Kiwi Farms

So, following on the heels of Tyce gradually creeping his way into the spotlight and the publication of the "Juggalo Survival Guide", I've noticed a LOT of discussion lately about Tyce's illiteracy. It's not very well understood and there's a ton of theories flying around, but they're all in different threads. I figured it'd be nice to have it all in one place. So as a real quick recap, our first sightings of Tyce included him being fairly literate:



On the other hand you have tweets from a month ago or so that are barely legible:



Let's jump into some theories...

My pet theory is that other people are writing the tweets for him - he dictates what to say and they write it for him. This is most clearly seen during the MICIS saga where he and Colby were working together. At one point Tyce runs away and tweets on his own obviously shit-talking Colby, and it's nearly fucking unintelligible, but the other tweets (where he isn't shit-talking Colby behind his back) are perfectly well-spelled, just like the original tweets from 2012. These tweets occurred within an hour of one another. This leads me to believe Tyce just asks other people to write tweets for him.



But what's most interesting to me, and what doesn't quite fit into my theory very neatly is the tweets that are "inbetween"; they are partially spelled right, and mostly legible save for a few errors, like this one:



This probably isn't another person typing for him, or if it is, it's because he's relying on more than one person to write these for him - he just asks whoever is in his immediate vicinity, and is therefore left to the mercy of his random Juggalo friend's literacy skills (a terrible fate indeed) which obviously vary from person to person, as with any other skill. However, I'm still not sure.

Anyway... I've rambled enough about my theory, I want to give some time to other popular theories:
This popular theory claims that Tyce's rampant drug abuse and disgustingly hedonistic lifestyle have slowly degraded his mental state. A lot of people blame it solely on Jenkem, but Jenkem isn't a neurotoxin, it doesn't literally make you stupider if you use it. Even despite that, I think a lot of people are taking this theory too literally. You must look at it holistically. Yes, Jenkem itself may not cause him to become a retard, but think about it: the kind of person who huffs their own shit to get high likely has a myriad of other mental problems.

All in all, the Drug Abuse Theory proposes a "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" model for how Tyce operates a keyboard: his level of spelling/reading competence fluctuates wildly and unpredictably depending entirely on what drugs he is currently taking. Given that Tyce is the kind of person who is ALWAYS high, well, it's not impossible to see how this could present problems.

It's entirely plausible that a combination of various factors from his lifestyle (lack of attention or effort, lack of good sleep, rampantly fluctuating mental states depending on which drug he is currently abusing) can effect something like his writing.

A great example of this was when he first came on the CWCki forums for his now-infamous debut appearance and declared, in his OP no less, that he was "faded on whippits shrooms and weed like waddup??"



That thread was one of the most unintelligible series of posts he's ever made, and it's entirely reasonable to attribute that to the insane cocktail of drugs that was in his system when he wrote it. While the whippits probably didn't effect him much (they're pretty short-lasting AFAIK), the shrooms and weed, depending on how much he took, DEFINITELY would have.

Speaking from personal experience, if you have enough drugs in your system, walking to the bathroom to take a piss becomes an epic and perilous journey, with many pitfalls and dangers and potential for disaster. Writing a post on an Internet forum would probably be quite a tall order, especially for someone who's already not that bright.

This theory claims that Tyce is intentionally misspelling some of his words to "fuck the system" or prove that society is bullshit or something. It's entirely plausible given his ridiculous attitude but we haven't seen any definitive proof of it one way or another. However, it could be argued that for someone as self-conscious as Tyce is about his illiteracy (it's one of his few "weak spots" for trolling him, he backpedals whenever Jace brings it up) that he wouldn't want to intentionally exaggerate something he's obviously quite insecure about. Not much else to talk about here.

I'll admit I don't know much about dyslexia - one of my college friends is dyslexic, but he doesn't talk about it much because he's insecure about it (very understandable) So please correct me if I'm totally off-base here, I'm just going on my own research, but I really think Tyce is dyslexic.

Couldn't reference the DSM as I love to do so very much as dyslexia was rephased as a "Specific Learning Disorder" (SLD) because people thought the term was too broad... but generally speaking, since A. most people are decently familiar with dyslexia as a disorder and B. I am not a qualified medical practitioner and cannot diagnose anything specific, I'm going to go for broad strokes here and just use dyslexia as a whole as a basis for understanding Tyce's insanity:

Tyce fits practically every single criteria listed on this website. I encourage you to read this. There are some that we can't verify one way or another (like his ability to read maps) but generally speaking, there aren't really any traits there that DON'T sound like Tyce. One specific line I found VERY interesting: "These characteristics are often inconsistent, and may vary depending upon the day or situation."

It's also important to note that, if Tyce was dyslexic, we wouldn't know for sure - it's not like he'd tell us. Even "normal" people with dyslexia are often shy about making that known. Someone like Tyce, who is so obsessed with self-image AND a compulsive liar, well... there's no way he would tell us that. HOWEVER, it's clear he's very self-conscious about it, as seen in the times Jace corrects him or asks him to read something, he always backpedals.

There's a lot of stuff to consider here, but it's very important to keep in mind that none of these theories are mutually exclusive. It's entirely plausible, in fact likely, that it could be a combination of many of these factors; Tyce could be dyslexic, drug-abusing, have his friends write shit for him, and/or be posturing... or some combination of those. With all that said, I hope I've provided a decent framework/discussion for us trying to understand his insanity. It's a passion of mine.

Like I said: this thread should serve as a place to discuss these issues. If you have questions, theories, criticisms, anything, post them. And if you want to correct me on something I said that was off-base, or try to punch a few holes in some theories, please do - critical thinking is always a good thing (as long as it's based on logic, of course)

That's all.