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Hi, I'm a writer. You may remember me from such publications as Starburst Magazine, Mindful Mum, OFIC Magazine and the Devilfish Review.

Kate Fathers

In case you missed it, @starburst.bsky.social Issue 494 is out now! Inside its glossy pages you'll find my review of the Thai #horror film #Shutter, as well as my Book Wormhole column on Herman Raucher's fantastic 1980 horror novel "Maynard's House". It baffles me it hasn't been made into a film.

We are in an age of anti-intellectualism, and one of the ways to combat that is through media. Show kids that reading is a fun activity. Show kids that intelligence and intellectual curiosity are positive traits. Positive depictions have a big impact.

When I was growing up in the 90s, fostering a love of reading was a big part of kids media. There were targeted programs like "Reading Rainbow" and "Wishbone", but also, kids in cartoons and live-action shows were depicted as readers. (cont.)

Now, I don't watch a lot of kids/teen media, but from what I have seen, reading and writing aren't much of a focus in more recent media, either explicitly or casually. This, puts much more of an onus on school & parental instruction and encouragement, and if that's not happening either... (cont.)

...then it's no surprise that kids aren't reading. As I said, there are other reasons, but while my love of reading was encouraged by my parents, seeing the heroes in my TV shows and movies reading and writing--LOVING reading and writing--helped a LOT. (cont.)

This continued into teen media, where main characters like Rory Gilmore and Daria are big readers. Also, being knowledgeable in general was a positive trait in 90s and 00s teen media. Knowledge of books, film history, pop culture, current events was applauded, while the reverse was derided. (cont.)

I have a theory about this: Parenting decisions and changing education mandates aside, one of the (many) reasons for the fall in children's literacy is because reading is less of a focus in children's and teen's media. (cont.)

And while there was definitely a snobbery around innocent ignorance that deserved to be critiqued, I do believe that seeing reading and writing being encouraged and knowledge being framed as a positive in media DID encourage more kids to read and be curious. It helped fill in some gaps. (cont.)

We need to invent a new word, because "obscene" doesn't capture just how revolting this is. No one should be a trillionaire. They should not exist. "Billionaire" was already a political and societal failure. Tax this man into the Stone Age.

There's also an #AI in "text and image generation": Settings-->Privacy & security-->Text and image generation

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Kate Fathers

Our new issue is in UK shops and shipping direct from the official STARBURST store right NOW! Get your copy here: starburstmagazine.store/products/sta...