If we wanted to engage in nuance (lol, lmao) on the “are audiobooks reading” debate, we really do need to bring literacy, and especially blind literacy, into the conversation.
Because, yes, listening to a story and reading a story use mostly the same parts of the brain. Yes, listening to the audiobook counts as “having read” a book. Yes, oral storytelling has a long, glorious tradition and many cultures maintained their histories through oral history or oral + art history, having never developed a true written language, and their oral stories and histories are just as valid and rich as written literature.
We still can’t call listening in the absence of reading “literacy.”
The term literacy needs to stay restricted to the written word, to the ability to access and engage with written texts, because we need to be able to talk about illiteracy. We need to be able to identify when a society is failing to teach children to read, and if we start saying that listening to stories is literacy, we lose the ability to describe those systemic failures.
Blind folks have been knee-deep in this debate for a long time. Schools struggle to provide resources to teach students Braille and enforcing the teaching of Braille to low-vision and blind children is a constant uphill battle. A school tried to argue that one girl didn’t need to learn Braille because she could read 96-point font. Go check what that is. The new prevalence of audiobooks and TTS is a huge threat to Braille literacy because it provides institutions with another excuse to not provide Braille education or Braille texts.
That matters. Braille-literate blind and low-vision people have a 90% employment rate. For those who don’t know Braille, it’s 30%. Braille literacy is linked to higher academic success in all fields.
Moving outside the world of Braille, literacy of any kind matters. Being able to read text has a massive impact on a person’s ability to access information, education, and employment. Being able to talk about the inability to read text matters, because that’s how we’re able to hold systems accountable.
So, yes, audiobooks should count as reading. But, no, they should not count as literacy.
If we wanted to engage in nuance (lol, lmao) on the “are audiobooks reading” debate, we really do need to bring literacy, and especially blind literacy, into the conversation.
Because, yes, listening to a story and reading a story use mostly the same parts of the brain. Yes, listening to the audiobook counts as “having read” a book. Yes, oral storytelling has a long, glorious tradition and many cultures maintained their histories through oral history or oral + art history, having never developed a true written language, and their oral stories and histories are just as valid and rich as written literature.
We still can’t call listening in the absence of reading “literacy.”
The term literacy needs to stay restricted to the written word, to the ability to access and engage with written texts, because we need to be able to talk about illiteracy. We need to be able to identify when a society is failing to teach children to read, and if we start saying that listening to stories is literacy, we lose the ability to describe those systemic failures.
Blind folks have been knee-deep in this debate for a long time. Schools struggle to provide resources to teach students Braille and enforcing the teaching of Braille to low-vision and blind children is a constant uphill battle. A school tried to argue that one girl didn’t need to learn Braille because she could read 96-point font. Go check what that is. The new prevalence of audiobooks and TTS is a huge threat to Braille literacy because it provides institutions with another excuse to not provide Braille education or Braille texts.
That matters. Braille-literate blind and low-vision people have a 90% employment rate. For those who don’t know Braille, it’s 30%. Braille literacy is linked to higher academic success in all fields.
Moving outside the world of Braille, literacy of any kind matters. Being able to read text has a massive impact on a person’s ability to access information, education, and employment. Being able to talk about the inability to read text matters, because that’s how we’re able to hold systems accountable.
So, yes, audiobooks should count as reading. But, no, they should not count as literacy.
If we wanted to engage in nuance (lol, lmao) on the “are audiobooks reading” debate, we really do need to bring literacy, and especially blind literacy, into the conversation.
Because, yes, listening to a story and reading a story use mostly the same parts of the brain. Yes, listening to the audiobook counts as “having read” a book. Yes, oral storytelling has a long, glorious tradition and many cultures maintained their histories through oral history or oral + art history, having never developed a true written language, and their oral stories and histories are just as valid and rich as written literature.
We still can’t call listening in the absence of reading “literacy.”
The term literacy needs to stay restricted to the written word, to the ability to access and engage with written texts, because we need to be able to talk about illiteracy. We need to be able to identify when a society is failing to teach children to read, and if we start saying that listening to stories is literacy, we lose the ability to describe those systemic failures.
