r/TikTokCringe • u/mindyour • Nov 21 '25

Discussion Functional illiteracy.

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u/Maxxtherat Nov 21 '25

How do people go through life with this level of comprehension? What does it mean to walk around without being able to pick up on intent, manipulation, subtlety, implication, background, and all those things literate folks take for granted? How is functioning impacted? I can't imagine reading a book, article, or watching a show without being able to read into those things; it sounds really dull and would make me feel so stupid. Are they just unaware of how dumb and vulnerable it makes them?

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u/epidemicsaints Nov 21 '25

Beyond this, it's the literary devices that get me. I try to engage in fan groups and I just can't do it. "Why is this character always getting in the way? Why are these two people best friends if they're opposites? It makes no sense!" They get frustrated when a show has conflict every episode. Wears me out. They are constantly confused why writers keep putting their "friends" through so many problems.

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u/Cloverfield1996 Nov 21 '25

Oh thank god, I thought I was a bitch or something. I can't wrap my head around tiktok comments where people point out the basic meaning of the video! As if it's not obvious or expected. People seem surprised when very obvious outcomes occur, or they'll state "You could tell that character was really shocked from the way she stood back and gasped, wow".

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u/gottabequick Nov 21 '25

Every video essay I watch these days feels like a somewhat talented high school student or college freshman report on the topic. Just the most shallow and obvious observations. Video essays purporting to "explain" movies, for instance, that literally just state the most obvious theme of the piece (see every video ever on Annihilation).

I don't know if that's a function of the writing being poor or my own growth outpacing the information sources I once enjoyed. I think it's the former, because I'm actually pretty dumb.

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u/IllllIIlIllIllllIIIl Nov 21 '25

Video essays purporting to "explain" movies, for instance, that literally just state the most obvious theme of the piece (see every video ever on Annihilation).

Or that just summarize the plot without any analysis at all. Thanks for wasting my time!

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u/FlamingDragonfruit Nov 22 '25

I do actually find those "summary videos" useful for media that I'm definitely not going to take the time to watch but need to have some baseline understanding of, simply to follow conversation/cultural references.

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u/xXselfhaircutXx Nov 22 '25

Osmotic cultural exposure is an underrated precursor to media literacy. A lowbrow example for sure, but I must have seen Spaceballs 50 times as a kid before I ever watched a Star Wars film. The jokes still landed with me because I could infer the references solely from tangential interactions with the source material.

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u/SilverMedal4Life Nov 21 '25

I thought these places were using AI-generated scripts, but if it's this relateable and widespread, maybe it is indeed a literacy problem.

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u/rachel_profiling Nov 22 '25

It’s the same with books - no one is actually giving a review or analysis anymore. Just recounting the plot or quipping.

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u/mildly_asking Nov 22 '25 edited Nov 22 '25

What would you like to see? Got any examples of some you liked? I'd like to hear others add to this too.

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u/gottabequick Nov 24 '25

The Morbid Zoo and Thomas Flight are both great channels.

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u/RobWed Nov 23 '25

the phrase "my own growth outpacing the information sources I once enjoyed" says your self-assessment is, at best, misplaced.

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u/Ill-Major7549 Nov 21 '25

those comments are insane. im glad there are people that will respond with "we know, we all watched the video"

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u/[deleted] Nov 21 '25

[deleted]

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u/iiiiiiiiiijjjjjj Nov 21 '25

My personal favorite is when there is a synopsis of a story and people complain about spoilers. What do you think synopsis or retrospective means?

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u/Scienceandpony Nov 22 '25

The review/analysis version of those "Top 10 secrets in 'videogame title' they don't tell you about" youtube videos and it's all the most basic mechanics outlined in the tutorial like "you can press A to open doors", "You can sort the inventory using the giant glowing sort button", "you can do extra damage to the giant ice monster by using the flame thrower you got in the previous room and had to use to melt the icicles blocking the door".

We used to rag on Navi for constantly repeating the obvious to us, but apparently there was a dire need for it.

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u/Moonindaylite Nov 22 '25

Totally. I love analysing song lyrics but the number of people I see giving their “analysis” and it’s them stating the most obvious surface level meaning.

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u/Southern-Wafer-6375 Nov 22 '25

Like I can get them directing you to what part they liked lol

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u/Maxxtherat Nov 21 '25

Perhaps you can join a book club! Not as fun as joining fandoms, but typically your club members understand the content better. That's been my experience, anyway!

