They taught this in my research/writing class. It blows my mind the amount of people in the world who lack critical thinking skills, or the ability to think about things logically. They’ll literally just believe anything and everything they read or see.
> United States has 50% of people under a 6th grade literacy
I thought, "This can't be true." [But it, shockingly, IS TRUE](https://www.apmresearchlab.org/10x-adult-literacy). YIKES!
One of my favorite modules I did in 5th grade was propaganda. Was about a 3-4 week thing were I learned about the things advertisers did to influence the audience and to get you to buy stuff. Also covered Hitler a little and his propaganda that was effective.
It was the beginning of my cynicism. When I got to college, one of my roommates tried to insult me by calling me the most cynical person they know. I was proud and said, thank you but you need to have more friends that aren't so gullible. LOL
I was frustrated to find out this module was not part of any of my children's curriculum - so the children got my summary of it at home.
Yup - my partner constantly calls me cynical because I’m constantly questioning the motives and origins of people’s opinions and the “facts” they present.
I know what you mean! I had a hard time shaking the 'but why would someone post that if it wasn't true' mindset. Now I tend to check to see if it's a new account and if they made any comments. No comments to me is sus (do kids still say 'sus'?) because if I were asking for advice I'd be reading and responding to things people are saying.
I actually had someone DM me recently when I pointed out in the comment that the woman dating her friend's ex was an 8th grader in a Christian school in another post, and they told me they totally go around making things up. Weird.
I did. And it’s not just Reddit. Before going to the US when I was a kid I decided to read up on it from magazines and all the stories were about drug addicted kids, teachers sleeping with students, and broken homes.
Imagine my surprise when I started school and realised every single classmate came from a stable home with parents more loving than mine 🙂↔️
1/2 the story in a mere five hundred thousand words. I don't even hate the lies as much as the rambling, detailed, anguished dozens of paragraphs everyone seems to find necessary lately
For me it was when I was starting to wonder why every step parent is terrible and why did a child’s one good birth parent always die when they were 4-5 with other parent remarrying before they were 10 that made me go “these stories all read very similar”
Me too, if you go through my comments you will see dozens of my heart-felt responses to these outlandish tales...
Sigh, I am a Millenial, can I blame my innocence on that yet? Lol
Lol, as a fellow millennial... dont think so on the innocence, but you can blame the chronic catastrophinzation on it! That's what pulls me in, the what if this isn't total bs, it's a shitstorm so I'm inclined to belive it's at least based on truth.
Responses like yours keep me checking the sub. The comments are almost always more interesting than the post!
So if you could just stop making thoughtful comments, it would really improve the quality of the media I consume, thanks /s
Not to give us excuses (my Sister is GenX) but I think since we grew up actually having ALL of our human interaction in person, we see it as coming from a real person.
Wheras my younger family members who have had a tablet since leaving the womb, has had many interactions online and can easily not put a "human face" behind it...
Or maybe I'm just a sucker lol...
If you like AITA, checkout scamfish on YouTube. It shows the downside of people (of all living generations) being taken in by emotional stories...
I think that 90% or more are ridiculously false but interacting with them as if they were real is a way to waste time I say most of Aita's publications are completely ridiculous scenarios do not look at them as if they are real or not only if they are interesting If it meets the minimum of logic you can respond under that minimum of logic, curious situations also arise XD
I had a story of mine turn up on one of these meta subreddits once. I was offended because it was something that had genuinely happened. Yes, it was a bit weird and unlikely, but that's why I posted it. I don't post about how I mowed the lawn and tidied the garage a bit, like I did today.
My super fake-sounding, yet completely real story is that I was at a local amusement park with my friends when we were teens, and we went into the specialty candy shop, saw a display of "Pina Colada" flavored stuff, and being the oh-so-quirky (read: obnoxious) kids we were, immediately began belting out the song. The cashier joined in, as did the one other customer, and then the people who were working in the back kitchen came out and also began singing and dancing. It only lasted for the length of the chorus, so like 10 seconds, but it was crazy. It absolutely sounds like something off of /thathappened and I would 100% think it was bullshit if someone told me that story.
That is a lovely story. I've worked in retail and it's rare moments of fun together that make it bearable.
I never saw anything on that scale, though. I wonder if the staff took it off the CCTV and watch it every Christmas.
I was the same, i thought some were altered, or written by unreliable narrators when the characters motives made no sense or seemed exagerrated but that most stories were true, this sub made it clear they were nearly all untrue.