Blind folks have been knee-deep in this debate for a long time. Schools struggle to provide resources to teach students Braille and enforcing the teaching of Braille to low-vision and blind children is a constant uphill battle. A school tried to argue that one girl didn’t need to learn Braille because she could read 96-point font. Go check what that is. The new prevalence of audiobooks and TTS is a huge threat to Braille literacy because it provides institutions with another excuse to not provide Braille education or Braille texts.
That matters. Braille-literate blind and low-vision people have a 90% employment rate. For those who don’t know Braille, it’s 30%. Braille literacy is linked to higher academic success in all fields.
Moving outside the world of Braille, literacy of any kind matters. Being able to read text has a massive impact on a person’s ability to access information, education, and employment. Being able to talk about the inability to read text matters, because that’s how we’re able to hold systems accountable.
So, yes, audiobooks should count as reading. But, no, they should not count as literacy.
If we wanted to engage in nuance (lol, lmao) on the “are audiobooks reading” debate, we really do need to bring literacy, and especially blind literacy, into the conversation.
Because, yes, listening to a story and reading a story use mostly the same parts of the brain. Yes, listening to the audiobook counts as “having read” a book. Yes, oral storytelling has a long, glorious tradition and many cultures maintained their histories through oral history or oral + art history, having never developed a true written language, and their oral stories and histories are just as valid and rich as written literature.
We still can’t call listening in the absence of reading “literacy.”
The term literacy needs to stay restricted to the written word, to the ability to access and engage with written texts, because we need to be able to talk about illiteracy. We need to be able to identify when a society is failing to teach children to read, and if we start saying that listening to stories is literacy, we lose the ability to describe those systemic failures.
Blind folks have been knee-deep in this debate for a long time. Schools struggle to provide resources to teach students Braille and enforcing the teaching of Braille to low-vision and blind children is a constant uphill battle. A school tried to argue that one girl didn’t need to learn Braille because she could read 96-point font. Go check what that is. The new prevalence of audiobooks and TTS is a huge threat to Braille literacy because it provides institutions with another excuse to not provide Braille education or Braille texts.
That matters. Braille-literate blind and low-vision people have a 90% employment rate. For those who don’t know Braille, it’s 30%. Braille literacy is linked to higher academic success in all fields.
Moving outside the world of Braille, literacy of any kind matters. Being able to read text has a massive impact on a person’s ability to access information, education, and employment. Being able to talk about the inability to read text matters, because that’s how we’re able to hold systems accountable.
So, yes, audiobooks should count as reading. But, no, they should not count as literacy.
basically chatgpt is like if some of the worst people on the planet got billions and billions and billions of dollars to market a magic 8-ball as an incredible miracle technology. magic 8ball can be your friend. magic 8ball can help you make business decisions. and then people bought into the marketing and tried magic 8ball and wow! it really responds to what you say! and so they started like, asking magic 8ball to file legal suits and tons of predictable disasters ensued. and then everyone was stuck talking about whether ot not magic 8balls are inherently bad and dangerous technology thats sucking the soul out of society
Functionally, there’s very little difference between watching a movie on poob and watching a movie on basic cable. Yet, for some reason, the advertisements on poob offend me far more
ad breaks on poob always interrupt important scenes or make really jarring cuts.
when it’s on cable, they’ve timed the commercial breaks in a way that generally isn’t as disruptive. someone took the time to “reformat” the movie for tv.
ads on poob always KNOW that they’re on poob and want me to interact with them or click them. the number of QR codes or ads-in-separate-ad-framing/window are infuriating and jarring.
cable commercials are just stupid little skits i can mute to go use the bathroom.
ads on poob are less than 2 minutes–not enough time to do anything, but enough time to piss me off.
cable commercials are 2-5 minutes, which is enough time to go do something/bathroom or snack break, or talk to whoever you’re watching with.
ads on poob are the same 3-4 commercials over and over and over and over again, often cutting to them immediately with no warning, and poob struggles to like, catch up to the fact that it’s having to show a different progress bar, or a different timer.
cable commercials, esp during primetime, generally cycle through like 10-15 minimum, so you can go an ad break or two without seeing the same commercial. and they usually only pop up during quiet moments, at regular intervals, so you can see them coming–and there isn’t a weird lag/loading time.
in both cases i am being accosted by advertisements and treated like a consumer to manipulate and exploit. the volume changes on cable and poob, the brightness level is eye-searing in both cases.
but poob doesn’t respect that i’m here for the MOVIE. cable, thanks to preexisting, decades-old norms around broadcast television, still kind of does. kind of. it’s easier to ignore those commercials than the ones on poob.
basically i think poob follows ad norms established on the internet–pop-ups, invasive flashing bullshit, creating lag, taking up time and attention–and cable follows established cable norms of, “time for a few minutes of ads that are just stupid little skits instead of spam machines, and then back to your otherwise uninterrupted movie.”
