the worst person you know probably writes in all lowercase.
\n\nthey’ll tell you it’s an aesthetic choice, a testament to informality. they’re likely a twentysomething brooklyn resident like myself, bullish on being not the voice of their generation but a voice of a generation, and definitely guilty of posting performative notes-app screenshots and pseudointellectual, stream-of-consciousness “musings” that compare charli xcx to the pope.
\n\nwhat are they really up to, and do they know they’re participating in a long, exclusive, exclusionary tradition? the stylistic choice to write in lowercase is a dead horse that’s been beaten, flogged, and beaten again—what my generation calls ran through. and yet, it’s having a moment. i had to investigate.
\n\nfor one side of the internet, lowercase writing is feminine.
\n\nit’s a “formal feature of how girls engage online,” says rayne fisher-quann, who’s 25 and lives (where else?) in brooklyn. known to the web for the all-lowercase personal essays she writes for her blog internet princess, fisher-quann insists that the offhandedness of lowercase “neutralizes” the self-importance of writing about oneself. it’s a way, fisher-quann says, “to avoid criticism.”
\n\nher feelings trace back to the digital spaces she occupied in her adolescence. “i got a lot of…
Original source: https://www.wired.com/