> Taking the text at face value, Greg Heffley has an irony-tinged self awareness of his own shittiness.I'm not familiar with this book, but just the excerpts shown really mismatch the NYT quote in terms of their self-commentary.
The blogpost supposes that Greg is aware he's being a twat, and so somewhat mocks himself for it through the drawings and diary entries. I can accept (and even find it obvious) this applying to the NYT guy, but not to Greg. Greg just comes off even worse for this, not like he'd be ashamed about it at all. More like proud in case he is aware, or indeed oblivious, if he is not aware. This is because despite the blogpost author's assertions otherwise, I really don't find it a slamdunk conclusion he'd be self-aware about being a "twat", or that he'd understand why he'd be a "twat". On the contrary, the diary entries come across as quite the on the nose lesson in not being obnoxious (i.e. bad writing), completely upending such an interpretation.
I notice the word "literacy" thrown around a lot lately, in part by myself, but there's an inherent dishonesty to this. Language does not have absolute meaning, and you cannot read another person's mind. Just because you interpret literal works of art differently, I don't believe that necessarily qualifies you as illiterate. These are not the same qualities.
Just the other day I was discussing shows with a colleague, and I was convinced that by willfully skipping on large swaths of the medium, he lacked the genre literacy to "correctly" interpret various motifs. In the end, it turned out he actually experiences shows very differently to me. For him, self insertion is simply never a thing. It was a complete whiplash to figure that out, and everything made a lot more sense in retrospect afterwards. I still maintain he misunderstands the medium significantly, but I no longer see it to be a matter of a gap in literacy. It's a genuine difference in how the medium can address him. It becomes a difference in knowing what someone meant, and actually taking it that way. He can only do (and can be expected to do) so much to bridge such a gap.
4/19/2026
at
2:30:46 PM
> I notice the word "literacy" thrown around a lot lately, in part by myself, but there's an inherent dishonesty to this. Language does not have absolute meaning, and you cannot read another person's mind. Just because you interpret literal works of art differently, I don't believe that necessarily qualifies you as illiterate. These are not the same qualities.I interpret critiques of this flavor and the "literacy" issue in general as being about a lack of interpretive range more than a tendency to produce some "incorrect" interpretation.
I think people are concerned that declining sophistication in readers actively prevents them from even being aware that some more complex interpretation is possible when engaging with a text. People read the overwhelming lack of nuance in internet comment threads as evidence of this. You can question whether or not that's a legitimate inference in isolation (I think it's dubious, personally), but, when bolstered by evidence from studies about how much people read for leisure, and falling grades on reading comprehension exams, I think the argument gains a little more weight.
I don't necessarily take the author as saying that these commentators are wrong about the NYT's author's self-awareness, but rather that evidence of a more complete reading would evidence itself in the comments if they had a more nuanced interpretation. There's a difference between flat out saying "wow this article really makes the writer look like a horrible person" and "I'm glad the writer had the courage to share this and seems o be growing but I'm amazed they were ever such a horrible person at some point in their lives". Again, it's probably unfair to make a judgement about overall interpretive ability based on one comment alone—one would actually need to subject the commenter to reading comprehension exams to know, but if you do feel the extrapolating judgement to population tendencies is legitimate, I understand why you might draw literacy conclusions.
by voidhorse
4/19/2026
at
3:15:37 PM
I agree. It's more that I find it difficult to fault people for not recognizing motifs that do not actually speak to them, possibly even after a ton of exposure and instruction, or given a specific context. At that point, it's less the audience being medium illiterate, and more the medium being audience illiterate so to speak. Or rather the creator being medium or audience illiterate.
by perching_aix