The world is a big place

Most likely functionally illiterate and not 100% "I can't read," but I've overestimated instagrammers before

Most people are illiterate. Literacy is a skill with levels and most people don't actually ever reach the level required to be a fully functional person.
This meme is a great example. Most people don't actually reach Ogre's level of literacy. Yeah, it's played for laughs in the fact that Ogre is smarter than the average human, but Ogre is also completely correct about the level of literacy we should expect of people, in a perfect world.
- A lot about this is, in my opinion, misleading.
  I don't need to be able to read Ulysses and understand all the themes and the deeper meanings, to be literate. As to actually understand all the meanings, I would have to be familiar with the culture in which it was written and the personal perspective of the author on that culture.
  I don't think the perfect world entails that everyone (or, at least most people) is overly familiar with ancient cultures and authors.
  Unfamiliarity with the context of what was written is usually why people don't catch on themes. A person with german cultural background will not read a passage about bringing honor to your bloodline, in the same way a chinese person will. A lot of Germans are deeply suspicious of the idea of honor. I learned that after decades with Germans and their culture.
  How many Cultures are you familiar enough with to be able to correctly understand a text written in it?
  E.g. the "remorse of conscience" is a cultural theme. A person who reads a lot of books and seek out these themes, has a different culture than a person who only scrolls on TikTok. And if the person reading books isn't on TikTok, they are probably unable to properly understand the themes in a TikTok.
  And yes, you said that there are different levels of literacy, so you didn't say that I was illiterate if I wouldn't catch on the "remorse". But you present literacy as a 1 dimensional scale. 1 level, 2, 3, etc... When it is not, your ability to correctly parse a text is not 1 dimensional. You will probably fail to correctly understand a story written in ancient china, and if you understand it, you will probably fail to understand a story written in the 1950s in Germany.
  Get off the horse. Stand next to us and enjoy your pleasure of reading with other people and learn different perspectives. They aren't less literate than you, they are differently literate than you.
  
  Yeah, I’ve been really enjoying discussing the themes and deeper meanings in the stormlight archive, but a ton of its themes are deeply American or focused on mental illness or theology and those are areas I have background in. If I were to read the tale of genji or some Dostoyevsky I’d miss so much. I can’t imagine someone in China really getting Huckleberry Finn because it’s deeply American satire, hell I don’t expect a Brit to get it particularly well either.
  
  Most people can't understand the themes of works from their own culture. How many American conservatives think the Matrix supports their ideas, and brag about taking the "red pill", not realising it's an estrogen pill? How many people watch Rick and Morty, and proceed to idolise Rick? Or the same with Sherlock, or House? How many people think Thanos did nothing wrong?
  So much of our popular media criticises the flaws inherent in capitalism. Iron Man does it. Star Wars does it. Why don't we live in a society of socialists? When Starship Troopers was first released, it bombed. Because most people couldn't tell it was satire. It took years for people to catch on.
  Hell, most christians read the Bible and think Jesus was white! It is literally their religious identity, and they can't be bothered to understand it.
  Drag doesn't think literacy is one dimensional. But drag does think that most people don't meet the standard for being a functional person in any culture. If most people were literate, then most of the kids who grew up watching Captain Planet would be vegan and carfree. But they aren't, because they fundamentally don't understand how to think about the entertainment media they consume.
  And by the way, it's a high dragon, not a horse.
  
  I agree with you about most people not understanding their social structural sorroundings sufficiently to lead their (collective) lives in a souvereign way.
  But this is not a primarily cognitive problem. Just as much it is rooted in the social structure itself. One must take into account: Which opportunities does a given act of thinking and understanding provide an individual?
  In an individualized and individualizing political, ecological, cultural landscape, understanding things critically often is fruitless. For example to ensure social affiliation or navigate through the market specifique concepts, notions and sorts of "truth" are productive. Analyzing your culture to find collective paths of historic development require different scopes.
  Praxeology might be a notion you could enjoy exploring.
  IMO this is important if you want both, get of the high horse and fly the mighty dragon of critique.
  
  Drag agrees, society is to blame for the way people are.
  But, people are also to blame for the way society is. It's a vicious chicken.
  Therefore, we need to educate people, like by telling them there's more to literacy than knowing to to read something literally.
- to be a fully functional person
  I'm pretty sure people with sub-god-tier level reading abilities, as you say they should have, can function just fine in their day to day.
  
  No, they can't. The globe is warming and the human race is on its way to extinction. Humanity is failing as a species.
  
