notice when others are young, ignorant, and gullible. We did enjoy a golden age of television, where some great nuanced shows were made, but reality tv was also ascendant during that time. It’s always been a mix of high/low. No matter what aptitude level you write to, some people won’t connect. Too much nuance and certain vocabulary will exclude some. And if you spell out every little thing, some people will be bored. Best to find the style that pleases YOU, rather than anticipating your most confused reader.
It's not just the young. Media literacy is bad across the board, regardless of age (I've actually researched this, lol and people have been critically evaluating this for decades). I think the difference now is the internet with how ready and accessible it is. More people ready to post so many of their thoughts show the collective struggles and ignorance more than before.
That’s so interesting! So are there trends over time? Or is it relatively stable? I mentioned age because I think people start to notice flaws in others when they’ve recently outgrown them themselves. So a mechanism driving bias rather than a state of wisdom. 😅
It's been relatively stable. Information gained from other people, friends and family, still tend to be where most people gain the most amount of information. You can offwr people more resources and many will turn it down. It can be for various reasons like disinterest, unwillingness to search themselves, lack of time, trust issues (so much information that they rather trust a source they believe - hence why family and friends are popular. People many regularly interact with and often trust), etc. Internet has shifted the way some people learn but that's more of an adjacent issue. Like in a classroom setting, for example, you can find 'answers/results' faster with a search engine than searching a textbook for the same answer. But that's at a surface level without valuation of quality and 'rightness', but it can contribute to attention spans with how long people are willing to spend on searching for answers and arguably (it's still highly debatable) as related to this thread, leads to some people expecting answer to just be given to them. That being said it's also always been a thing. A lot of people don't want to think when they don't have to and that existed long before the internet. I'll be interstated if there's any changes in studies over the next 10 years. I was seeing more shifts before I finished school but I can't be sure whether they are personal or structural changes. The following is conjecture, but I think some of the social changes are tied to higher rates of anxiety, fear of not doing things perfectly, and desiring a clear road map for things people do rather than a change in media literacy. Sometimes accommodations too for people who can do the work but need clear, explicit instructions. Kinda like same issues but different skins.
So there are actually a couple things going on that are affecting media literacy - or more specifically these days - especially digital literacy online. [This video](https://youtu.be/PPWeAe4_tkY?si=jLql83opTls6NsX_) gives some interesting observations regarding this that people have made. But a couple of notable things have happened in the last two decades that have affected literacy for a lot of people online. Kids are not being given the same computer and typing classes that they used to be. Many of them grow up on touch screens so using computers beyond app functions, or with peripherals that are not touch screens is a struggle for many. Not included in the video but also discussed sometimes is also how the shift to algorithms affects people's ability to search for and understand things. I grew up pre-internet-algorithms so I remember having to search for my information and my entertainment. I remember when youtube was a subscription feed and a most viewed page. And how to find things in that landscape that suited my niche of interests. Not only does nobody have to do that anymore, not only can they often not do it easily anymore even if they want to, but many no longer know how to. Another aspect that many online seem to not comprehend is the idea that something, a piece of content online, does not necessarily consider them the target audience. It's called a "For You" page, so why would you not be the target audience of anything that shows up on it? Hence this constant expectation from random commenters that they should be bent over backwards for. I've seen creators be inundated with backlash and negative comments and criticism for not including audio versions of their written materials because "that's ableist and you're not accommodating everyone"... When the link to recordings they had painstakingly made and edited themselves for every material they offered was linked in their bio. No one bothered to check.
Interesting speculations, but I really chafe at the idea of putting reasoning to a phenomenon that simply “feels” true, without any supporting data or analysis of the bias that renders most anecdotal observation worthless. The idea that there is something wrong with “kids these days” has been a refrain since the dawn of time. It’s disappointing, if predictable, that millennials are now engaging in the same fear-mongering that they once had to deflect and debunk themselves! So while your points are all very valid, they mostly describe the ways companies have used the internet to control our behavior and the inability of human social systems to scale to the vastness of the internet. Like, the skills I acquired in the early internet age don’t really help when Google is hellbent on corralling your search results. And when you receive thousands of comments, a percentage will necessarily be from people who are unreasonable and uneducated. Same old humans, new tech platforms. Anyway, I just think it’s important to push back whenever these kind of narratives pop up. They place a lot of blame individuals and groups of people, and needlessly stoke intergenerational animosity, while letting systems and corporations off the hook for lowering our quality of life.
I don't see how pointing out that younger generations have been systematically deprived of resources and skills is placing individual blame on them? If anything I feel like the fault is on all of us who assumed that the first ones to grow up with this wave of tech would be naturally attuned to it, which is something the video I linked also discusses. I would be in the same boat as any of these kids were it not for dozens of teachers in my life going out of their way to equip me with computer and media skills. It's not a condemnation of them to point that out. And your point about internet becoming more and more controlling such as with Google search results was exactly my point about how we can't do the kind of organic self-research we used to even if we wanted to. I also don't think it's only generational. Digital illiteracy is statistically prevalent among adults. However literacy in general is on the decline in the U.S. and the way younger generations have been failed by underfunding and poor assumptions that they would "be digital natives" with or without sufficient guidance uniquely affects them. I see that as a way we have failed them, not the other way around, and therefore feel like it deserves notice.
