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had this convo just yesterday 🤦♀️
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this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2026
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Ew, that’s not true either. Lemmy is NOT the place for gatekeeping assholes. Take that bullshit to X.
That's not really gatekeeping. Maybe gatekeeping a fully emotionally developed adult? But that's a bit of a stretch too. You can't just throw around buzzwords and expect it to mean anything. And you definitely can't be expected to be taken seriously.
Maybe if you put down the YA and read something age appropriate you'd get a better feel for adult interactions.
No. Gatekeeping was the polite way to say that you have no fucking right to stop someone from doing what they enjoy, as long as they aren’t harming someone else. I personally don’t read YA novels, but I will protect that right for everyone else.
The correct term, rather than gatekeeper, would be fascist. You can fuck right off if you’re going to try controlling what media a person consumes. If you truly think what you’re saying, you are a morally bankrupt human.
Is it gatekeeping to say that functioning adults who don't need them anymore shouldn't wear diapers?
With all that stretching and leaping you must be limber as fuck.
I would never stop anyone from doing anything that didn't harm someone else. But I will judge the fuck out of them. Disney adults, children's book readers, broneys, etc. are children's minds in adults bodies. If it's because of a disability, good for them, they should enjoy life in whichever way suits them. If not, it's pathetic and they should seek help with their personal growth.
I won’t stop them, I will just socially shame them with an intent to stop them.
You have all the tact of a conversion therapy camp. I have nothing more to say to a closed-minded person like you.
Yes, and? Shame is useful. When I feel ashamed of something it leads to reflection and hopefully personal growth. Fear those incapable of shame.
Shaming isn't necessarily bad. Shame fascists, abusers, bigots, the ultra wealthy, etc. I would guess that you agree with doing that. We just disagree if adults refusing to grow is shame worthy.
You are equating adults reading YA novels to "fascists, abusers, bigots, the ultra wealthy, etc."
It's time to admit your argument may have gone off the rails at some point.
Not my intention. I used those extreme examples to make the point that shaming is not necessarily bad. Obviously, an adult that has a child's mind, not due to a disability but because they refuse to grow, is more of a grey area where people can disagree if shaming is warranted. I find it pathetic and repellant, some others apparently disagree. Some of those may be well adjusted adults, but some of them may benefit from looking in the mirror I'm holding up
Reading YA novels does not mean they have a "child's mind". Rest and relaxation are also things to value, people cannot be "on" 100% of the time and having unchallenging fiction as a way to unwind is a better use of time than social media. (Speaking of holding up mirrors...)
There's a big difference between unchallenging and childish. Don't conflate the two.
Top chef is unchallenging, Sesame Street (R.I.P) is for children. An adult watching Top Chef can turn their brain off and chill, a non-mentally disabled adult watching Sesame Street (for themselves, not with kids) is childish.
A non-mentally disabled adult spending this much time judging imagined people on Facebook/Reddit/Lemmy for a single activity they do in their spare time is not someone you should take life advice from.
Lol, says the person who just can't stop digging and keeps responding.
Well, I suppose it's a good thing for you that you seem impervious to growth and admitting you're wrong. Straw manning, moving the goal posts, and attacking the source is a good start for a tool box of skills used to resist any self reflection, I'm sure you've got a lot more in there.
How much time do you think this takes? What you're saying isn't exactly deep and thought provoking. 30 seconds to bang out a response when a little notification interrupts me catching up on the news isn't much. I couldn't have spent more than five minutes on this thread altogether, and 90 seconds on you tops.
Time that would have been better spent watching Sesame Street, you might have learned how to get along with others.
And why exactly would I be concerned with getting along with a salty child?
Then you might learn how to get along with adults. A skill you are lacking.
I don't think those skills necessarily translate. I wouldn't expect someone who reads children's books to understand why.
Like I said: judging imaginary people you've made up in order to look down on. Never been a fan of Harry Potter myself, but I don't expect someone lacking in basic social skills to understand why other people would say something.
And I wouldn't expect an emotionally stunted person stuck in high school or earlier to understand why people look down on them. So I guess we both think we understand each other.
Cheers!
I can understand shaming people for supporting JK Rowling, but shaming people for reading at or below their reading level just feels like pointless bullying. For what reason? What's the goal of doing that?
I've read Heidegger, but my favorite books that I enjoy going back to reread for fun are at a 5th grade reading level. Do you feel the same way about adults who enjoy cartoons? Is partaking in easy/unchallenging comforts immature in your mind? If so, why? If not, where does this perspective come from?
It's not about reading level. If someone has a low reading level due to disability, they should enjoy what they can, and if it's not disability just reading anything will eventually fix that. It's about the content. If someone is capable of understanding adult content and chooses to surround themselves with childish themes they are pathetic man/woman/person-babies.
It's not about easy or unchallenging. I'm not sitting here only reading great literature or things filled with purple prose using sat vocab words. Around 70% of what I read is sci-fi/fantasy and I read A LOT, so my quality bar has to drop pretty low to keep me occupied in between the really good stuff. Again, it's about adult vs. childish themes.