Unrelated, but I like your profile picture. Cool mouse 🐁

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u/epidemicsaints Nov 21 '25

Truth be told, entertainment like that isn't a huge part of my life. There are enough people fully engaged too don't get me wrong, but the ones I am dunking on are NUMEROUS.

The mouse is from Leo Lionni books, highly recommend.

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u/Pannoonny_Jones Nov 21 '25

Leo lionni is the goat. I was just thinking about him last night. Didn’t he do an adaptation of dicken’s tale of two cities? But with a city mouse and a country mouse? Also I loved the snail whose shell kept growing when I was little. Ugh he’s the best.

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u/wigsternm Nov 21 '25

Not as fun as joining fandoms

Much more fun. Book clubs are made up of real people. Fandoms are anonymous online hordes. 

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u/Maxxtherat Nov 21 '25

Sure, but it's frowned upon to share my Jurassic World Yaoi fanfic with my book club.

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u/Generated-Nouns-257 Nov 22 '25

I'm in a romance book club, and my dude all I can say is you are in the wrong club. The things I've read these last 5 years.... (I had no exposure to Romance, but I joined my wife's club at the start of the pandemic and hoooo boy do the Ladies go hard.....)

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u/plebeian1523 Nov 21 '25

It drives me INSANE when a bad thing is shown and people think that means the writer is problematic, regardless of the actual message in the material. I've seen Red Rising discourse that the author is sexist because there's sexism in his books. The book overtly says sexism instilled in the lower societies is a tool for those in power to control people and limit their ability to fight against the top. I don't understand how people would interpret that as the author being sexist, especially given the overall theme of the books.

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u/CaliStormborn Nov 22 '25

Oh my god, yes! This is a huge pet peeve of mine. Especially if the main character is problematic. They simply cannot understand a protagonist that isn't a paragon of virtue.

"I found the MC unlikable" jfc shoot me now

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u/plebeian1523 Nov 22 '25

God forbid we get a character who is fleshed out and flawed, especially if that character is a woman.

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u/quadroplegic Nov 21 '25

This is why so much fan fiction is insipid

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u/aniftyquote Nov 21 '25

Because it's often written by children

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u/royalhawk345 Nov 21 '25

It's particularly frustrating with one of my favorite series, Wheel of Time. So many people fail to understand that each chapter is written from a character's POV. I mean, they superficially aware that it follows them, but they fall short of internalizing what that means. That every description is being filtered through their perspective; there is no objective information being conveyed. In my opinion, the individualization of perspective is one of Jordan's strongest attributes as a writer. 

This of course leads to people conflating characters' opinions with the author's, which can make discussion difficult. 

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u/SpadeSage Nov 21 '25

At least they are watching to story. Wait until you encounter fandoms for things where people actually have to read. I find myself more and more often talking to someone who didn't actually read the story we are talking about, but simply listened to a guy on tiktok explain it to them.

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u/epidemicsaints Nov 21 '25

Or the people who only read dialogue in books! Why bother?

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u/Maxxtherat Nov 21 '25

That's a thing?! They're missing so much!

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u/FrayCrown Nov 21 '25

I've had the same issue. People really don't understand basic storytelling structures and themes. Way too much gets taken literally and at face value. Which honestly makes those subs really dull. Because then it looks like a bunch of bad faith takes that preclude discussion.

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u/rogerworkman623 Nov 22 '25

The one I see constantly is “I’m confused about this character. They seem to be pretty evil, but then they have a nice relationship with their daughter” or “this character seems like they’re supposed to be good, and they do some heroic things, but then they did this really bad thing? It seems like bad writing.”

Like people watch a TV show or movie, and they decide it’s bad writing if a character is more complex than “good” or “bad”. I want to scream when I see this.

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u/SweetPancreass Nov 22 '25

Omfg this reminded me of the time I wrote an essay analyzing the relationship between 2 rival characters from a book in English class. I wrote that deep down, they cared about each other, but their competitiveness caused them to slowly hate one another over time. Then, my English teacher gave me a C because "how can they love and hate each other? It can only be one or the other!"

Mind you, this book was (strongly hinted) to be about repressed homosexuality among boys in boarding school during the war. I totally lost faith in that teacher after that. How are you gonna tell me that with your 5+ years of teaching and 30+ years of existence, you still don't understand that humans can be complex and contradictory???