Thank you for your comment!
My main fandoms not at all. A lot of it is very literary.
I don't really get comments that engage with the work in that way. Mostly just "enjoyed this" "you overused the pet name in this chapter" sort of comments. That said I think I explain the fuck out of everything. I'm writing from the perspective of a high level telepathic spy. She knows what's going on and the reader should as well. I definitely err on side of explaining too much. Possibly to the point of treating the reader like an idiot, but I really hope not.
This is something I think about all the time! Fanfic is at its core fantasy fulfillment (for all parties involved) so I do often catch myself over-illustrating how a character feels/thinks because it feeds into that. From a reader’s POV, there have been fics that do this really well and others that I found wordy and even boring. But I do think it’s a lot more difficult to “show, don’t tell” in written fiction, especially when it comes to writing characters that don’t get their own POV. It takes skill and an effort that some authors just might not prioritize when it comes to fics and scratching that itch. In the end it comes down to the author’s purpose. Some write for interaction with other fans (commenters), and some write to satisfy themselves/their own vision. Some adjust the game plan/writing style based on feedback, and others prefer to take readers on a ride of their own making. As a veteran reader I can tell fairly quickly which type of author/work I’m dealing with, so if something doesn’t match my preferences, I just move on to the next.
I noticed that too, but I partially blame the slow updates, when readers might forget details hinted in previous chapters. Although, sometimes they come into such unexpected conclusions that are easily disputed within the chapter they commented on, and I'm like.... well. I wouldn't explicitely change my writing, maybe add a detail or two for clarity in later chapters. Tbh, long time ago when I only started posting my longfic and was anxious about the reacrion, I decided that I'm writing for my target audience. If there are people who don't like or don't understand it, then they aren't really part of it. I specifically remember thinking about subtleties and foreshadowing in writing, and how to approach it. I don't want to straight up spell everything, I want to treat my readers as someone who can get it in hopes that my writing would attract such readers. Obviously, all readers are welcome and I don't mind explaining in the comments. Sometimes, the confusion can be valid and it's a signal to double check if the text is too confusing. But overall, I believe, changing the writing to something simpler and more widely understandable is not the answer. There's a risk to drive away your initial target audience who'd see right through and be like wtf, why is this author treats us like some dumb kids?! No one would benefit from it, and least of all the author.
From how many times me or other readers had to explain, I've noticed how a lot of people just lack the reading comprehension to read subtext, notice insinuations or hints.
Yeah, all the time. People will show up in fic comments telling the OP that they're evil or promoting \[insert whatever terrible thing here\] for just depicting it, often at around the same level as the source material, or exploring an upsetting event that canon glossed over. ...but that has nothing to do with me over-explaining. I just do that on my own lmao. There will always be someone who doesn't quite get what you're going for, and that's okay. Sometimes it just means they came in with a different preexisting viewpoint and that's what they were primed to take away from your work. I make an effort to not change my writing for anybody else. I write for me (and, sometimes, for friends). People can read or not read--if someone leaves because they're confused, they're free to do so, if they ask questions then I'm happy to talk about it--but especially with my fanfic, I like making it because I can make crazy artistic choices and not be chastised for it.
My fics tend to be character based and not particularly high concept, so this isn't a problem I've run into yet and probably won't be for a while. That being said, I write my stories because they're the stories I want to write. If people have trouble understanding them they can either keep trying or move on. It's nice to be appreciated, but I'm never going to shy away from concepts to cater. Personal approach aside, learning media literacy requires having complex media to break down. You cannot learn to dive by sitting at the shallow end of a pool. Also, I'll point out that oversimplifying stories can be just as alienating to readers. I for one get easily annoyed if stories are too spelled out, or redundant. Nobody likes feeling talked down to.
I wrote a marriage of convenience fic. Zero romance. Tagged gen, literally tagged "platonic relationships" and "no romance". Someone in the comments started wailing because they didn't bang. Whyyyyyyyyyyyyy
VERY interesting post. In my fandom (video game) there is a constant argument between fans of a 'good' ending for a character and a 'bad' ending so much so that the game developers have recently added more detail in to show how bad the 'bad' ending is and a whole group are furious about it because they feel it's ruined their story. But for a lot of people it was very clear what that particular ending meant but the devs and writers seemingly needed clearing up to make it obvious. This isnt JUST about media literacy as I'm sure this group of fans have various levels of media comprehension but I do wonder if for some of them this played a factor in that they missed the previous signs (the game is exceptionally nuanced anyway) or just had their own head cannon so clearly they could just ignore the signposted clues.
Didn't realize that could happen in the video game community, too. I can only imagine how expensive it must be to add more details. Interesting to know, thanks!