I mean i know what you’re saying, but there’s about a dozen free ad-supported streaming services and i respect none of them to use any of their names. Meanwhile, Poob has fully entered the tumblr lexicon as a shorthand for stupidly-named tech products, especially streaming services.
Functionally, there’s very little difference between watching a movie on poob and watching a movie on basic cable. Yet, for some reason, the advertisements on poob offend me far more
ad breaks on poob always interrupt important scenes or make really jarring cuts.
when it’s on cable, they’ve timed the commercial breaks in a way that generally isn’t as disruptive. someone took the time to “reformat” the movie for tv.
ads on poob always KNOW that they’re on poob and want me to interact with them or click them. the number of QR codes or ads-in-separate-ad-framing/window are infuriating and jarring.
cable commercials are just stupid little skits i can mute to go use the bathroom.
ads on poob are less than 2 minutes–not enough time to do anything, but enough time to piss me off.
cable commercials are 2-5 minutes, which is enough time to go do something/bathroom or snack break, or talk to whoever you’re watching with.
ads on poob are the same 3-4 commercials over and over and over and over again, often cutting to them immediately with no warning, and poob struggles to like, catch up to the fact that it’s having to show a different progress bar, or a different timer.
cable commercials, esp during primetime, generally cycle through like 10-15 minimum, so you can go an ad break or two without seeing the same commercial. and they usually only pop up during quiet moments, at regular intervals, so you can see them coming–and there isn’t a weird lag/loading time.
in both cases i am being accosted by advertisements and treated like a consumer to manipulate and exploit. the volume changes on cable and poob, the brightness level is eye-searing in both cases.
but poob doesn’t respect that i’m here for the MOVIE. cable, thanks to preexisting, decades-old norms around broadcast television, still kind of does. kind of. it’s easier to ignore those commercials than the ones on poob.
basically i think poob follows ad norms established on the internet–pop-ups, invasive flashing bullshit, creating lag, taking up time and attention–and cable follows established cable norms of, “time for a few minutes of ads that are just stupid little skits instead of spam machines, and then back to your otherwise uninterrupted movie.”
I mean i know what you’re saying, but there’s about a dozen free ad-supported streaming services and i respect none of them to use any of their names. Meanwhile, Poob has fully entered the tumblr lexicon as a shorthand for stupidly-named tech products, especially streaming services.
Functionally, there’s very little difference between watching a movie on poob and watching a movie on basic cable. Yet, for some reason, the advertisements on poob offend me far more
ad breaks on poob always interrupt important scenes or make really jarring cuts.
when it’s on cable, they’ve timed the commercial breaks in a way that generally isn’t as disruptive. someone took the time to “reformat” the movie for tv.
ads on poob always KNOW that they’re on poob and want me to interact with them or click them. the number of QR codes or ads-in-separate-ad-framing/window are infuriating and jarring.
cable commercials are just stupid little skits i can mute to go use the bathroom.
ads on poob are less than 2 minutes–not enough time to do anything, but enough time to piss me off.
cable commercials are 2-5 minutes, which is enough time to go do something/bathroom or snack break, or talk to whoever you’re watching with.
ads on poob are the same 3-4 commercials over and over and over and over again, often cutting to them immediately with no warning, and poob struggles to like, catch up to the fact that it’s having to show a different progress bar, or a different timer.
cable commercials, esp during primetime, generally cycle through like 10-15 minimum, so you can go an ad break or two without seeing the same commercial. and they usually only pop up during quiet moments, at regular intervals, so you can see them coming–and there isn’t a weird lag/loading time.
in both cases i am being accosted by advertisements and treated like a consumer to manipulate and exploit. the volume changes on cable and poob, the brightness level is eye-searing in both cases.
but poob doesn’t respect that i’m here for the MOVIE. cable, thanks to preexisting, decades-old norms around broadcast television, still kind of does. kind of. it’s easier to ignore those commercials than the ones on poob.
basically i think poob follows ad norms established on the internet–pop-ups, invasive flashing bullshit, creating lag, taking up time and attention–and cable follows established cable norms of, “time for a few minutes of ads that are just stupid little skits instead of spam machines, and then back to your otherwise uninterrupted movie.”
