Media literacy is important because without it, you’re susceptible to all kinds of misinformation and you full on become a slave to whatever ideology the algorithm pushes on you (normally based on previous clicks you had), and what’s sad is - so many people are either unaware of this happening, or are aware but think “surely this isn’t happening to me” - the issue with this is that it creates an inaccurate world view and actively pushes you towards not only a more negative headspace, but also a far more resentful one as a whole. I’ll illustrate this with content directed at men and women:

Content directed at women: i admit im not particularly knowledgable on this since i’ve never consumed this content past some quick swiping and some minor deliberate research, so i won’t focus on it much mostly cause im not well versed in this content; but such content does exist. Think of all the slice of life pages/channels influencers have where she’s both showing off the image of a perfect relationship while also spouting off some pseudo-spiritual stuff, or content designed to be ‘advice’ or ‘tutorial’ content but is actually advertising - now, you, the woman reading this might look at this and think “well me and my friends don’t fall for this” - welp, many young women do, creating unrealistic expectations for a relationship and enabling decisions made by the ego (and no, i’m not saying “she will only aim for the top 20% of men” or anything like that - what I am saying is it displays a dynamic that’s scripted and rehearsed, but is presented as reality, and when real relationships don’t fit this image, it creates issues.

For the men, I will talk about this in more depth because its content i’ve actually consumed before and I do think the harm it does is more detrimental. This normally comes in two forms, podcast content and street interviews, podcast content generally runs on the following:

  1. intentionally be as inflammatory as possible

  2. purposely being in SWers in it for the clout, or women who are naive and inexperienced. Debating and arguing is a skill, and if you’re young/naive on a podcast with a man in his 30s specialized in mental gymnastics, he will run circles around you

Point is, these women are vetted before being out on these shows - they have to fit a certain image, ie. the redpill image of women

As for street interviews, they’re fake - point blank, and this can be done in so many ways; they’re meant to be rage fuel, to point women as inflammatory, while in all reality one of 3 things have happened:

  1. they interview 100+ drunk women on a night out, and pick the worst 5-6 to stick to (which, yeah, on a drunken night out you will run into this)

  2. some very well could be hired actors/models

  3. content creators have been caught doing this, both in and out of this space, they’d cut content and edit answers to other questions to run their narrative

The reason why I view content directed at men more malicious is because it isn’t just setting unrealistic expectations, but it’s also attempting to profit off of your rage and hate, ie. in order for their content to be successful, they have to take advantage of your emotional vulnerability and turn your frustration into hate, why? because rage content is very successful and will make them an extra buck.

With online and short form media being the norm nowadays, the need for media literacy is very important as people are very very easy to fool and manipulate. Add to this the fact that online algorithms feed you the same stuff over and over again, not only feeding that bias but also telling you that this is what the outside world is like, it’s a recipe for disaster.