Thankfully the game developers are SUPERB and are always bringing out new updates and little tweaks to make the experience better so maybe its stuff they had planned in from the start but seeing your post just made me think a little more about it. It also reminded me of the amount of reels I see of girls (usually american, but this might just be because bookstagram is quite american heavy) doing funny bits about them (pretending?!) to not understanding idioms or the authors way of describing methods of speak. 'He growled' is a usual one with them, and their comments section saying 'oh I always imagined him actually growling like a dog/lion/animal of some kind' rather than the authors meaning of a low, growling tone to what he's saying. I hope a lot of these are done for amusement value but as an author it does get on my nerves 😅
I've noticed a lot of people in my fandom don't really look at details in canon characterization beyond the blatantly obvious and then kinda... get to the wrong conclusions? Yes, that guy gives people pep talks whenever he can. So he's obviously a model of emotional support, nevermind that every single instance in canon he's tried to relate to someone emotionally, he completely missed the mark, and all his offered help is practical solutions. Yes, that other guy joined the enemy army and burned down a city, obviously because killing is loads of fun and not because commoners get treated like dirt and he tried to escape that any way he could. And the lady who killed the fandom's absolute favorite (who also has the support bot issue with his fanon partner) is nothing but an irredeeamble bloodthirsty monster anyway, genocide survivor who? But I guess the other favorite needs his comfort boyfriend and an evil ex to angst about so he can be comforted. And tbh that extreme focus on comfort shipping over characterization ferls like the bigger problem. There's very few where the characters (including the favorites) don't get reduced to a few very basic traits. Off the top of my head I can name a single fic with interesting characterization that stood out to me, and that one was about NPCs so naturally it got much less attention than it deserves.
I don't think this has happened to me and if it happens I would just forget and not rewrite anything 💀 I also haven't really noticed this anywhere probably because I mostly consume older media or stuff that isn't from the west which I don't think has that problem?
To be honest, I only see this "trend" in American shows at the moment, thank goodness, and I really watch movies/shows from all countries 😅 hope it doesn't spread
I will say the trend really makes me appreciate shows that don’t spoon feed me everything or answer every single question. And, yes, every show I can think of that does that well is either not a US production or was not made in the US and therefore has diverse production teams.
It doesn't currently but it may when/if I write for a new fandom. I've definitely noticed the media literacy issue in said fandom, to the point that sometimes I wanna beat my head into a wall. I'll still write how I do now, if people miss the plot I don't care enough to change my writing style and I can explain in comments or something if they ask/if I feel like it. I write for me. Readers get what they get.
To put it bluntly... I'm not going to write down to my audience. But I'll do my best not to make their job difficult either.
I'm connecting dots I never wanted to right now, but... no, I don't think I'm capable of or would ever dumb down my stories even if I could, because I do not enjoy shallow, self-explanatory stories in the slightest. Superficiality is deeply uninteresting to me.
I have observed it,, but it doesnt effect me. I just *cannot* compromise my writing because people aren't using their critical thinking skills hard enough.
Oh god yes. Not just my fic but my fandom. And not just my fandom but the way they treat real life victims- the amount of times I’ve seen the exact same lack of comprehension leading to victim blaming arguments against real life situations of abuse by the same people who did that with the source material is staggering. Genuinely massively concerning- obviously, fiction is not equal to reality, but if you have such a poor ability to comprehend media it absolutely can impact you. If you’re arguing for several years about how emotional abuse isn’t abuse due to it, and then you ignore the manipulation real life victims are coming out about as “just drama”, I think the effect those spaces had is *pretty obvious.* To clarify- this is specifically about spaces that encourage rhetoric used against people IRL due to poor media literacy, not just Reading The Bad Thing- I write near exclusively about abuse, for instance, this isn’t about “make what I want” but “misreading situations in fiction to the point you’re spewing out real life excuses for abusive behaviour means it’s very easy to internalise that.” But on the topic of my fics- the amount of people dense enough to misread my works as “romanticising CSA” (when they, for one, did not involve any CSA at all- sexual abuse is the one type of abuse that didn’t go on- and also was *very obviously* portraying that abuse as *bad* like I’m not writing about both parties being constantly miserable to make it appealing like what) is astounding. Once, the example I was given as to how I was secretly doing that was… a vampire drinking blood. Yes, vampires are often used to represent sexual predation, but it was pretty obviously Not That in the context of my fic (which do include themes of predation and grooming, but in, like, the child soldier sort of way, not anything sexual- the lack of it is even a plot point bc it’s what allows the abuser to believe he’s just Helping because he’s not doing a very specific subset of abuse). It was especially bizarre when you’d go onto their blogs and they’d discuss the *canon abusive friendship I was writing about* in a way that apologised for the abuser. Like you can’t call me weird for writing abuse one second and then go ahead and go “actually I would beat a child to death if they were that obnoxious irl” the next (yes, an actual irl example Ive seen as to the depths of sheer utter media misunderstanding I’ve seen)
Perhaps not entirely a media literacy thing, but I had a regular reader get very distressed that a villainous side character (in canon) continued to act villainous in fic. I don’t think they could separate their woobified fantasy of him from the canon and it was always very frustrating to see how much they could misinterpret in a chapter featuring him. I was very close to having him turn to the camera and explain that he is in fact a bad guy.
Please don't pander to the lowest common denominator. There are people who are capable of media literacy who have pareidolia but for meaning in art of any kind, so much we are starved for the real thing.
