Episode 235: Reading, Writing, and Hanging out at the mall, with Jane and Molly of Content Queen

So before we jump into my conversation with Molly and Jane (it’s long), I just wanted to talk a little bit about reading and writing.  I remember feeling very anxious about learning both of these skills in school.  I kinda already knew how to read thanks to a series of animal books with accompanying records that somehow found their way into my possession in preschool.  I don’t know why someone gave a small child RECORDS, but what can you do? It’s too late now.  But still, the formal instruction of reading and writing felt overwhelming to me. Like,was I up for the task. TBH I’m still  not a fan of actually writing something out with a pen/pencil (my brain just moves faster than my hands), but wow, really learning how to read unlocked this new world for me.  It was escape.  It was sneakily educational.  It was fun.  And over time, it was a source of comfort. 

 I always joke that speedreading is my superpower, but really, I’m a fast reader because I have had so much practice.  During the summers, I would devour 10, 20, 30 books a week in elementary school and middle school (chapter books).  By the end of 4th grade, it seemed like I had read everything in the library in both the kids and young adult sections, so my mom gave me permission to start reading “grown up” books…and I accidentally started with Flowers in the Attic.  But salacious incest books aside, reading opened doors and also kept me feeling safe and okay.  Re-reading my favorite books gave me something reliable to hold on to.

I am so passionate about books and libraries to this day.  And this year, I’ve been putting more time aside to read because it has been a respite from the exhausting level of anxiety I have been experiencing.

But speaking of anxiety, I have had this growing sense of dread about the future of books and reading.  I have read numerous think pieces that make me afraid that reading and writing are slowly dying in favor of video and screens.  A 2024 piece from The Atlantic explained how students at elite colleges are struggling to read entire books for class because they just don’t have experience reading entire books.  An English teacher friend told me that they no longer read books in her high school curriculum because the kids just don’t have the attention span or literacy to read a whole book. They focus on short essays and stories instead.  Last week I almost burst into flames when I read a piece from The Guardian called “‘It’s so boring’: Gen Z parents don’t like reading to their kids – and educators are worried.” I’ll share the link in the show notes so you can also spiral about the decline of literacy.  

This may slightly be a bit of a “moral panic,” but I also see the signs of reduced media and cultural literacy around me. And think about it: AI is trying to give us the option of never having to read or write again, just ask the internet a question and it will (somewhat correctly) answer it for you.  I’ve also see weird posts going around the internet in the last week where apparently the current hot topic on Booktok (the section of TikTok about books) is that if you’ve read more than 20-24 books in a year, you’re “overconsuming” books, which is just…anti-reading propaganda.  But think about how literacy (or lack thereof) is a tool of fascism and control in some excellent books:

• In the Handmaid’s Tale, women are forbidden to read and write. 
• In 1984, language is simplified into “Newspeak,” where every idea can be conveyed with a single word. Why? Because then people no longer have language to communicate anything outside of what those in control allow them to think about.
• In Fahrenheit 451, tech companies simplified books into something people could read in five minutes or less. And then the books became less important, until they were finally just burned and no one read any more. This made everyone easier to control.  No chance of them reading a book and suddenly learning about resistance from it.

And sure, these are dramatic versions of a bookless future, but I can’t help that think in an era of trad wives and way too much focus on controlling our bodily autonomy and talking everyone into birthing more babies…well doesn’t weird social media conversation about not reading too many books or just finding the answers on Chat GPT…doesn’t it feel a little sinister? 

You know how I’m always saying that the little things you do every day are actually radical and impactful in a fast fashion/fast everything world? Well reading is one of those things! Yes, reading is a radical act.

Sometimes someone who doesn’t have our best interests at heart might be filling our ears with statements that feel like facts (because they come from someone with power or prestige) but really are just being used to confuse us into  believing something that benefits them, not us.  

Sunday morning, Dustin and I were listening to an episode of Hidden Brain about kids playing outside on their own.  And one of the guests shared a story of his childhood best friend teaching him how to ride a bike.  I said to Dustin, “oh wow, my friend Tanya taught me how to ride a bike in 5th grade.” He was like, “wow, that’s kinda late.” 