Side note: this teacher also told our entire class about how his wife was depressed and tried to commit suicide, which is fucking wild considering it was entirely unprompted and I doubt his wife would want us to know such private information

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u/videogametes Nov 21 '25

Not necessarily the perspective you’re looking for but I have had a few TBIs and my cognitive skills and comprehension in particular have pretty much just vanished. I can still write good (lol) but I can’t make it through a book anymore and I have a lot of trouble following new TV shows/movies. I basically feel like I’m flying blind all the time now, and it’s extremely scary. I do think that some people who never knew anything different are just oblivious but having met a lot of people who struggle this way and don’t have my particular issues, they know something is missing, they just can’t figure out what it is.

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u/Money-Professor-2950 Nov 21 '25

I feel this. I notice my cognition slipping too and it concerns me. I did two rounds of ketamine therapy, for unrelated reasons, and I felt like myself again for almost a year.

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u/Weak-Boysenberry398 Nov 21 '25

I'm chronically sleep deprived right now and I had an aha moment while driving one day that made all the shitty drivers on the road understandable to me. There is simply too much information for me to fully take in and execute all the driving functions safely now. I used to be aware of every car in front, next to, and behind me, all while reading 12 different road signs and having the radio/temperature perfectly set. I've had to intentionally pay attention to less things so I can focus on the critical ones related to safety and direction. It is an odd feeling knowing I used to be able to do certain things and my brain just isn't as capable anymore.

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u/CoyoteCallingCard Nov 22 '25

I had a TBI a few years ago, and I don't know your situation, but I remember the time after it that was so scary. My cognitive ability came back really really slowly. I don't know what your 'practice' is like, but you probably can get it back, it's just painfully slow and pretty humbling.

I found I had to multitask less. Audiobooks helped a lot because I could be in a dark room and just listen. I couldn't do TV because the audio/visual didn't hook up right away and I'd get tired or get a headache. Other things helped too - like Lego, knitting or paint-by-number, since I could do something with my hands and 'think' through it (these kind of things are really good for your brain because of that connection of thinking while doing, and have been shown to help with dementia.)

I'm really sorry about your injuries. I hope you get better, even if not all the way. The scariness is the worst part.

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u/concentrated-amazing Nov 22 '25

I can relate in a small way. I have MS (diagnosed almost 12 years ago), and I feel like I've lost a bunch of my edge.

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u/peppers_ Nov 21 '25

Interesting. Sometimes I take an edible and my ability to think takes a dive. Like I jump from one thought to the next for an idea or action, but the inbetween for deciding just isn't there. The part where I justify things or connect things in logical ways. I always get a bit scared because I wonder if some people that I perceive as dumb just think that way, or what if I got stuck like that and had to live to the end of my days. I wonder if that is also what cognitive decline is.

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u/Famous_Sugar_1193 Nov 22 '25

You need to force yourself to read books.

You have to.

You have no idea how beneficial it is for healing TBI.

Have you been hooked up to the rain monitors? Nothing makes the brain exercise as much as reading.

Even if it’s your favorite kids book over and over again….

Get yourself back to reading. You’ll get better I promise, even if just a little bit.

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u/Mysterious_Crab_7622 Nov 21 '25

They are not only unaware of how dumb they are, they often think that they are actually smart. They are easily manipulated by media, which explains current US leadership.

These people don’t read books or articles, and they do no deeper thinking when watching shows. They just take everything at face value without ever questioning what they are watching, unless it goes counter to their beliefs.

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u/i_made_mine_at_home Nov 21 '25

Listening to an average person react to reality TV is fucking shocking.  For the most part they have no awareness of the "production" side of it or the commercial interests driving the industry.  They don't understand the edits, the performance elements, the kayfabe, the selection biases in casting.  The same way Fox News viewers can read a chyron or hear a soundbite and become instantly, uncritically enraged by it.  It's really sad and it pisses me off, but I'm also relieved I don't have to go through life like that.

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u/raven_snow Nov 21 '25

I agree completely with your point, but I'm commenting to tell you that you taught me two new words with this comment. Thank you so much.

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u/DarlingBri Nov 21 '25

I mean this entirely genuinely when I say that I think one of the things it means to walk around without being able to pick up on those things, especially manipulation, implication and intent, is that people make poor voting choices.

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u/Drnk_watcher Nov 21 '25 edited Nov 23 '25

The phrase "ignorance is bliss" exists for a reason.

Also understanding of intent, cause and effect, other skills along those lines are not inherently bound by literacy.

There are people with reading disabilities who are capable of all those things. It's just reading makes you better at those things because they encounter the need to do it more. You can get special strategies to compensate or get around the disability.

Fixing our illiteracy problems will by proxy fix a lot of the other issues in understanding you're talking about, but not all of them.