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You also need the ability to distinguish real from fake posts. Here is a guideline of fakery:
\- Twins. Despite what Reddit tells you, twins are not that common.
\- Inherintence. The moment someone writes down how they inherited $5,000,000 from their grandparents, a 4 bedroom house and several vintage cars for example, this post is utter bullshit.
\- Gay/trans people being portayed as martyrs all the time. I'm straight but if people started treating my sexuality like I'm some fragile person who needs help walking, Imma throw some hands. People like that may disagree with me but I find it insulting. So, whenever you see a post where a gay/trans person is shown to be a victim all the time, there is a good chance the post is fake. Same goes if those people are portrayed like they are some sort of hellspawn, set to destroy the poster's family and friendships.
\- "English is not my first language". Not a big surprise but many users of Reddit are not from English - speaking countries. It's difficult but we try and improve our English every day. Meanwhile, many people proceed to write down in perfect English. This will always some eyebrows.
There are more but those 4 are the most common ones. Honorable mentions go out to: All MILs being crazy bitches who abuse poor OOP (most of the time OOP being a woman), family members "blowing" OOP's phone (god, I hate this phrase), obvious validation posts (ex. AITA? My husband cheated on me and beat the holy hell out of me but AITA for wanting a divorce).
Twins may not be that common but we do exist. In my year in high school, there were about 500 students in total with two sets of twins and one set of triplets who "should" have been twins too, but one of the eggs split complety after fertilization so the pregnancy resulted in one boy and two identical girls. And I know of a few more sets of twins from my town, just not my exact age.
But sure, being a twin myself I might notice them a bit more than most.
Thanks to IVF, twins have become more common than back in the 80's when I was born too. Still not common enough to warrant like every third or fourth post about someone's family having a set of them though, and the vast majority in real life are fraternal, which is something else that Reddit screws up.
I can too (although not every time. I'm sure there are at least 15 grammar mistakes in my OC). That's not the point. Like, we get it - Reddit has a grammar nazi unit that doesn't sleep but you don't need to explain that English is not your first language.
I remember a bunch of time ago in another account I made a post not explaining it and everyone thought it was fake because of the English mistakes I made
Maybe it's real, maybe it's fake. I treat then all of them as if they are real-ish (even though they often aren't). It's pretty likely that the same/similar situation has happened to someone. It's an infinite universe.
It's not like it hurts me or I'm particularly invested in any of the I'm posts so it doesn't really matter.
The fact I rode a giraffe in a Kmart parking lot around the parked cars doesn't particularly sound real.
A post saying my husband fucked my sister and my mom and my grandma and my cousin is more realistic.
I'd agree with you in a vacuum, but unfortunately I do think they do real harm because so many reinforce bigoted narratives about marginalized people. Might not hurt you, but I think they do hurt people.
The "doesn't matter if it's real because it may help somebody in a similar situation" argument is nonsense. You don't care if it's real because you really only care about getting attention/upvotes. You're not inspiring anybody to make life-changing decisions with your comments on posts that are likely fake, and it's weird how people pretend that their opinion is just SO ENLIGHTENED that they would be doing a disservice by not commenting on a likely fake post.
There are plenty of people/groups that use these posts to push agendas, you're doing more harm by participating in these posts than whatever benefit you may think that you're providing.
The ability to critical analyse texts is so, so important. It will help you analyse news media, propaganda, advertising etc.
They taught this in my research/writing class. It blows my mind the amount of people in the world who lack critical thinking skills, or the ability to think about things logically. They’ll literally just believe anything and everything they read or see.
United States has 50% of people under a 6th grade literacy level.
> United States has 50% of people under a 6th grade literacy I thought, "This can't be true." [But it, shockingly, IS TRUE](https://www.apmresearchlab.org/10x-adult-literacy). YIKES!
One of my favorite modules I did in 5th grade was propaganda. Was about a 3-4 week thing were I learned about the things advertisers did to influence the audience and to get you to buy stuff. Also covered Hitler a little and his propaganda that was effective. It was the beginning of my cynicism. When I got to college, one of my roommates tried to insult me by calling me the most cynical person they know. I was proud and said, thank you but you need to have more friends that aren't so gullible. LOL I was frustrated to find out this module was not part of any of my children's curriculum - so the children got my summary of it at home.