And then I remembered why I didn’t know how to ride a bike.  My mom had told me “you’re too uncoordinated to ride a bike. You probably can’t learn and you will definitely hurt yourself if you try.”

And because my mom was in a position of all-knowing power in my life, I believed her.  I accepted that I was too “uncoordinated” to ride a bike.

I was over at Tanya’s house–really a trailer–when her mom suggested that I should bring my bike along with me the next time because the streets of the trailer park were really good for riding around.  When I told her that I didn’t have a bike of my own, she was surprised.  So I explained, “well, my mom said that I’m too uncoordinated to ride  a bike and I’ll probably hurt myself.”

Her mother grimaced, then paused for a minute, probably trying to NOT say something bad about my mom. Instead she said, “Tanya, go out there and show her how to ride a bike.” And she did…and I learned how to ride a bike that day. I fell a lot. I scuffed up my knee.  There were definitely a few moments where I wanted to give up. But I did it.  I kept my balance and pedaled up the street, almost so fast that I didn’t even know I was really doing it.  Eventually my little brother got a new bike for his birthday, and I was able to have his old one. And I would just ride around in circles for hours during the summer.  When I was done doing housework, I would pedal around and around. Basically my summer was housework, reading, and bicycling.  And to this day, riding a bike is right up there with reading at the top of “my favorite things to do” list. Dustin and I take our bikes on trips. Or we rent them in other countries.  I’ve biked around every city I’ve lived in, beach towns I’ve visited, and small rural islands in Japan.

Why did my mom tell me I couldn’t ride a bike? I don’t know.  Maybe she didn’t want to take the time to teach me. Maybe she didn’t want to spend the money to buy me a bike.  Maybe she worried that I would no longer be our family’s housekeeper and cook if I had the freedom to ride away.

To me, reading and biking are almost the same in my mind: simple things that make me happy and are good for my mind and body (and maybe even the world).  I wouldn’t want anyone to take those away from me.

And when I think about why people might be persuaded to read less (and stream more), I see the motivations as clearly as my mom’s reasons for keeping me off a bike:

• It makes us more malleable and controllable because we aren’t being exposed to any new or different ideas. 
• It makes us more vulnerable to misinformation (which then makes us easier to control).
• And of course, it makes it so much easier to sell us more shit.  That comfort and escape that we get from reading? Without it, we might just go shopping instead.  If our brains are no longer stimulated by words and stories, we’ll look for some enrichment elsewhere: the accumulation of more stuff that we probably don’t need. Discouraging us from reading is  good for both capitalism and fascism.

These things kinda start subtly…anyone who has read The Handmaid’s Tale or any other piece of dystopian literature will tell you that.  And btw, if you’re looking to read other dystopian work by Margaret Atwood (the author of The Handmaid’s Tale), I recommend reading the MaddAddam trilogy, which over a span of three books kinda explores how society breaks and what it looks like afterwards. I had mono in 2017 and I spent half of that year in bed reading dystopian novels.

So the next time you encounter any kind of content–social media or otherwise–that seems to discourage you from reading and learning, take a more critical view of this.  Why would someone suggest we read less books? That reading too many books is overconsumption? That we skip our own reading and research in favor of just asking ChatGPT? That we can just watch the movie and get the same impact? Why are so many people campaigning aggressively, using so much money and time, to ban specific books from schools and libraries? Why would the President of the United States want to dismantle the Department of Education? Or even, when someone says “this is too long so I didn’t read that,” ask yourself: is that actually a “cool” response or is this person also just discouraging themselves and others from reading?

We must protect books and libraries and reading and writing…because this is how we share ideas and information. They are the essential building blocks of a better future because they help us see alternate outcomes and envision solutions. They introduce us to people we might never meet IRL (and that’s how we learn empathy).  We must continue reading, even when it feels hard or we’re too busy or too tired. We must continue to make books accessible to everyone.  So keep on reading and get everyone else around you to read, too. Let’s take trips to the library together.  Let’s form a book club.  Let’s share our lists of favorite books. Let’s stay radical by reading!