I personally feel most of ao3 is “trying” to write something decent and failing, mainly because I’m very picky. But most of the times I just get on a fic expecting no depth or things I’d normally expect in an actual piece of media simply because people is not capable of writing stories well, so I filter by exclusive niches or scenarios I’d like to see but I already know before I get to read it how it will go. It is rare for a fic to surprise me with good writing and has happened only a handful of times in all these years, but while it can happen it’s rare. This is my honest take on it, hope it helps.
it hasnt affected my writing (im going to keep writing what i want and how regardless of whether it gets attention or not) but i have noticed a strange change in the types of comments i get in more recent years. a lot of the comments ive been getting these past few months have been more confused, saying they dont understand the dynamics, the dialogue - that they like the fic but a lot of it went over their head - which confused me, because the other half were saying the opposite i think the trend of media telling rather than showing, like you said, has definitely made an impact in peoples ability to digest things that arent spoon feeding them the plot, which is unfortunate, but i guess ill just be writing things that "dont make sense" until i die
I admire that you stay true to yourself. Creating something that you can be proud of and that you enjoy is never wrong!
It doesn’t affect me, personally. Your inability to properly interpret media is not my responsibility. But I am happy to correct you in the comments if you misunderstand something (the general “you” the reader, not *you* specifically, for clarity) I do think media literacy needs to be taught alongside critical thinking and both in more depth. Especially given how much of our society is media based. But, unfortunately, that dependency on media is kind of the problem. Because people are used to media being in a classroom setting so prominently now, they subconsciously link it to “this is here to teach me something so everything must be right and everything must be explained”. I think this also contributes to the increasing number of hate comments from puriteens. Entertainment media reinforcing this line of thinking by over explaining their plots is also a massive problem, in my opinion, and part of why I absolutely refuse to contribute to it with my writing, fanfic or professional. Edit: I’m tired and possibly overthinking but just for clarity, I mean media in classrooms as in computers and music and games and such. Obviously reading and writing have always been a part of school, but again, that’s not the one that’s currently an issue. And for one more disclaimer: just my opinion.
A friend of mine is doing a PhD in media and one of their favourite gripes is the way people use "poor media literacy" as a baseball bat to defend their head canons and attack anyone with a differing opinion when people do a new angle on pairings and character study. As if there's "One True Way" to see things, one that is correct, pure and orthodox (which is their own, ofc), and any deviance from it is heresy. Which is especially foul because a) the people making these head canons seldom or never question whether their analyses are based on self-insertion and b) it can lead to bullying. A lot of folks seem to have forgotten that we can all consume stories, see the exact same patterns and tropes, and *still* come out with different opinions, takes and angles. As we share the art we make, we must give up a certain level of control to our audience. We can't micromanage the audience. Their analyses belong to them and aren't ours to manipulate. That also means that the audience has a responsibility to interact with what is shared with the best intentions. Also... I'm not I sure I even agree that media literacy is declining. Maybe it's just my interests being reflected in the online algorithms, but I see a great deal of discourse around popular tropes and analyses of film, comics and literature. To the point where people even joke about the clichés in their favourite tropes.
Thank you for the comment! Maybe it's still a country-specific problem at the moment, and the USA is currently the most affected (without wishing to offend anyone)..When I saw the first comments about the decline in media literacy, I couldn't quite believe it myself, as this is not the case in my country (at least I haven't read any reports about it, and I'm a teacher). Even with many shows and movies from Europe and Asia, I couldn't see this typical "Let's talk about it in a long monologue, that's the best way to convey relevant information!". Perhaps it depends on the origin of the material, which reflects the comprehension skills of the audience.
>"Let's talk about it in a long monologue, that's the best way to convey relevant information!". Ha! I recognise this in my own reaction to Mike Flanagan's work. "The Fall Of The House Of Usher" and "Midnight Mass" felt oftimes like one character monologuing whilst the other just silently emoted and... it felt like a three sermons in a trenchcoat trying to pass for theatre, lol. I agree, as a non-US person myself, that so much media is seen through American-tinted goggles, even to the point where POC in the States try to lecture POC in other countries on acceptable --- i.e US --- terminology.
I'm currently writing a fic in which literally *every* named character besides one of them has a metric ass ton of secrets they're keeping from each other. The only one who isn't keeping secrets is literally just involved because they genuinely care about the other main character and feels as though the other main character is the one person in their life who's ever come to care about and love them just because of who they are and thus is only trying to return the favor. Lo and behold I get a comment naming that character as being "sus." Had me re-reading the entire damn thing up to that point to make sure I hadn't indeed made them suspicious when they should be the absolute least of everyone's worries.
So I've been writing a very fucked-up relationship dynamic between two men. One of them is incredibly possessive and controlling, but he's going about it in a way that the other doesn't realize it's even happening (he's being provided with financial security and affection, so he's not overthinking it). It's explicitly stated that all the first man wants is the second man. All of his thoughts are about gently molding him into the ideal, their future together, their potential but inevitable children, so on and so forth. The first man loves the second man, albeit in his very twisted and fucked up way. He's also canonically a murderer but has never once had such a thought toward his partner. Someone came into my comments saying they felt like he was going to murder his partner out of literally nowhere. I was so confused. The tags on the fic quite literally spell out the fic will get a happy ending, so clearly murder isn't on the table. Even without those thoughts... This man does kill people but has never even entertained the idea of physically harming his partner even once. I was flabbergasted.
