People are embracing other people who want the world to suffer because they are suffering. They know they don’t have the balls to do what’s necessary.

I’m glad the author called out the punisher shit. I mean the piece is better than all that but I’m a petty motherfucker. I was never into comic books but I know the punisher isn’t a “good guy”. There have probably been more punisher logo shit sold in the past five years than comics since the beginning.

Breaking news! Conservatives are bad at media literacy!

Guys, are you all just now realizing this? You never noticed a lot of people liking RoboCop and Starship Troopers for all the wrong reasons? Are you just now noticing how many shitty douches were fans of Rick and Morty, and it never occurred to you that they didn’t recognize the toxicity of the characters and that they legitimately thought that they were brilliant people who need not show any amount of patience or respect to others because of the invincibility awarded to them by their sheer incomprehensible genius? But really they’re just cringey, frustrated losers looking to bully a world that has always bullied them, and they want to drown their dino nuggets in their goddamn Szechuan sauce while bellowing “PICKLE RICK!” into the corners of their smelly studio apartment from the comfort of their used futon bed. Things aren’t getting better for them, and things were allegedly better before, so in a fit of frustrated desperation, they vote Republican to try to live a life like they saw in those older movies and sitcoms.

They want to be Ferris Bueller so badly, but they’re nostalgic for a time that never really existed. They completely miss the point of fiction. These stories they love were written with intention to deliver a purpose, and that purpose is rarely just surface level entertainment. The audience is supposed to learn something. It’s like reading The Fox and the Grapes and thinking “yeah, grapes suck.”

Real media literacy is knowing that there is no correct, final, or definitive reading of a text. Any reading that can be backed up with the text is valid. If Maverick from"Top Gun" can have a queer reading, then “Judge Dread” can be viewed as unironic fascistic glorification. This Atlantic author’s argument boils down to dueling book reports.

“multiple valid interpretations” =/= “all interpretations are equal”