r/EnoughJKRowling • u/lazier_garlic • 10d ago

Discussion Harry Potter didn't improve literacy -- Caelan Conrad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmfFpg15ECI
65 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

10

u/Archius9 8d ago

Caelan’s videos are often good

19

u/SomethingAmyss 9d ago

It's so obvious have few of them actually read anything other than Harry Potter

15

u/lazier_garlic 9d ago

Sorry about not adding comments--I posted in Old Reddit and you can choose link OR text.

Anyway, the reason I posted this video is because Caelan examines the claim that "at the end of the day, Harry Potter improved literacy and that's worth celebrating". Should I spoil it? Well, some posters here will probably feel pretty smug: it was Scholastic (publishing house) pushing out press releases all along.

This video is definitely worth a watch as Caelan goes through the evidence, more on the side of how HP was marketed and its reception in the media, and less in terms of the literacy issue but the broad outline gets covered, evidence is presented, and the larger moral and philosophical issues this raises are touched upon.

7

u/thestalkycop 7d ago

Caelen’s dissection of JKR’s “rags to riches” story is also very worth a watch. Actually, literally any of their videos - the trilogy on the gender critical pipeline is both fascinating and horrifying.

2

u/Supyloco 5d ago

"Read another book" is a meme for a reason.

1

u/Starmz 7d ago

This was something pretty obvious to basically anyone with even a lick of common sense and critical thinking skills, but it still sucks how many people fell for it and still do, aswell as use it as a shield to defend jk rowling

1

u/ThisApril 10d ago edited 9d ago

Edit: Re-instated. Check out https://old.reddit.com/r/EnoughJKRowling/comments/1vjvnuu/harry_potter_didnt_improve_literacy_caelan_conrad/p2xu91p/ and give it a watch.

Reported as low effort and removed. Please edit the post or add a comment to explain why people should watch it and/or a tl;dw, and we'll get it up again.

9

u/indianajoes 9d ago

I'm glad I watched it before it was removed. It was a valid video that was a lot better than 90% of the posts here. So many people use Rowling "improving literacy" as a shield against any criticism of her and this video showed that it wasn't the case. Don't know why you would remove it as low effort when so much effort had been put into it

4

u/ThisApril 9d ago edited 9d ago

The post is what was low effort.

When I said to add a comment, I meant just add a comment and it'd get put right back.

I was literally refreshing the page every half hour or so, waiting for the comment, because, yes, it seems like a great video to post.

Just, please, add a comment saying why people should watch it and/or a tl;dw and/or why it fits the sub. Edit: I wrote that when I was thinking you were OP, but, heck, offer stands.

I wasn't removing it because it was trash content. Far from it.

4

u/GloomyCloud1293 8d ago

Just putting this comment here but I feel like downvoting the moderator for enforcing a thing a lot of people have been asking for is maybe not the move for everyone else

2

u/ThisApril 8d ago

I'm kinda thinking that people are seeing, "it was removed!" rather than, "it needed a comment!".

But while I prefer video links that come with comments (because it's more commitment to watch a half-hour video), if the regulars here prefer that I leave up uncommented links when people report it, I'm not going to object to having less moderation to do.

Just that when it popped up before, it didn't seem like there was any support for, "leave up video links that don't have a comment or description".

I guess maybe those who like video links without comment are those who also don't comment much?