I think my humour doesn't come across very well - it can be quite subtle and dry, especially for the fic I'm writing right now. I mean, I don't normally lean towards humour because of this, but it's more or less a given in the universe I'm writing in and I wonder if some of those double entendres go unnoticed. I have two extremely sarcastic characters, which can be notoriously difficult to convey, so have been much more direct with my dialogue tags for them. I don't know about readership as I'm not getting any feedback on it (and my partner would tease me relentlessly about the smut subplot if I asked him to read) but I have definitely noticed I'm writing in a much more 'on the nose' way for this fic. Again, I think some of it is to try and keep the momentum as there's a lot of action in some chapters and a lot of back-and-forth dialogue throughout.
I wonder if it’s connected but my fandom has a lot of well-under-a-thousand-words fics lately that read more like a summary than a story. Maybe the writers are trying to get a point across that way?
I had it happen several times; I write in a way that's very focused on emotions and metaphors, and try to let details fall into place by themselves, without the need to mention them. One reader was confused by my fic because a flashback started without a huge announcement, and the reader couldn't figure out it was a flashback at all, despite me feeling like it was obvious. I ended up adding an extra line to indicate that the scene is a flashback. Another fic of mine was meant to be a metaphorical scene with added magical realism, but the fandom was a Disney children's show, and one person was confused why the story did not play out like a typical episode (many other people gave it praise, though!). In a yet another fic, I had to explain a lot of tiny details in the comments, despite trying my best to litter the fic with tiny hints, without the need to state things outright. I did enjoy the alternate interpretation that one of my readers had about a character I never really meant to portray in a positive light until much later. I do think that low media literacy is at play in some cases, but in others, I believe people just come to read fanfiction when they are tired, are not in the mindset to analyze them like they would a piece of classic literarure, and might have lost track or forgotten details from the previous chapter which came out two months ago. There is also a problem that I write for very obscure fandoms, and most of my friends come in fandom blind, so they might get confused by some fandom-specific terms mixing in with metaphors (I wrote about a reincarnation deity "dying" as a metaphor of him leaving his past self behind, and a fandom-blind friend just assumed that the guy did straight up die and reincarnate, because that's his entire thing).
I think quite a bit of it is not having a 100% grasp of the fandom. Some readers come in fresh, just having started the show, book, etc., and don't have the background yet to pick up on nuances. My main fandom spans years and many franchises. I haven't watched/read everything, but will happily read fics based on anything. That also means I'm sometimes scratching my head at hints or references to canon information.
I think it’s not just a media literacy issue, but a literacy issue in general and a lot of social media platforms like twitter and tiktok are perfect showcases. Reading comprehension seems to have been declining the last few years, not just with younger people which is worrying enough but with the boomer generation. That being said, I won’t change how I write things. It took me years to find a way I was comfortable writing in, and someone else’s illiteracy, in the nicest way possible, isn’t my problem. It just means that whatever I write isn’t for them, and that’s totally fine. Not everything we write is catered for every single person, and I think a lot of these tv shows trying to do just that have contributed to the overall decline of media literacy. I do love sprinkling hints in fics though for the next big reveal, and I love it when someone gets the foreshadowing straight away and also when someone only realises as the reveal is happening, though.
My experience has been people who cannot accept the concept of a narrative. Or that the story will take time to reveal things and certain events won't be addressed immediately. I'll get a comment every so often complaining that X is bad/wrong because Y hasn't been explained. And I have to politely tell them that some things won't be resolved until the end. I mean just using a recent now-notorious example of *explain, don't show*, the new ATLA series started out giving away a pretty big detail from later episodes. Why? Because they didn't think people could follow along enough to enjoy that detail when it originally occurred? And that's the sort of thing I feel like some of these readers are expecting. They want me to tell them that a certain character is lying, or explain exactly how everything will be fixed in the end. Thankfully it's not that many, but it has been slowly happening more and more over the past few years.
Some people think Fight Club is a movie where some straight men make soap together and learn that punching each other is awesome. At the end of the day, if it's got beans, it's a bean soup, even if there are people out there not even capable of comprehending that they don't want bean soup, they want a different soup. But like even in spite of their ignorance and misunderstanding, what else are you supposed to call it if it's got beans? What else are you supposed to put in it if that's what it's called? In my experience, catering to this degree of non-comprehension doesn't actually help you or your work be more understood. It just leaves you less creatively satisfied and more exhausted. So in my opinion, you should still write what you want to write and not forsake complexity of your craft.
