this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2025
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Greentext

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This is a place to share greentexts and witness the confounding life of Anon. If you're new to the Greentext community, think of it as a sort of zoo with Anon as the main attraction.

Be warned:

If you find yourself getting angry (or god forbid, agreeing) with something Anon has said, you might be doing it wrong.

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[–] AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca 74 points 6 days ago (14 children)

I read a lot of science fiction, and a younger friends at work frequently asked me for recommendations, and he liked talking about the books after reading them. At some point I found out that he exclusively consumes them as audiobooks, which is fine and I didn't think much about it. Some years down the line, when I was getting ready to retire, I had to pass on things to him. There was enough of it that, in addition to working elbow-to-elbow with him, I documented all the details in some long emails. When we meet, I'd say "The details are in the email," and focus on explaining the big picture.

It became obvious that he never read the emails. When I talked to him about it, he admitted that he really struggles with any long block of text. The guy is really smart, and he knows a lot about a lot of things, but he gets all his info from audio and video because struggles to consume text. There's clearly some kind of learning/mental issue going on there. It's going to make the job tough for him, but I hope he works it out.

[–] CMonster@discuss.online 20 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (3 children)

That is so crazy for me on a personal level because I'm the exact opposite. My brain has a really hard time processing auditory instructions.

[–] BananaIsABerry@lemmy.zip 18 points 6 days ago

Seriously, written guide > > > > > > > video guide

[–] AFKBRBChocolate@lemmy.ca 12 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I'm good with distilling information in whatever form, but I do get impatient with audio/video sometimes. I can read faster than people talk, so I want the audio to go faster. I've tried upping the playback speed, but we encode a lot of information in the pauses and cadence of speech, and the faster playback screws with the perception of that. Doing that is fine for technical information, but I don't care for it with a novel.

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[–] kieron115@startrek.website 8 points 6 days ago

This is also a great example of how, even if there are no disabilities involved, everyone has different learning styles. Some people just process information differently.

[–] DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world 14 points 6 days ago (1 children)

If someone is trying to convey important information, I'd rather get an email, than a text. And, I'd rather get a text than a voice call.

Writing requires thought to form sentence that make sense. And, forces the person to slow down a bit and gives them time to think about what they are staying. Also, they at least have the opportunity to read before they send, to check if they left anything out. Finally, and this is especially important in business, we have a "paper trail" that can be referred back to.

It took me years to stop the owner of the business I worked for to stop giving me instructions verbally. He did end-runs around shop policy to get his own pet projects prioritized. Policies that he put into place. Why do business owners sabotage their own businesses?

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[–] kieron115@startrek.website 18 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (3 children)

If only everyone recorded personal logs like in Star Trek you could have just bequeathed him those! On a serious note though, good on them for trying to learn and expand their knowledge even with some sort of learning disability. I was diagnosed with ADHD like 30 years ago and I understand how troubling it can be trying to read things while constantly having to re-read sentences because you spaced out, or having to keep 5 browser tabs open because each new section brings up some other topic that I now need. I describe my learning/throught process as a spider web for good reason.

[–] user224@lemmy.sdf.org 15 points 6 days ago (3 children)

I actually prefer text for the same reason. No need to pause and rewind, then once again forget what I wanted to hear and go back for the 4th time.

I by far prefer text for things that matter.

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[–] Machinist@lemmy.world 80 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (3 children)

I've known several men that were proud that they didn't read books. (Not that they read manga or anything, either.)

One of them, in particuular, was a grown up version of a stereotypical highschool bully. Willfully ignorant doesn't begin to describe him. I ever meet him in a dark alley, I'd fucking gut him.

Anyhow, this behaviour (pride in ignorance) among women is rare enough that I've never seen it. When I was doing online dating, I had great success asking what they're reading and using decent grammar and vocabulary.

Anti-intellectualism and willfull ignorance have a lot to do with the situation here in the US. I think it's mostly a male problem as well.

