Media Literacy, Fandoms, and Why the Internet Feels Like Itās Changing Faster Than We Are
š Media Literacy, Fandoms, and Why the Internet Feels Like Itās Changing Faster Than We Are
Iāve been thinking a lot about how we interpret meaning online lately, especially after seeing a TikTok debate about whether not knowing a word counts as āableism.ā
And it made me realise something bigger is happening ā not just in language, but in how we understand learning itself.
But before we get too abstract about it, itās worth remembering something important:
the internet has always been messy.
And also ā genuinely creative in ways we donāt always give credit for.
Tumblr, fandom spaces, Reddit threads, AO3, Wattpad, early YouTube comment sections ā all of these places shaped a kind of informal education system we donāt usually talk about.
argue using logic (sometimes chaotic, but still structured)
interpret characters and themes collaboratively
build shared meaning from text
and develop community-based critique
Shipping wars alone were basically unmoderated training grounds in interpretation vs evidence vs emotional reasoning.
But definitely formative.
And the internet has always contained extremes of absurdity and insight at the same time.
Reddit gives you technical explanations that solve real problemsā¦ and also things like the infamous āpoop knifeā story, which has become a kind of cultural reminder that:
just because something is funny doesnāt mean it needs to become universal knowledge.
Some things belong in the moment they were created.
Not permanently indexed into cultural memory.
Then you get things like CICADA 3301 ā part puzzle, part myth, part collective over-analysis experiment ā where entire communities built meaning from fragments of information.
Some interpretations were accurate.
Some were completely wrong.
Some became āloreā simply because enough people agreed it felt meaningful.
Thatās also part of internet culture:
meaning is often constructed socially, not just received.
And fandom spaces reflect that too.
AO3, Wattpad, and fanfiction communities have been launch pads for writers who later became published authors. Entire storytelling careers have started from tagging systems and comment threads.
Fandoms are often dismissed as chaos, but they also teach:
and sustained creative practice
Even large fandoms ā from music groups to TV series ā have formed real-world communities, meetups, panels, and conventions that are now fully mainstream cultural spaces.
What used to be āonline niche cultureā is now part of everyday media life.
And that brings me back to something I saw recently.
A teenager arguing that not knowing the word scrying was āableist.ā
For context, scrying refers to a historical practice of looking into reflective surfaces like water or mirrors to gain insight or visions ā often linked to folklore and divination traditions.
And that moment matters, not because the word is important, but because of what it reveals:
We are increasingly collapsing difficulty, unfamiliarity, and discrimination into the same category.
But they are not the same thing.
Not knowing a word is not exclusion.
It is simply not knowing yet.
And that distinction matters.
And this is where media literacy becomes important.
Because online, we donāt just encounter information ā we interpret it instantly, often emotionally, and often within algorithm-driven environments that reward speed over reflection.
That changes how misunderstanding spreads.
And how quickly disagreement escalates.
In a lot of ways, this connects to what we call āscryingā in the original sense too.
Because scrying wasnāt just about seeing something ā it was about interpreting reflections, symbols, and partial images to form meaning.
Thatās actually not too far from what we do online every day.
And we try to build meaning from them.
And if Iām honest, Iāve been thinking about all of this in a wider media literacy sense for a while now, which is part of what led me to put together a recent conversation about it here:
Media Awareness Episode
Because the question underneath all of this isnāt just about one TikTok.
Itās about how we learn, interpret, and disagree in environments where everything is constantly accelerating.
And we also need to acknowledge that internet culture has always had a dual nature.
and emotional amplification
And both of those things exist at the same time.
That tension is the internet.
Which is why I keep coming back to one simple point:
Not everything unfamiliar is harm.
Not every moment of confusion is exclusion.
Not every disagreement is oppression.
Sometimes it is just learning happening in real time.
And sometimes the most practical response is still:
look it up, understand it, and then decide what you think.
Because the internet doesnāt just show us information anymore.
It shapes how we interpret meaning itself.
And the question I keep sitting with is:
are we still learning from what we seeā¦
izzy806
discoholicmusic
turnnoffyourmind
pixelskylines
romaincrisis
gamechangershow