I'm sorry, but I feel like you're being a little disingenuous here. I don't think you need me to write an essay differentiating between various types of media. I think you know exactly what I mean when I mention people that refuse to grow up and continue to consume childish media well into adulthood.
No, I didn't know what you meant, and I think all the hate you're getting suggests you're doing a poor job of communicating effectively and it's not a me-problem.
I'm not trying to be disingenuous, but I do see that I've conflated reading level with target audience, but my initial argument still stands if we swap that out. When I said I enjoy reading books at a 5th grade reading level, I meant books whose target audience is middle schoolers.
Consuming "childish" media ≠ refusing to grow up. I think that's a very important distinction to make, and your comments in this thread seem to be conflating the two. At the same time though, what's wrong with "refusing to grow up"? Why is it so important to you that others be mature?
I think "hate" is a bit strong, simple disagreement I hope. But I've been pretty clear. The responses are probably mostly from two kinds of people: people that don't like being called children and people who get offended on others behalf and like to argue for the sake of arguing.
As far as you enjoying books with a target audience of 5th graders; I honestly don't know what to say to that that I haven't already. I can't imagine what a healthy adult could possibly get out of that. I remember those books fondly, but reading them now?
Surrounding yourself with the trappings of childhood into adulthood is refusing to grow up to some extent. Peter Pan syndrome isn't an actual clinical diagnosis, but it seems like an awful way to live, and awful people to be around. I wouldn't choose to hang out with a bunch of 15 year olds, why would I spend time with anyone that acted as if they were? Why someone would want to deny themselves the richness of a full life is just as puzzeling as why they wouldn't expect people to judge them for it and avoid them.
Joy. What one person gets joy out of another person may not get joy out of and that's fine. But when you attempt to be the Theif of joy just because you don't like where a person is getting it from (even when that hurts literally no one), to the point where you think it's okay to shame them for it (which is basically bullying), I have to wonder a lot about not just your motives but your attempt to rationalize your own behavior.
Just because you don't do something doesn't mean it's not okay for other people. Your arbitrary deductions about their choices don't entitle you to judge them or to try to penalize them just because you would have done differently.
It costs you nothing to let people enjoy the things they want to enjoy when they aren't hurting you.
This perspective is so foreign to me. It's a valid opinion ofc, which I can respect, but I don't respect the overt judgement- it's the needless shitting on people that I think is a problem, and it honestly comes across as insecure and, ironically, a little immature.
In my clinical experience as a therapist, it's often actually an indication of health for adults to partake in such things.
You talk like your perspective is the natural default, but I think it's not, and I think this says a lot more about you than it does others.
I freely admit that I lack tack, but that's another discussion.
I don't claim to have any clinical experience but when a person consumes media with plot points and conflict designed to have a teen identify with it, I find that very off-putting (without mitigating circumstances), and assume their inner world is that of a child's.
If I'm catching up with someone and I ask them "whatcha reading" and they respond with a children's book without any qualifier like "to my kid" or "with my kid so we can talk about it", I'm going to question if this is someone I want to spend time with.
I don't know about "natural default", that might be too generous. But if someone never makes it past their teens, I'm going to think certain things about them.
Consuming media designed for a younger audience does not inherently mean these things, and in fact likely only ever very rarely does
I suppose we'll just have to agree to disagree on that.
Well, no- this part isn't about opinion. You're just wrong about this part. Agree to disagree on the rest though, sure
Nah, you're definitely wrong. But if you want to think your appeal to authority means anything, go right ahead and have a nice day.
Lol
How does one accurately identify something as being specifically for children and children only?
i'd like to know this as well but i doubt there can be a definite answer. sometimes you can tell an obvious difference between 'for children' and 'suitable for children' but it's not always clear.
personally i'd say e.g. paw patrol, my little pony, harry potter are for children and e.g. the witches, watership down, lord of the rings are suitable for children. but there must be a big grey area rather than a clear divide
Even if we can accurately identify something as being for children, that something would likely have been produced by very passionate adults, and approved by other adults for publication. Do these adults get a pass from being shamed for their interest in children's content?
Lol what? They are publishing and marketing said books to children
How is that the same as adults unironically enjoying children's literature?
You don't think any of the adults that create said books are fans of their own and each others works? Surely they aren't all working in an industry in which they loathe all of the work they are doing or think it is all so beneath them.
I'm mostly responding to the idea that it is shameful to enjoy reading books that are far beneath the level one should be able to read at. Would the same apply to the adults that write children's books?
I don't think most adult publishers of children's books are fans of children's books, no.
no, of course not as long as it's a genuine effort and not a cynical cash grab (there has been something of a backlash against celebrities knocking out children's books). so it's not the producers but the fans of it that come in for criticism. one complicating factor is that in older media children were not taken for idiots. the examples i used as suitable for children (except maybe lord of the rings when perhaps i should have said the hobbit? i'm not familiar) were written specifically for children but who could honestly look down on an adult for enjoying them. whereas if you're hurtling into middle age and still really into dora the explorer or similar that's obviously weird. but e.g. twilight? i still think you should have grown out of that but it's in the grey area