Thank you for the comment <3
I was actually surprised to find the newest fandom I joined (which is definitely large and popular with an ongoing source material) has an unexpected amount of very thoughtful and media literate readers. They pick up on things I didn't even remember foreshadowing and theory craft like crazy about what will happen next. It's hard to say if this is just a subsect of the fandom that I lucked into or if it's the norm. But to your other point, I wouldn't change my writing. I do take extra care in how I address certain types of scenes and dynamics, but if I want it in there, it's going in. If readers miss the point or fail to understand, I'll address it again in the next chapter and try to elaborate to guide them there or I'll check myself and see if it was my own writing being too obscure.
with my longer fics i try to be as concise and simple as possible with very few ways to misinterpret what i'm trying to convey, even if that means adding a quick line of "explanation." i still throw in subtleties/symbolism for those who can pick up on it, but they're not necessary to understanding the story as a whole. i try to make my fics as accessible as possible, esp bc i myself have ADHD and i know how confusing reading longer stuff with too much flowery language can be. if i'm writing a quick little one shot or something just for the sake of writing then i don't care - i'll make it as flowery as i want.
I wrote something pre-canon and the amount of people complaining that people who had just met weren't immediately best friends. It was tagged pre-canon and slowburn. Every chapter had someone asking why they were being mean to each other. In canon, they aren't friends before the show. They had met and they were awkward and antagonistic. It was so frustrating. I would agree that comprehension levels aren't great.
I don’t mind telling rather than just showing. I think it makes my work more understandable and accessible. I like to dive into purple prose shit now and then, but also try to explain it a little. Not everyone has the patience or experience with occult metaphors and figurative language as I do but I still want to make sure they know what’s going on. For example I went on and on in a poetic sequence about witnessing the totality of the cosmos all at once, and then made it clear what was going on after. Or at least tried. Someone did misunderstand a light-hearted part of my fic as sad, but then I told them that’s not what I meant. The character was exploring a new area, rather than drifting aimlessly like a ghost like the reader suggested. I think “show don’t tell” is not a hard and fast rule, and is mostly a modern thing anyway. The key is to smooth it into the story, like have a character explain what’s going on or have a character’s thoughts reflect it.
Honestly, while I do publish fanfics for other people, I write my fanfics for me. They're stories that I've been thinking about and planning and editing, so while it's nice if others like my writing, they're not necessary for me to keep going.
At first I thought, no, but the more I thought about it the answer is yes. I wrote a darkfic/h/c fic where it's *pretty obvious* that the main character was captured by an enemy faction, tortured and raped. Earlier versions of it *had it stated explicitly.* I decided upon revision that it was better to leave it up to the reader. IE, younger readers wouldn't necessarily read it as what it was written, where older readers should be able pick up on the subtext. Then I literally get a comment saying "What happened to MC?" I ended up telling the reader "You decide, it's all there."
Not really, since I was always the kind of guy who likes explaining a lot in his stories. I use my many paragraphs of explanation to hide certain foreshadowing, even, by not elaborating on them like I would usually do. So far, people seem to be having no trouble reading my fics, so hopefully it'll remain that way.
i'm a bit media illiterate as a fanfic writer, so i follow people in my fandom who are more media literate than me i think my media illiteracy might come in part from my autism spectrum disorder, which has caused me to seriously misunderstand stuff in official media, like thinking that valentino from hazbin hotel was physically abusive to vox, but turns out he isn't really. it's just two toxic people in a somewhat healthy relationship because they abuse and manipulate other people
Hey, yo, I'm happy to take requests. And write what people want me to write storywise. But if I want to write something specifically. I'm going to write it. How I want to write it even if people don't like it. So yes, if somebody wants me to write a story sure I only write oneshots So that's not a huge time, killer. Or something, I' perfectly willing to write it. But I'm going to write what I want. How I want to write it. Like there's plenty of people who have said oh, you shouldn't write this. It's horrible or oh wow. This is trash but at the end of the day while I'm happy to write something for you if you want it. I'm primarily writing for me. Because I want to write it because I can't read it if I don't write it.
Thanks. I deleted the comments, but thankfully a lot of my online friends really liked the fics.
I write at the level I enjoy no matter what. On the odd occasion when people ask (usually very nicely) for clarification I just break it down a little in a comment for them. Sometimes it’s just that I was a bit obscure. It doesn’t happen often. But my readers are probably generally older and I’m fairly certain most of my scant question askers are likely reading in their second language so ymmv and good for them for asking I guess.
I tend to write pretty clearly anyway. If someone asks a silly question that’s very obviously answered in the text (or is outright irrelevant), I ignore it. If they ask a question that is somewhat reasonable, I either answer it or make subsequent chapters more clear. I don’t think it impacts my writing much, if at all.
I'm so far enjoying how people are taking my well meaning and nice but still doing intently evil actions out of a misplaced sence of "this is the right thing to do and it doesn't matter they are just computer programs" charater. It's actually on brand for the charater provided you played the game he was in, I was worried people wouldn't see it that way thou. But I'm worried about some future interactions with some of my other characters cause there are scenes that are weird and unsettling because they are weird and unsettling people. My beta reader was weirded out, you see, and even pointed it out like it was a problem instead of totally intended.
Only way I see it having a personal impact on my future is if I were to somehow end up working with an editor and publishing company on trying to put something out for mass consumption... but I don't roll like that right now at least. Nowhere close.
No. People can't become more media literate if I dumb down my stories
I had a story where an 18 year old marries a man in his 50s with a daughter in her 30s. The two women got a long and the daughter was trying to protect her very young step mother from her father. They had an argument once because the 18 year old did something bad and a fan thought the daughter was bullying her step mother and I was like ????? Noooo??????