Yup - my partner constantly calls me cynical because I’m constantly questioning the motives and origins of people’s opinions and the “facts” they present.
I have tried to tell my wife, its not cynical, its "trust but verify" but it hasn't worked for me :)
I know what you mean! I had a hard time shaking the 'but why would someone post that if it wasn't true' mindset. Now I tend to check to see if it's a new account and if they made any comments. No comments to me is sus (do kids still say 'sus'?) because if I were asking for advice I'd be reading and responding to things people are saying. I actually had someone DM me recently when I pointed out in the comment that the woman dating her friend's ex was an 8th grader in a Christian school in another post, and they told me they totally go around making things up. Weird.
you think someone would do that? just go on the internet and tell lies??
Did you believe paternity fraud was an epidemic?
I did. And it’s not just Reddit. Before going to the US when I was a kid I decided to read up on it from magazines and all the stories were about drug addicted kids, teachers sleeping with students, and broken homes. Imagine my surprise when I started school and realised every single classmate came from a stable home with parents more loving than mine 🙂↔️
What a shock indeed
As an American, I apologise for our disappointingly dull behaviour. 😔
Even if they are based on something that actually happened, they are likely embellished.
Exactly. You’re getting just 1/2 the story from an insane person.
1/2 the story in a mere five hundred thousand words. I don't even hate the lies as much as the rambling, detailed, anguished dozens of paragraphs everyone seems to find necessary lately
For me it was when I was starting to wonder why every step parent is terrible and why did a child’s one good birth parent always die when they were 4-5 with other parent remarrying before they were 10 that made me go “these stories all read very similar”
For me, it was when there were three separate posts about Funkp Pops in a week.
I always believe them until I read a comment about how fake it sounds.
Try being the first person to call it out, and watch the down votes and INSANE things people will respond with!
Me too, if you go through my comments you will see dozens of my heart-felt responses to these outlandish tales... Sigh, I am a Millenial, can I blame my innocence on that yet? Lol
Lol, as a fellow millennial... dont think so on the innocence, but you can blame the chronic catastrophinzation on it! That's what pulls me in, the what if this isn't total bs, it's a shitstorm so I'm inclined to belive it's at least based on truth.
Lol, I think you are right. These posts pull me in every single time without fail.
Responses like yours keep me checking the sub. The comments are almost always more interesting than the post! So if you could just stop making thoughtful comments, it would really improve the quality of the media I consume, thanks /s
Lol, absolutely I will cease all my arm-chairing right away 😅
GenX here, we’re known for being cynical and jaded. But I’ve bought into so many before I saw someone had looked at the history or critiqued it.
Not to give us excuses (my Sister is GenX) but I think since we grew up actually having ALL of our human interaction in person, we see it as coming from a real person. Wheras my younger family members who have had a tablet since leaving the womb, has had many interactions online and can easily not put a "human face" behind it... Or maybe I'm just a sucker lol... If you like AITA, checkout scamfish on YouTube. It shows the downside of people (of all living generations) being taken in by emotional stories...
I think that 90% or more are ridiculously false but interacting with them as if they were real is a way to waste time I say most of Aita's publications are completely ridiculous scenarios do not look at them as if they are real or not only if they are interesting If it meets the minimum of logic you can respond under that minimum of logic, curious situations also arise XD
To be fair there’s lots of people here that would tell you that every single story is fake.
I had a story of mine turn up on one of these meta subreddits once. I was offended because it was something that had genuinely happened. Yes, it was a bit weird and unlikely, but that's why I posted it. I don't post about how I mowed the lawn and tidied the garage a bit, like I did today.
My super fake-sounding, yet completely real story is that I was at a local amusement park with my friends when we were teens, and we went into the specialty candy shop, saw a display of "Pina Colada" flavored stuff, and being the oh-so-quirky (read: obnoxious) kids we were, immediately began belting out the song. The cashier joined in, as did the one other customer, and then the people who were working in the back kitchen came out and also began singing and dancing. It only lasted for the length of the chorus, so like 10 seconds, but it was crazy. It absolutely sounds like something off of /thathappened and I would 100% think it was bullshit if someone told me that story.
That is a lovely story. I've worked in retail and it's rare moments of fun together that make it bearable. I never saw anything on that scale, though. I wonder if the staff took it off the CCTV and watch it every Christmas.