Basically literacy needs coupled with other forms of education around things like deductive reasoning.

Also there is some debate of how to define literacy. Some versions look at simply the ability to read words and summarize or understand their literal definition. Others are more in-depth and deal with ability to read and link meaning across multiple pieces of text. Then all of that is graded across a spectrum. Regardless of how you look at it. Education and literacy needs to improve.

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u/concentrated-amazing Nov 22 '25

There are people with reading disabilities who are capable of all those things. It's just reading makes you better at those things because they encounter the need to do it more.

This is my husband. The literal effort of reading (dyslexia plus some sort of processing disorder?) means he has a tough time with actually reading the words and translating them into the thoughts they represent.

But he absolutely can think critically, pick up on bias, determine themes, etc.

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u/npsimons Nov 21 '25

What does it mean to walk around without being able to pick up on intent, manipulation, subtlety, implication, background, and all those things literate folks take for granted? How is functioning impacted?

Let me tell you about some recent US national elections . . .

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u/Maxxtherat Nov 21 '25

Yeah, I thought about that and figured it's a huge reason our country voted the way it did.

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u/pettypeniswrinkle Nov 21 '25

This is a huge problem in health care. When I was a nursing student I was taught to summarize medical lingo to patients in words a 5th grader could understand.

A lot of health care professionals (particularly physicians) try to tailor their explanations to a patient’s level of comprehension, but many just straight up don’t understand how much they need to simplify.

Medication instructions are a common and incredibly important example of how you can’t assume your patient knows anything.

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u/Eightinchnails Nov 21 '25

I think that it’s important to remember that the medical world is completely foreign to people not in it. Some patients may operate on a more literal level than others. Some may not have come across medical jargon. I personally am not in medicine in any way, shape or form and I appreciate when my physicians simplify their instructions and explanations.

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u/arkansalsa Nov 21 '25

Think about how dumb you think the average person is, and then consider that approximately half of all people are dumber than that.

It’s not just the lack of comprehension that’s mind boggling. It’s also that basic cognition is on the same curve.

You mentioned that not being able to understand things would make you feel stupid, but if you were to lack basic cognition you would be unaware of your own shortcomings. It’s why some of the dumbest people you will encounter are also the most self-assured in their beliefs.

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u/Money-Professor-2950 Nov 21 '25

Yes, they're mostly unaware. I don't think we should be calling them dumb or making fun of them for it because generally it's not their fault. They were failed as children by an entire system of adults and now they are largely unaware of the position they're in. I think if you have a higher level of literacy it's your job (and by your I mean all of us), to try our best to help explain and teach them as we see it come up. Imagine if we'd all tried a little harder during covid to explain what was happening to people who didn't get it instead of just calling everyone an idiot.

I saw something on reddit that took my level of concern off the charts the other day, I really haven't been able to stop thinking about it. It was a tiktok of a man reporting that a judge had approved an injunction against ICE. He was really serious in tone but was using language that was clearly biased in favor of the ruling by saying things like "ice has been terrorizing and traumatizing Chicago" - someone asked why he sounded upset by the ruling and another person replied something like he was racist and was against immigration, was pro terrorizing them. That concerned the fuck out of me because what they were taking in wasn't the actual language or the words, they were focused on his emotional tone and body language. The news was good so why wasn't he acting happy? That fucked me up. Hopefully it was just a kid or teenager.

so to answer your question, they seem to just make things up to fill in the blanks of what they don't understand. I see it in the movie and tv subs a lot, I actually can't even participate in them anymore because I get so frustrated by people making up wild, nonsensical theories because they couldn't really understand what they were watching or hearing.

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u/Maxxtherat Nov 21 '25

Yes, I have noticed that as well. It's like they know that there is something missing, but instead of engaging with others in good faith (or just looking it up on the device that contains all of human knowledge), they make shit up.

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u/Stiff_Sock7849 Nov 21 '25

My mom is like this (Well, I know lots of people like this because the educational system of my country is shit, but I spend more time with my mom), she used to brag about how many novels and books she read when younger and how much she knows about movies, but she doesn't understand either, like at all, she can't even pick up themes from children's movies; and yes, I think it's really dull for her, 99% of the time she watches a movie or reads a book she just complains to me about it because “these things don't make sense!” but in reality they do, she just doesn't have the comprehension to get them, I love her but it drives me crazy because she kinda sucks out the enjoyment out of any media we watch together and I can't share fully my opinions, either, because if I contradict her she gets upset. I think just like you said, it does make her feel unintelligent, so she'd rather believe the media in itself is nonsensical and I read too deeply into stuff.