  Drag's right on this one lads, sad but true
  
  And furthermore, Captain Planet told us all what to do in the 90s. Abolish the conditions of Capital which allow greedy billionaires to destroy the environment for personal enrichment. We didn't pay enough attention to realise what we had to do, because we're media illiterate. It's not just Captain Planet, there's thousands of books, movies, songs, and TV shows that tell us what the problems are in society, and we still don't fix them!
- No, most people are not illiterate, you're confusing literacy with media literacy because that's what you want to talk about instead.
  There is a difference between "I don't know what that sign says" and "I don't know what this book means."
  
  It's called functional literacy, which is what's being talked to here. Also, your anecdote fails to address other possibilities. I have a friend that, under stress of a new location, may lose the ability to read menus, and their literacy matches other academics in their field. I am a reader that cannot read aloud because that is an entirely different skill than reading.
  
  I know I'm talking about functional illiteracy, that's why I said "Most likely functionally illiterate" in my comment.
  The person who replied to me brought up media literacy/illiteracy, which is a separate concept, and mistakenly referred to it as illiteracy, which I corrected.
  
  Somehow this comment replied to the wrong one, oops!
- I have 'Agenbite Inwit' tattooed on my person and feel as though this ogre meme has called me out.
  
  Oh cool, you can explain the remorse of conscience to drag! Drag googled it while drag was posting that meme, and the best idea of it that drag could get was "feeling guilty for stuff that isn't your fault like a BPD-having silly"

It is easy to have motivation to skateboard across america when you don't have enough education to understand what doing that means.

"According to the known laws of physics, bumble bees should not be able to fly"
- Laws of aviation. And it's true, because planes do not flap their wings.
- ?
  
  "But the Bumblebee does not know these laws, and flies anyways"
  (easy to travel when you don't have enough education to understand what doing that means)
  
  https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/bee-movie-script-according-to-all-known-laws-of-aviation
- I hate when people use that line as some sort of proof that scientists are fools. It's like, do y'all really think scientists are looking at bees and crying over equations that the bees (that predated any and all forms of math done by humans) somehow are making them reevaluate.
  
  Its been debunked
  Thats not what im using it for
  
  Huh?
  I didn't think you were, I was just making conversation.

Idunno anything about this guy, but for some folks they just weren't taught early enough. You can learn to read at any age, but no amount of motivation can match an early education

Illiterate refers to both being able to read basic words all the way up to reading comprehenson. Equally possible he simply cannot understand what he reads and is anti-intellectual as that seems to be on the rise in the US.

As a victim of the US public School system, every class had one out more kids that simply couldn't read aloud in class for one reason it another. The teachers learned to not call on them in the future to keep things moving.
Some of them got moved to special education classes over the years, but I'm my experience they were just free periods to keep them from slowing the other kids down.
Its sad, I knew a guy that was smart as a whip, but we went to a restaurant he wasn't used to and he sheepishly asked me what was on the menu.
- It's called functional literacy, which is what's being talked to here. Also, your anecdote fails to address other possibilities. I have a friend that, under stress of a new location, may lose the ability to read menus, and their literacy matches other academics in their field. I am a reader that cannot read aloud because that is an entirely different skill than reading.

See the great historical documentary 'Forrest Gump'.

Spelling (in non phonetic languages) has nothing to do with intelligence levels - it is all to do with memory and exposure. Perhaps he never went to school, or the level of education was pathetic… or he is incredibly dyslexic. Sorry if this answer sounds harsh but I’m pissed-off at what you wrote. I know of at least one illiterate person who stands head and shoulders above the “college kids” around them. They were such an integral part of our team that were bought them speech-to-text / text-to-speech software to keep their job.

That's why I didn't say he was stupid. I asked if he had a learning disability which is not a taboo thing and it doesn't mean you're stupid. If anything I complimented him on his motivation and determination. You were just out to find something to get mad and offended over so you interjected that into my comment, even though I didn't say that. I see that happening a lot lately with Americans. They all wanna be offended so they can moralize
- Whoa there, horsey. I was making a general opening statement - not a rebuttal to a sentence you never wrote. In another reply I went into a little more detail. My main point was that if it wasn’t because of a learning difficulty then simply “motivation” isn’t always enough. A lack of facilities ( No libraries, no literate family members, no internet connection, inadequate education etc. ) could be a factor.
  On a side note, do not ever accuse me of being a septic again. There’s literally dozens of people on the internet that aren’t USian - but I understand it’s much easier to throw labels on people who don’t pander to your every post.
or he is incredibly dyslexic
Dyslexia is a learning disability
- Yes it is, so he either does have a learning difficulty (as OP suggested) and is hobbled by it or he has been let down by the education system or he’s lazy and stupid. ( might be some other reasons, too) As a result his motivation (if he had any) would be neither here nor there. Some people can’t read and write English because… they can’t. It’s that simple.