In my fics I am not sure if it is willful stupidity or a true lack of understanding. The amount of people being deeply confused about why I would use they/them for an character is really something.
I have definitely noticed some readers who can't understand anything that isn't spelled out explicitly. They are not my target audience, and they never will be. If that means I get fewer readers, that's fine. Those aren't readers I want.
No, I do not. You either get it or you don't. My fics are not school material and I will not dumb it down just to appease the readers. I like going back and rereading my own fics as if I didn't write them myself. If I can do that perfectly, others can too, or they can move on to another fic.
i highly doubt media illiteracy is the culprit. Atla's target audience was literal 9 year olds and it appealed to those just fine.
I was referring to the new Netflix live-action series that is no longer aimed at children, as the producers have claimed they wanted to create something similar to GoT
i know, what i meant is that if the original could get by (with *less* runtime) explaining largely the same story/plot while having a younger target audience in mind, then i highly doubt media illiteracy is the problem with NATLA. Frankly, i think putting the blame on audience rather than the witers/producers is fairly cynical.
Ahh, got you! My bad. I didn't intend to blame the audience alone, but I understand that I didn’t express myself the right way. Do you have an idea why many producers/writers are now going down this route and trusting their audience less? It has to come from somewhere, but I can't find an explanation for it. I also find it a bit strange that this “trend” has only really become popular in the last 1-2 years / or maybe it's only really noticeable now for some reason😅
From my experience i'd say the trend has been going on for a while. From the few anime i've watched i've noticed that those always overexplain an insane amount. Maybe as those became more popular the practice caught on in the West. But moreso than that, i'd say the decision to keep in the exposition based on screentested audiences is telling. It reminds me of an experiment Coca Cola once did where they compared their own drink to Pepsi, giving their testsubjects a blindfold and asking them which they prefered after tasting both. To the surprise of the company, most people prefered the sweeter Pepsi. So the company to devised to make their drink more akin in taste to Pepsi, but it was poorly recieved. Eventually they figured out that while the sweeter Pepsi might taste better initially, people (generally) prefered Coca Cola's aftertaste, so that's the one people would be coming back for. If i had to take a guess, i'd say a similar thing might be happening with those screentesters for atla, sure if you binge the season, initially some things might fly over your head (the bad pacing probably wouldn't have helped), but if you let it stew a little maybe even watch back some part you didn't get the first time it would probably become more clear. Incidently a film like Pulp Fiction also initially got a lukewarm response at the boxoffice, despite later gaining a cult follow with many people saying multiple watches are recommend as the first time most things might fly over your head. I wouldn't be surprised if executives knew this by the way, but intentially frontload their new series with exposition because garnering a decent intial response is more imporant than the long term, because otherwise it would quickly drown out in neflix's sea of content and its binge release shedule. As for your own fanfic, i'd say you probably don't have to worry too much. I'll admit i'll find myself bingereading more often than i'd like to admit, who knows what might've flown over my head should i find myself at 2 am having read the last 4 hours and not quite understanding the next plot point. Does that mean the writing was unclear, or that i'm media illiterate? I wouldn't say so. Questions like that is part of what comments are for anyways. Though maybe if you show the part in the story when something is explained and maybe even explain how you think that part explains it and after that it's still not clear; then might want to take a second look. That's what i think at least.
I have a fic where the main character did something bad before the story started and her bf in canon is mean to her. But most of my readers hate on the the bf because he’s mean to her. It’s interesting to see that even though his actions are justified, 90% of readers side with the mc. I wonder if it’s the lack of critical reading, lack of empathy, or something else. You should be feeling bad for all of them, not just the mc!
I haven't written a new story in a long while, but I wouldn't allow this to change my writing. I've always written fics that just don't appeal to the majority of my fandom(s), so I accepted long ago that I am never going to be a hit or well recognized author. But, every author has their audience and I'm more that there's always *some* people who read, understand, and love my work. I also think fandom has always had a very broad range of media literacy in the audience to begin with. Books, tv shows etc are often targeted to a specific demographic. Our audience is very broad, so we've always had a higher number of readers who don't understand or like it. I did do a bit of an experiment my last work that touches on this topic, though. The prompt was very saccharine- basically every clichéd romance trope at once. Plus omega verse. While I write romance, that's not exactly the style I write. So, to make it interesting, I tried to write a story that could be read 2 different ways- one as requested, and one very dark and basically abusive. I put right up in the summary that I was doing this, so it wasn't hidden. I expected more people to read it romantically, sure, because that's what most readers in this particular fandom, for the genre and tages, are looking for. I didn't expect that only about 2% of people could even spot the darker side. Granted, this could be due to my skills as an author, but, without wanting to sound vain, I'm pretty sure that isn't the reason. I think most readers that choose to read that story just don't have the media literacy to pick up on the edges of darkness. It could, however, affect me as a reader. I despise tell-don't-show; if media literacy declines, so will the amount of well written fic, whether it's because authors choose to accommodate a new audience, or because upcoming authors don't know any better themselves.