I mean i know what you’re saying, but there’s about a dozen free ad-supported streaming services and i respect none of them to use any of their names. Meanwhile, Poob has fully entered the tumblr lexicon as a shorthand for stupidly-named tech products, especially streaming services.
Look, always remember. Any sort of porn ban will be used to:
ban a variety of queer content (both trans and just other queer stuff)
ban certain health education content (especially on women’s health)
create a precedent to charge minorities for any sort of content that will be argued to be then “pornographic”
will also very certainly create precedent to go against platforms like tumblr and AO3 and whereever you consume your favorite fanwork
will definitely also charge any depiction of “female presenting nipples”
Even if you think all porn is bad (you are wrong by the way), this stuff is never just about porn. Heck, chances are they would use such a law to in some roundabout way also prevent simple sex ed!
Here’s a simple script for if you feel more comfortable emailing them.
Subject: Interstate Obscenity Definition Act
I am messaging to make a comment to Senator [THEIR NAME] about S.1671 aka the “Interstate Obscenity Definition Act”.
My name is [YOUR NAME], and I live at (YOUR ADDRESS AND CITY]. I’m messaging to urge Senator [THEIR NAME] to vote “NO” on S.1671, aka the “Interstate Obscenity Definition Act.” I care about this because:
-The wording is vague and do not do anything to effectively protect children
-The bill would infringe upon constitutional, legal expression made by consenting adults
-This bill would be used to censor speech and criminalize people under the guise of “obscenity”, especially by the current Trump Administration
-It would push people and communities underground, making them more vulnerable to abuse
I can feel The dryness of those markers in my bones
Fun fact those dry markers were supposed to have water put into them to make them work. You take off the bottom thing and pour water in and bam, instant marker success. Only learned about this four years after I’d lost my set 🙃
WHAT
WHAT
WHAT
Hey. Reblog to save some poor kid lots of grief.
Fucking what?!
Every ‘90s child on Tumblr raises their head in outrage.
I just stood up so fast and snatched mine out of my closet brb going to the sink
HOLY FUCKING SHIT
OH MY GOD
WHAT
What?!
Imagine if the kits ever came with instructions, considering the plastic cased ones always had pictures and shit on them anyways… Could have included instructions for the water arts smh
My sis used to go by “Minipig” on the internet and eventually changed it to “Megapig” as she got older, then my mother said “if you’re Megapig, I should be Gigapig”, then they nicknamed me “Micropig” for being the shortest, then dad joined the group chat “Pig Family” as “Papapig” and we made a channel for posting photos of the family dog titled “pictures of Little Oink”
no its totally a coincidence that the tired list of “transmasc names” you love to use as pejoratives consists entirely of western white names. it totally doesnt contribute to the erasure of poc in an already vulnerable community or anything. especially when you need to talk about how inherently dangerous their existence is. yeah those tmoc getting upset about your characterization of transmascs as all white men with silly fake names dont matter. they actually arent even real, tmoc are just a theoretical device invented by transmascs to make you feel bad about “punching up”. racism against men isnt real, they literally have male privilege. now get out there and call that brown man a dangerous savage threatening your safe white queer community. if you dont, who will?
the difference between Haymitch and Katniss’s narration is so funny. Haymitch would give us everyone’s social security number if he knew them, while Katniss wouldn’t even tell us her mom’s name.
If a guy said “God has appointed me to be king and ruler of earth, and I have commanded my subjects to make steel, and they have disobeyed the laws of the LORD by not fulfilling their quota, so I shall execute them” nobody would argue that that wasn’t a religious killing. Nobody would say “that guy didn’t kill them for following the wrong religion, so religion wasn’t a factor.” Obviously it’s a religious killing.