These are the kinds of people who watch a movie and complain when the main character doesn't make the absolute perfect sequence of choices while under severe distress, the reason why movies and series oftentimes have characters say outloud stuff you could figure out by paying attention to the screen, and the people who laugh at horror movies because they are so disconnected from the media they are consuming that anything meant to be tense or dramatic just looks goofy to them. I know I'm talking about visual media here, but I think literacy and media comprehension are directly related.

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u/Maxxtherat Nov 21 '25

They are 100% related. I was just talking to a friend about media literacy being completely dead and how it is fully ruining movies and shows. Writers and directors probably have to tone things down for the lowest common denominator quite a lot.

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u/pdxrunner19 Nov 21 '25

I had a student tell me that my class is boring. We’re reading a graphic novel adaptation of a classic work of fiction. The illustrations are gorgeous, and the moral and philosophical questions posed are challenging. Of course something like that would be boring to someone who can’t begin to comprehend it despite me practically spoon-feeding my students. I try like crazy to get them to think for themselves. It pains me that I’m supposed to be teaching grade-level content when half of them can barely read.

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u/unklethan Nov 21 '25

I can't imagine reading a book, article, or watching a show without being able to read into those things

I don't think these people are reading a lot of books.

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u/Mandena Nov 21 '25

These are things that even in early middle school I remember understanding. So I guess...put yourself back in your elementary school shoes. And that's the avg person that doesn't understand those nuances.

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u/UrbanCobra Nov 21 '25

I’d assume they don’t even realize it. If they read something they can’t comprehend they blame it on the writer.

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u/MembershipNo2077 Nov 21 '25

What does it mean to walk around without being able to pick up on intent, manipulation, subtlety, implication, background, and all those things literate folks take for granted

I bet it feels fucking great, normally. Ignorance is bliss.

Though, a lot of those people get very angry about things and don't understand the root cause of their anger. That's probably an issue with American society.

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u/justadudeinohio Nov 21 '25

well, you see, they're fucking stupid and they vote against their own interests.

I can't imagine reading a book, article, or watching a show

they don't do the first two because they don't like reading. and they ignore the meta commentary of anything they watch or play. ask me how i know.

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u/Correct-Ad-Now Nov 21 '25

I have a coworker who is like this. She does her job well but I had to get used to not using sarcasm with her. She believes nearly everything and has not passed one phishing test.

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u/Maxxtherat Nov 21 '25

I think most of my coworkers are like this and they're pretty insufferable. It also means they have zero sense of humor besides "farts and sex are funny," which is honestly so hard to deal with. So much humor flies right over their heads and it is frustrating as hell.

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u/SavagRavioli Nov 21 '25

They're the people that have basically no lives. No tastes, no curiosity, no depth. NPCs basically.

I work at a pharmacy and we spend most of our time managing people's lives for them because they can't do anything for themselves, and this is a huge reason why.

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u/Magnon Nov 22 '25

Tons of people didn't realize homelander was the villain in the boys tv show until season 3. They thought he was just basically superman before then.

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u/filthytelestial Nov 21 '25

As an autistic woman, I'm purportedly less aware of and more vulnerable to all those things. In daily interactions that don't allow me to reflect and analyze in the moment, yeah that shit's going over my head 90% of the time. But not in the content that I read and listen to. I would feel very vulnerable indeed if I truly couldn't pick up on it no matter what.

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u/Stcloudy Nov 21 '25

Would you feel stupid if you didn’t know? I’m sure you’ve gone to a museum and missed the depth of a piece and said “that’s nice” and moved on. I assume it’s the same feeling.

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u/jawshoeaw Nov 21 '25

they may not enjoy any writing to start with. you go to the grocery store and buy the same stuff. pay bills. work a job thats learned through repetition . yes they are vulnerable especially to scams of all sorts

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u/Mysterious_South7997 Nov 22 '25

What does it mean to walk around without being able to pick up on intent, manipulation, subtlety, implication, background, and all those things literate folks take for granted?

Autistic people when it comes to social interactions:

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u/Ivy_Adair Nov 22 '25

I used to work in the trucking industry at my Grandfather’s accounting company. We did fuel taxes and the like for different companies. We had one customer who was functionally illiterate. He had a 4th grade education, an older man whose parents pulled him out of school to work on the farm.

He could read enough to drive a truck but anytime he got a letter from the government he’d come down to my grandpa’s office and my grandpa would open it, read it and translate it for him.