Mowing a lawn? Yeah right. That’s home owning behaviour. You expect me to just believe you OWN a home. In this economy? Yeah Right!
Well now you've got me doubting myself too.
You're welcome 👊
I was the same, i thought some were altered, or written by unreliable narrators when the characters motives made no sense or seemed exagerrated but that most stories were true, this sub made it clear they were nearly all untrue.
Beep boop! Automod here with a quick reminder to never brigade r/AmITheAsshole or other subs under any circumstances. Brigading puts you in violation of both our rules and Reddit’s TOS, and therefore puts this sub at risk of ban. If you brigade/encourage brigading of any kind, you will be banned from participating in either sub. Satirizing of posts should stay within this sub, which means that participating directly in linked posts should either be done in good faith or not at all. Want some freed, live, discussion that neither AITA nor Reddit itself can censor? Join our [official discord server](https://discord.gg/KbZnaXX) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AmITheAngel) if you have any questions or concerns.*
They opened my eyes too.
You also need the ability to distinguish real from fake posts. Here is a guideline of fakery: \- Twins. Despite what Reddit tells you, twins are not that common. \- Inherintence. The moment someone writes down how they inherited $5,000,000 from their grandparents, a 4 bedroom house and several vintage cars for example, this post is utter bullshit. \- Gay/trans people being portayed as martyrs all the time. I'm straight but if people started treating my sexuality like I'm some fragile person who needs help walking, Imma throw some hands. People like that may disagree with me but I find it insulting. So, whenever you see a post where a gay/trans person is shown to be a victim all the time, there is a good chance the post is fake. Same goes if those people are portrayed like they are some sort of hellspawn, set to destroy the poster's family and friendships. \- "English is not my first language". Not a big surprise but many users of Reddit are not from English - speaking countries. It's difficult but we try and improve our English every day. Meanwhile, many people proceed to write down in perfect English. This will always some eyebrows. There are more but those 4 are the most common ones. Honorable mentions go out to: All MILs being crazy bitches who abuse poor OOP (most of the time OOP being a woman), family members "blowing" OOP's phone (god, I hate this phrase), obvious validation posts (ex. AITA? My husband cheated on me and beat the holy hell out of me but AITA for wanting a divorce).
Twins may not be that common but we do exist. In my year in high school, there were about 500 students in total with two sets of twins and one set of triplets who "should" have been twins too, but one of the eggs split complety after fertilization so the pregnancy resulted in one boy and two identical girls. And I know of a few more sets of twins from my town, just not my exact age. But sure, being a twin myself I might notice them a bit more than most. Thanks to IVF, twins have become more common than back in the 80's when I was born too. Still not common enough to warrant like every third or fourth post about someone's family having a set of them though, and the vast majority in real life are fraternal, which is something else that Reddit screws up.
Brother, English is not my first language but I can write some decent sentences without big grammar mistakes
I can too (although not every time. I'm sure there are at least 15 grammar mistakes in my OC). That's not the point. Like, we get it - Reddit has a grammar nazi unit that doesn't sleep but you don't need to explain that English is not your first language.
I remember a bunch of time ago in another account I made a post not explaining it and everyone thought it was fake because of the English mistakes I made
Maybe it's real, maybe it's fake. I treat then all of them as if they are real-ish (even though they often aren't). It's pretty likely that the same/similar situation has happened to someone. It's an infinite universe. It's not like it hurts me or I'm particularly invested in any of the I'm posts so it doesn't really matter. The fact I rode a giraffe in a Kmart parking lot around the parked cars doesn't particularly sound real. A post saying my husband fucked my sister and my mom and my grandma and my cousin is more realistic.
I'd agree with you in a vacuum, but unfortunately I do think they do real harm because so many reinforce bigoted narratives about marginalized people. Might not hurt you, but I think they do hurt people.
People can believe certain things or believe in their problematic opinion and still be wrong.
No shit. I still have a problem with people telling lies that reinforce those wrong beliefs.
The "doesn't matter if it's real because it may help somebody in a similar situation" argument is nonsense. You don't care if it's real because you really only care about getting attention/upvotes. You're not inspiring anybody to make life-changing decisions with your comments on posts that are likely fake, and it's weird how people pretend that their opinion is just SO ENLIGHTENED that they would be doing a disservice by not commenting on a likely fake post. There are plenty of people/groups that use these posts to push agendas, you're doing more harm by participating in these posts than whatever benefit you may think that you're providing.