[–] virku@lemmy.world 30 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Have you ever done any sort of IT support? I was internal IT in my first job and we had those people. It was mostly women 50+ years old who were proud that they know nothing about computers and would actively avoid listening when I tried to tell them how to do something trivial. Even when it was part of their jobs to do it. Then they would ask for help with the same stupid shit a few weeks later.

[–] rmuk@feddit.uk 16 points 6 days ago

Fucking hell, so much this. They're so goddamn proud of their ignorance. This is why I enforce a very strict "we're mechanics, not chauffeurs" policy in my team. We've got no duty - either literal or moral - to make up for incompetence.

[–] Machinist@lemmy.world 9 points 6 days ago

Not IT support directly but I've had that same experience with plenty of boomer men in machine shops. They're fucking proud that they suck at computer yet CNC has been around since the '80s in a big way.

Ran a shop for a while and still have the terminating document from when I fired one of those fuckers.

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[–] Jankatarch@lemmy.world 23 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Highschool bullies are just a grown up version of middle school bullies. That shit was supposed to stop there.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 19 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

And many of them never grow out of it and become President.

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[–] nickwitha_k@lemmy.sdf.org 51 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Do note: The US public education system has raised a significant number of younger millennials, genZ, and gen-α (especially in impoverished areas) to be functionally illiterate due to both profiteering and desire to destroy education. Effectively, they switched to literacy programs meant to help people with cognitive disabilities somewhat function in a world that has writing everywhere. This does not teach people how to read or comprehend. It also robs them of capacity to self-learn from texts.

So, there's a massive cohort of people whose parents and/or caregivers were not able to be spend time teaching this extremely important skill who are likely below 6th grade reading level.

[–] DahGangalang@infosec.pub 29 points 6 days ago (5 children)

I heard schools have largely moved away from Phonics, which is wild to me. That's basically how reading was taught going back to at least medieval monks.

I hear they're using a "look and see" method or something? Word is that its how the Chinese teach their students to read....but they don't have an alphabet, so I don't know how that's supposed to work in English.

I have a relative who just retired from teaching and she says its a real mess in early education because of how badly this reading teaching method works, and its only worsening as students mature.

[–] Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 25 points 6 days ago

There was a "program" that had been gaining popularity for years, put out by what are effectively scammers that denounced phonics for "sight reading" where kids were basically asked to guess what words were when next to pictures. This has largely been rejected and phonics reimplemented as it was a disaster

[–] bigfondue@lemmy.world 13 points 6 days ago

The Chinese do have a Roman alphabet called pinyin for educational purposes. It's very consistent phonetically.

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[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 29 points 6 days ago (2 children)

The problem with comic books is that they're all about this big flashy pictures and they never have any words in them. Oh well, anyway, off to read some more Chainsaw Man and One Punch...

[–] kieron115@startrek.website 20 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

He looks absolutely enthralled by the wall of text lol.

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[–] sheogorath@lemmy.world 35 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Fuck by chapter book I thought they're talking about Warhammer 40k novel about a specific Space Marine chapter and they're disappointed because they don't want to read 40k novels.

[–] shneancy@lemmy.world 15 points 6 days ago (1 children)

i thought "chapter book" meant a loooong novel being released in book sized chapters one by one like TV show episodes

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[–] oxideseven@lemmy.ca 12 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

You're in too deep brother!

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[–] binarytobis@lemmy.world 24 points 6 days ago (1 children)

No one’s talking about anon’s weird assumption that authors go from idea directly to manga, and not that most authors start by writing a novel to attract a sponsor.

[–] kieron115@startrek.website 12 points 6 days ago

Shhhh, that would require actual understanding of the culture and not just laziness.

[–] SlartyBartFast@sh.itjust.works 16 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Chapter books belong in the Chapter House (Dune)

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 11 points 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] Dojan@pawb.social 17 points 6 days ago

You can still enjoy reading if you have aphantasia. I can't picture shit, but verbose books tend to be my favourites.

[–] Etterra@discuss.online 11 points 6 days ago

If there's no pictures children won't read them.

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