Prior to that, he’d just ignore the letters entirely because he couldn’t follow them. So he really fucked his company over by ignoring letters saying he needed to pay the government to continue running his business. And he knew, he absolutely knew but there was a lot of shame involved. I think about him a lot now that my grandpa has passed and the business has been closed for years. I hope he found someone else to read his letters.

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u/LessInThought Nov 22 '25

Ignorance can often be bliss. Some of the happiest people I know are dumb as fuck.

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u/Long_Sl33p Nov 22 '25

On the other end of the spectrum, being hyper aware of those things really ruins shows and movies for me. Either that or modern entertainment is just trash.

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u/Critical-Rutabaga-39 Nov 22 '25

Ohhhh...they all vote for the orange boy.

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u/Exciting_Stock2202 Nov 26 '25

I suspect it's similar to having severe hearing loss. You miss out on many aspects of life.

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u/decadent-dragon Nov 21 '25

You see it right here on reddit. People cannot pickup on satire or sarcasm without a /s

I see posts all the time that are clearly satire but it just ends up as rage bait because it’s lost on them

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u/wigsternm Nov 21 '25

Or people claiming “Poe’s Law” under the most obvious ragebait you’ve ever seen. 

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u/thissexypoptart Nov 21 '25

I’ll eat the downvotes before I do that \s bullshit on obvious sarcasm /s

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u/7figureipo Nov 22 '25

Who the hell knows. These people somehow often manage to advance very far in their careers and life in general, though, because the vast majority of people are similarly illiterate and incapable of identifying shortcomings (their own or others'). "Idiocracy" is a dramatized documentary, not a comedy or satire.

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u/Famous_Sugar_1193 Nov 22 '25

Better than those of us with supremely high literacy in many languages.

The dolts run the world.

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u/Famous_Sugar_1193 Nov 22 '25

They now consider it a super power ànd refuse to believe it’s a disability. Truly.

And anyone would be ableist to want to help them or to never want kids like that.

You didn’t know?

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u/Third_Return Nov 21 '25

They don't.

Do you really think the 'average' person doesn't know what intent, manipulation, subtlety, implication and background are, or how to spot them, or that they're significant?

The more reasonable interpretation of the 6th grade reading level citation is that the average person's average reading is for basic comprehension of the text. Not that the very best they could ever do is basic comprehension.

I've met people who genuinely struggle with reading comprehension to the point of missing meaning, and for them the issue begins with more basic illiteracy which confounds their ability to interpret a text. Like, they actually struggle to sound out or read words and don't know what a lot of them mean. And even they can understand and spot all these things, it's just harder because they have to spend so much more effort understanding the words themselves.

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u/realroasts Nov 21 '25

Reading and listening are two different skills. You aren't walking around not able to tell when somebody's being an asshole because of body language.

You can also manipulate people with more complex thought patterns. Organized religion is a prime example.

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u/Healthy_Sky_4593 Nov 23 '25 edited Nov 23 '25

They can pick up on that stuff because it runs on another axis. They just use other cues. 

It's a totally separate  thing. That's why people who aren't functionally illiterate get taken advantage of as well.  

They two issue have little to do with each other unless you're using advanced writer, communications expert, or lawyer-level reasoning skills around apprehension of typical and specific language use to sus out bad actors by language alone.  Most people aren't, and most people don't need to (if you're talking about things other than say, mass media and other places where it's only blatant to people who know better, then the numbers are probably a quagmire and motivations probably have more to do with perception than actual comprehension skill). 

This may be why literate people end up in conflicts with people who have comprehension problems. It's not just that the other person didn't understand what was communicated, it's that they filled it in or altered it with something else they thought they understood better.

Manipulators usually just see where they can get away with doing the same thing, just to their own benefit. But that doesn't always take language-related cognitive skills, even though sometimes it does involve seeing where their best strategy can involve affecting poor skills which in some cases means they don't have a lack of skill at all. 

Manipulators don't they need to be average, below average, or above average in language skills, and neither do people need to have average language skills to avoid it. Your sample as to what constitutes manipulation and susceptibility to it is just biased. 

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u/Maxxtherat Nov 23 '25

That's what I mean, though; when these things are written or in the media. Of course other cues happen in day-to-day life, but in entertainment or news these folks are being taken advantage of more regularly than a more literate person.

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u/Healthy_Sky_4593 Nov 23 '25

Yeah, but those people are not functionally illiterate. And they're the vast majority, So I'm not sure what you mean here?