Communists are atheists, specifically they believe in historical materialism. They believe that they have a natural right to form a dictatorship of the proletariat and kill all who stand in their way. Therefore, all deaths under communism are deaths caused by atheism. Yes, that includes deaths unrelated to religious beliefs. Even the murder of other communists for following the wrong sect of communism can be considered religious killings in the name of atheism.
the American cop goes to shoot me but I adroitly point out that this would make them an atheist communist and they flinch and hiss as if burned
blaming atheism for communism is like blaming…
…trying to come up with other uncontroversially true things communists believe in an uncontroversial way and am drawing a blank here, maybe anon is right
honestly the problem with the USSR isn’t that it was atheist it’s that it wasn’t atheist enough, it not only replaced one set of vibes based governance with another, but it didn’t even do a good job of crushing the church.
Oh man I wanted to read your transfeminist theory but then you called me zippertits, theyfab, tboy, uncultured, cuntboy, tmra, transtrender, and degenerate so now I’m starting to think that maybe your opinion on what constitutes good theory is worthless to me.
Oh god, Zippertits? That sounds like a supervillain. These people are just bullies, end of
…but i think maybe I have a new art project
beware of Zippertits
he’ll zipper your tits
okay I’m lowkey obsessed with this? he would be such a good wrestling heel…
Wrestling heel was totally the vibe I was going for, so here’s a more dramatic pose.
an important thing to remember about colonialism is that places that were colonized were not perfect utopia but often full of their own horrors and abuses
the other important thing to remember about colonialism that the above does not justify colonialism
Saved by the actual killer; let’s not forget that Luigi Mangione was almost certainly framed and is most likely not The Claims Adjuster. (I love that name. Robin Hoodie was good too, but The Claims Adjuster is perfect.)
I mean. Days after the killing, he is still carrying around the weapon and a handwritten manifesto in his backpack? A 3d printed weapon, which he could have melted down and destroyed, or thrown into the Hudson River, because the thing about 3d printed guns is that unlike standard manufactured guns, it’s really hard to identify who printed them? When his bag was searched out of anyone’s sight, hours after his arrest? By a notoriously corrupt police district under pressure to make an arrest?
We need to stop accepting reflexively the narrative the NYPD and the media have tried to sell us; it’s got way too many holes in it and it runs the risk that an innocent man will spend his life in jail or be executed for a crime he didn’t commit. The fact that we would all support him if he did commit it is irrelevant; the state will grind him through the gears of injustice if it can.
“Authors should not be ALLOWED to write about–” you are an anti-intellectual and functionally a conservative
“This book should be taken off of shelves for featuring–” you are an anti-intellectual and functionally a conservative
“Schools shouldn’t teach this book in class because–” you are an anti-intellectual and functionally a conservative
“Nobody actually likes or wants to read classics because they’re–” you are an anti-intellectual and an idiot
“I only read YA fantasy books because every classic novel or work of literary fiction is problematic and features–” you are an anti-intellectual and you are robbing yourself of the full richness of the human experience.
“you are functionally a conservative” is such a good and clarifying insult
Literally right after I saw this post, I saw another post in a discord chat for BOOK EDITORS in which an outspokenly liberal editor talked about how Nabokov should have never been published because he wrote about p*dophiles and described women’s bodies in ways that made her uncomfortable. She described his writing as “objectively terrible” and said she wanted to burn his books. And other editors were bringing up classics they didn’t like and talking about how they wanted to throw them in the trash. This wasn’t like a light “unpopular opinion!” conversation. This was actual book editors talking about how books should be destroyed and censored.
There is something so scary and toxic in global culture right now. The revival of fascism is influencing everyone’s mindset and approach to art, regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum.
I see far more books being censored today than when I was a kid. Librarians handed me The Catcher in the Rye, The Sexual Politics of Meat, and Animal Farm when I was literally 8-11. My mom would never have taken a book away from me. I read everything from the Tao Te Ching to the Qur'an to atheist texts under my desk at school. Teachers thought nothing of it or encouraged it. Books seemed universally acknowledged as sacrosanct to me.
Now I can’t find any adults who don’t hesitate or want to make exceptions when it comes to censorship. Even the most liberal social activist librarians I know go, “well except for book X…”
Functionally conservative. It’s so important to have the language to express that.
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
ALT
