Why People Are Happy This CEO Got Assassinated

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9K1RB3OyZ6E

Star/Favorite/Like What's a better question to be asking about Favorites that you'd like to know the answer to?
#Favorite #favourite #Favorites #favourites #Star #Stars #Like #likes #engagement #metrics #gamification #boosts #UI #hashtags #meta #bookmarks

@chbmeyer @dejan @smartphone

It would award 800 points for using an anonymous #SIM card, but doesn't give any hint where to obtain one. Esp. a "+49" (DE) one. Not even a link.

I want my 800 points! Now!

I read like my dad did in the hospital, with multiple books in progress, dipping in and out of them as I please. If I ever feel I ought to finish a book, it's because I want to have learned what it has to say, not to check it off my list.[5] It's all real reading. Unless you're in some kind of reading contest, though, if you're an adult, I wonder, why? Are the stickers that good?

17/x

https://rinsemiddlebliss.com/posts/2024-09-06-what-counts-as-reading/

The overflowing bedside table

When I was a kid, my dad had to go to the hospital for a stomach ulcer. He didn't seem that sick but he was apparently pretty bored because he had to stay there and rest, and so he read a lot. When I came to visit him, I saw that he had a huge pile of books on his hospital bedside table. I asked which book he was reading, and he said he was reading all of them. He explained that he'd read a bit from one, and when he tired of it, he'd switch to another one. That struck me as a bit odd, but also, pretty clever.

16/x

https://rinsemiddlebliss.com/posts/2024-09-06-what-counts-as-reading/

I'm particularly amused by all the animus against consuming books as sound, since the very notion of silently reading a text to yourself is very modern. People used to sit around while one person read out loud to them. There is a whole history of moral panics about direct access to the text[4], or of the very notion of written text signifying meaning directly instead of being the signifier of a sound that signifies meaning. It just shows how fake the idea of fake reading is.

15/x

https://rinsemiddlebliss.com/posts/2024-09-06-what-counts-as-reading/

And some recently invented ways of reading tend to get marked as fake:

Ebooks read using a dedicated ebook reader.

Ebooks read using a smartphone.

Audio books narrated by a human narrator.

Books read as text-to-speech.

14/x

https://rinsemiddlebliss.com/posts/2024-09-06-what-counts-as-reading/

More fake rules about real reading:

It's only real reading if you read it within a set period of time, not picking it up bit by bit over the years.

It's only real reading if it's a paper book.

It's only real reading if it's a paper book you own.

It's only real reading if it's a novel.

It's only real reading if you mark up the book, take notes, analyze it, and can lead a seminar session about it.

It's only real reading if it's the first time you read the book.

It's only real reading if you fully understand and absorb the book the first time you read it, without needing to re-read parts, or pause to think about it.

It's only real reading if you read proper literature that you need to pause and think about, not trash like genre fiction.

13/x

https://rinsemiddlebliss.com/posts/2024-09-06-what-counts-as-reading/

Fake rules about real reading

Being the moustache twirling cultural relativist that I am, I would like to tell you that what counts as real or fake reading is culturally determined and has changed over time. Here's a list of some of these fake rules:

You can only really read a text if someone else reads it out loud to you first.

It's only real reading if you speak the words out loud.

It's only real reading if you read the work multiple times.

It's only real reading if you read silently.

It's only real reading if you use your eyes to read the words.

It's only real reading if you read the whole book from start to finish.

It's only real reading if you
read one book at a time.

12/x

https://rinsemiddlebliss.com/posts/2024-09-06-what-counts-as-reading/

This view of reading as some virtuous activity one must practice for one's health, like flossing or eating enough fiber, combined with the impulse to quantify and possibly gamify said virtuous activity, is, I think, the cause of many hangups people have about certain kinds of reading being fake reading. In a reading contest, you have to set some rules, and if you don't follow them you're cheating. If all reading activity is a competitive game, then anyone who doesn't play by whatever you internalized as the Official Rules of Reading is cheating. And cheating is wrong and bad and immoral, unlike real reading, which is healthy and moral and also somehow morally superior.

That's a pretty bad attitude to hold toward other people, but it's even worse if you've internalized it and it's ruined the enjoyment of reading for you because the way you like to read is fake. Which is silly and also sad.

11/x

https://rinsemiddlebliss.com/posts/2024-09-06-what-counts-as-reading/

Allegories of reading contests

Reading contests replace the intrinsic thrill of reading--the thrill of decoding secret messages laid down by people in the past, people who might even be dead but whose words and information are still available, of seeking the signifier behind every sign and forcing it to surface from the sea of signification, catching it and landing it, and gutting it and reading its entrails and taking strength from its flesh--and replaces it with quantifiable constrained achievements which you may trade for stickers to stick on your notebook and badges to paste in your feed. Because, why? Because reading is good for you? I mean, I guess. I suppose. Actually, I'm not sure I believe that anyway, not at all. Must we justify every pleasure by saying it's good for you? Or damn it by saying it's sinful? What a silly pattern.

10/x

https://rinsemiddlebliss.com/posts/2024-09-06-what-counts-as-reading/

Oh, so it's not a reading contest. It's a pedagogical English skills exercise, I thought, though not in those words, and this is bullshit, also definitely not in those words because it took me much longer to learn to swear than to develop basic English fluency because swearing is a pretty nuanced language skill that requires not only knowing words but navigating sensitive social situations appropriately. But damn it, I wanted those stickers, and the worm bookmark, and I wanted to fucking win. So I put aside Ania z Zielonego Wzgórza and read the entire Mary Poppins series instead during book contest month.

9/x

https://rinsemiddlebliss.com/posts/2024-09-06-what-counts-as-reading/

Just a bit over a year later, I had cause to once again be outraged by a book reading context. Now in the US, and in 3rd or maybe 4th grade, I participated in a somewhat more sensible reading context. Here, the prizes were awarded for the number of pages read. And I think there were real prizes. Things like stickers and bookmarks, plus the pride of coloring in your book reading meter. As the contest started, I was reading in both English and Polish, having had to learn English because of the whole moving to the US thing. I was reading my way through the entire Anne of Green Gables series, which my family happened to have in Polish. But oh no, I was told, possibly when I tried to add one of the book's translated Polish titles to the log, only books in English count for the reading contest!

8/x

https://rinsemiddlebliss.com/posts/2024-09-06-what-counts-as-reading/

Ruin reading with gamification

There was a contest in second grade to see who could read the most books. I refused to change what I was reading, being at the time on a tear through various things related to Ancient Egypt. I don't know if I read Sinuhe the Egyptian because of the obsession or if it sparked it. In any case, I felt it would be stooping to something to put aside my doorstopers just for the sake of a contest. Nonetheless, I felt personally insulted by my poor showing in the reading contest compared to kids who were reading mere kids books[3].

7/x

https://rinsemiddlebliss.com/posts/2024-09-06-what-counts-as-reading/