My one fear is that if games-and-anime people finally pick up a book they almost certainly won’t be equipped to actually understand it
they’ll just apply their usual illiterate, emotionally-immature “THE PEOPLE IN THIS STORY ACT BADLY AND ARE MEAN, IT IS A BAD MEAN BOOK” BS to literary novels
The thought filled me with so much dread I actually had some trouble falling asleep last night.
Makes me think maybe…not everyone should read books after all.
Jan 31, 2026 05:49I mean it wouldn’t be anything New.
Such people have always existed throughout history to rail against books based on “it has SEX / BAD WORDS / IMMORAL BEHAVIOR in it”
especially the masterpiece classics always catch the worst of it because they are the most widely read.
That kind of backlash is why for example Mary Shelley made major changes to Frankenstein (1831) so that it is much “safer” and more morally didactic than the (far superior and I consider definitive) 1818 text.
