You have illiteracy to describe inability to read or write. You have innumeracy to describe inability to comprehend some basic math. You have gematriacy to describe inability of both reading and numbers combined together. But what else is missing from the crowd that insists on doing their own research, laser focused on finding the wrong answer? The inability to separate fact from fiction.
You can find them on the internet, although it’s highly recommended you don’t. Best to be exposed in small doses instead of the dangerous concentrated form. They WILL crop up on social media dropping some startlingly obvious at times clues to their just not getting it.
Some shitty anecdotal evidence:
I have a history of not being careful about what I say often enough to be a problem. Like using the word “fabulist” in place of “liar”. Reactions vary between understanding the $10 word, vague recognition based on context clues, dismissal of my statement without caring about it because I’m being an asshole for being condescending, to the occasional question of exactly what I mean by fabulist. It’s not necessary to understand high falutin’ words to get through everyday life and is not illiteracy.
On the other hand, you have innumeracy which frustrates me. Do not go to the grocery store and dare to ask for your meat to be in a fractional portion of an amount different than a half. Depending on the worker there’s a distinct chance that converting a fraction to a decimal target number on the scale is iffy. Similarly, when the sale price (which the employee seems to acknowledge) requires purchasing at least five pounds, the first attempt to approximate your request of “about five pounds” is slightly over they will ask if it’s ok. That’s fine for ground meat where a little can be taken away. But when five pounds is four whole chicken breasts is removal of one taking you from 5.4 pounds down to 4.1…don’t do it, saving the $5 on the sale price is more important.
That second example is nitpicking on my part and easily clarified. The first is a clearer example that someone working the meat counter with the inability to access his phone’s calculator app may be numerically challenged.
There’s a lot of fiction that the conspiracy crowd insists is fact. A lot of fictional illiteracy with refusal to admit that evil Hollywood elites simply want to park butts in the seats and make money for entertainment purposes instead of some awe inspiring message. The overused conspiracist trope is “The movie, <insert title here> is actually a documentary.” And then like a gematria decode they’ll point out a couple of things that sort of make sense to their main point and ignore the many others that don’t support or even contradict their point. (We’re pretty sure they hate plot twists later in the movie that counter their point.)
Speaking of overused, what color pill have you taken? Easily the single most common conspiracy theorist fiction is a documentary source - The Matrix. There’s a reason that first movies are usually better than their sequels. A first movie exposes something that’s almost never new, it just hasn’t been used in awhile. A new generation isn’t overly familiar with it. The sequel comes out soon enough that even the slower viewers of the first remember key points. Without having to access their phones for the IMDB review. The same access that the guy with the baritone voice warns you to avoid while reminding you to keep your mouth shut during the movie.
Movie interrupters are a great candidate for fictional illiterates. Know it alls who prefer interrupting others who simply want to watch the movie unfold without others input. But anyway…
Fictional illiteracy can be a form of psychological projection. If you’re trained to accept that Hannibal Lecter was a real person and a very nice man, trained to accept that The Matrix is a documentary, trained to accept that everything in The Simpsons is a magical prediction, there’s a much better chance that a flawed documentary purposefully loaded with disinformation, will be accepted as fact.
It’s proper to view your gematria news decoders as makers of shitty documentaries. As a more blatant example, as usual from the world of right wing extremism , 2000 Mules is beloved by hardcore conservatives despite the movies obvious catering to their fictional illiteracy. A gematria decode will take the current news story. Then put a spin on it to appeal to the target audience, and that’s fine if it is purely for entertainment. But the delivery and entire manner is presented as factual and there’s direct encouragement for the viewer to become a maker of shitty documentaries themselves.
For example - migrant problems recently make the news in a big U.S. city. Point out the real issues of waste of resources for city officials to deal with it, point out the real issues of problems at the border and immigration policies. Then ruin the entire movie by insisting that the purple clothes one person working on the city council wore and some gematria “proves” they are Phoenician baby sacrifices. A fictionally illiterate person doesn’t need to accept the crazy part with the gematria. It’s the other slightly more lucid disinformation along with the couple of facts that get added on along the way they will share and spread. (E.g. maybe that someone on the city council’s brother is actually an illegal immigrant.)
Finally, the History Channel. Once upon a time a factual one trick pony where you could spend a couple weeks in a row watching nothing but historical info on World War II. Now it’s a haven for the fictionally illiterate who don’t mind seeking facts within aliens and conspiracy theories. Because that content is super cheap and easy to make and now AI can crank out a Tik Tok video packed with just as much facts in a one minute time span as you get from an hour long fictionally illiterate History Channel show.
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