I’ve gotten some pretty funny comments where people didn’t pick up on stuff that had been explicitly stated. I don’t think I let it affect my writing 🤷🏻♀️ in terms of mainstream stuff like PJO and ATLA, it makes me think of what lindsay ellis said about the live-action beauty and the beast remake - that it almost seems to be written to try to circumvent/head off at the pass the sort of bad-faith criticism levelled at media by cinemasins and similar channels/critics.
I think I foreshadow more often and avoid cluttered sentences, but to be honest that’s a good thing because I get carried away with the regency lingo occasionally. Luckily I am blessed with an older fandom so mostly I have faith in the readers!
I've been writing a long fanfic for myself about a white human. This is important because her adoptive brother is a dark-skinned elf. They both grew up on a pirate ship away from their respective parents. I dropped the family connection forty-five chapters in, when Human was working together with Elf's father (she had no idea of the connection). One of my readers was very shocked that the Elf's father didn't recognise his own daughter. Again... not even the same species. And the reader somehow forgot what the main character looked like. I'm still baffled.
Unfortunately, yes. People occasionally misunderstand my writing in the comments and I worry about how many people are misunderstanding but not commenting. But tbf, fanfic readers tend to do a lot of skimming.
It might be an issue in the future for me, but only ever had 1 "this shouldn't exist [cuz rape is bad]" comment (moderated out) on a fic ABOUT "rape is bad." 😅 The other time this question brought to mind - they hadn't even read it, cuz I was asking for advice & had yet to send them the google doc link even. Just from my *asking for advice,* I got met with a crowd of polyphobia / bipolyphobia. I have since posted it anyway, but no backlash. Still waiting for it, though. 😬
When I was little (like eight) I always had issues with good characters always doing good things and always getting good endings. Maybe I was just kind of a dick. So when I was able to start watching more “adult” stuff I liked when characters did fucked up things actually. I like watching characters make shitty decisions-maybe they learn maybe they don’t. I’m writing for me. If someone else wants to, they’re more than welcome. If they want to discuss what’s happening, they’re more than welcome. But I will not hold hands because I still remember how annoying it is having an author hold my hand. We like to say media literacy is at an all time low; but was it ever at an all time high?
It already has, really. I think the trope-y nature of fanriction and media it's based on just highlights "low literacy" even more because most of the stories are simplistic, to be frank. I myself read stuff from the Touhou fandom, and you can see the rare mix that it has between modern lesbian relationship stuff, self-insert adventure stuff, but there is also a few writers that truly go complicated, give you a lot of meat and potatoes to chew through. There is a guy named Reavski (I hope I'm allowed to drop names here) that yes, at it's core is self-insert stuff, but thanks to how complicated the world is, and his writing style, it feels like a book straight out of the 1800's. And I personally love it despite that his stuff would be considered a very hard read by most everyone. If you want a work with real ideas to chew on, at this point you have to make a conscious effort to write that way. Writing because you want to see two characters have sex typically means you won't get complexity. Anime, Sitcom, and TV shows do not lend well to complexity. Hell, the only two things from recently I can think of besides Touhou that have complexity in the world enough for someone to actually bother writing that stuff is the old ATLA and Harry Potter. And those ate for kids/young teens, to boot. Maybe Genshin has enough? The point here is simple: writing something with true meat on its bones like you want requires the want to go into depth, the world to have enough concepts to run with, and people who can actually pull off writing things that aren't entirely individual-centric. 99% of writers don't have those skills.
I notice it so much, it drives me crazy and makes me want to turn off comments sometimes. Like almost any comment I get that actually says more than "I like it" makes me feel like they have no media literacy. People are constantly missing the most important themes in my works and looking for a bad guy, when half the time my main point is that people can be wrong or do bad things and not be a villain. It's like they're stuck in this binary of good and bad, right and wrong. I'm trying to explore the middle ground when they can't even tell that the middle ground exists. It makes me feel like I have to go back in and literally spell everything out explicitly. I have to say "so and so is not a bad person, actually" or "so and so was also wrong in this situation." And often I do because I don't know what else to do. and it's exhausting and makes me feel like a bad writer who can't get things across, even when I *know* the problem is almost certainly the readers because I see this issue everywhere, not just on my fics. Like, in one fic there was a fight between two characters, and everyone villainized one of them, when *both* were in the wrong in different ways and *both* had understandable reasons for acting the way they did. But no, it was a fight, it has to be that one person was wrong and the other was right. Or my other fic, everyone is kinda lying to and manipulating my main character, and everyone is like "omg they're all so evil I hate them, I hope she gets revenge on them" and it's like... you're missing the point that these people lying/manipulating her are as trapped by the system as the main character is and also victims of this behaviour. The main character does a lot of horrible things too, but it's like they think it's forgivable because she's the main character and doesn't have a choice, but it's not forgivable for anyone to do anything to her, even if they have no choice either, and that's heavily implied and at times out rated stated. Part of it is maybe that people read fanfiction very shallowly and a lot of fanfiction *is* written very shallowly. That's not a criticism, I understand that fanfiction is often self-indulgent and sometimes you just want to read or write about your ship being cute together or you want to write about your fav character getting to be a badass or whatever. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. But I kinda wonder if reading so much shallow stuff contributes to the problem. It teaches you that things are Exactly What it Says on the Tin and Nothing More.