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For some reason, I see this style of "everything lowercase" more often recently. It distracts me from the content a lot. Was there a reason this style has becom

For some reason, I see this style of "everything lowercase" more often recently. It distracts me from the content a lot. Was there a reason this style has become more popular?

bryanrasmussen 1y ago
My theory: it's a response to the all caps internet stuff which is shouting on the internet, think of it as an attempt to do ASMR for text.
GoatInGrey 1y ago
It's the writing pattern of younger Gen Z and older Gen Alpha. Combined with minimal-to-no punctuation, it can be very distracting to read. However, this is typically used in informal settings like group chats. It is very odd to see it in formal, serious, or professional settings outside of, again, DMs and the like. I personally only made it about thirty seconds before I had to stop reading the article. The excessive line breaks and paragraphs-that-are-just-run-on-sentences on top of sporadic sentence casing and missing punctuation presents the writer as partly illiterate. I just can't shake the feeling that I'm reading the words of an, for lack of a graceful term, idiot.
aidenn0 1y ago
I've seen the argument made that "when people talk and text, they don't use punctuation." This seems like nonsense to me, since when people talk they inflect in rather varied ways, and there is punctuation in texts every time the "send" button is hit. 2300 years ago, the Greeks didn't have punctuation, and they had to invent it!
Terr_ 1y ago
Sometimes there's some sort of JS/CSS rendering trick that has broken on the page. However in this case words like "I'll" still contain their capital. In this context (not an immediate interactive chat) I find these issues awkward and disrespectful to the reader, the same as if the piece was filled with typos. When the author treats a post as worthless throwaway text which isn't worth fixing even when they have plenty of opportunity... Why would that be worth the time of a stranger to read?
- treetalker 1y ago
  I agree — yet here we are on the front page of HN.
  - Terr_ 1y ago
    To twist a quote: The attention economy can remain irrational longer than I can remain sentient. :p
- research_pie 1y ago
  honestly the worst is when it’s all lowercase AND there are lots of typos.

For some reason, I see this style of "everything lowercase" more often recently. It distracts me from the content a lot. Was there a reason this style has become more popular?

bryanrasmussen 1y ago

My theory: it's a response to the all caps internet stuff which is shouting on the internet, think of it as an attempt to do ASMR for text.

GoatInGrey 1y ago

It's the writing pattern of younger Gen Z and older Gen Alpha. Combined with minimal-to-no punctuation, it can be very distracting to read. However, this is typically used in informal settings like group chats. It is very odd to see it in formal, serious, or professional settings outside of, again, DMs and the like. I personally only made it about thirty seconds before I had to stop reading the article. The excessive line breaks and paragraphs-that-are-just-run-on-sentences on top of sporadic sentence casing and missing punctuation presents the writer as partly illiterate. I just can't shake the feeling that I'm reading the words of an, for lack of a graceful term, idiot.

aidenn0 1y ago

I've seen the argument made that "when people talk and text, they don't use punctuation." This seems like nonsense to me, since when people talk they inflect in rather varied ways, and there is punctuation in texts every time the "send" button is hit. 2300 years ago, the Greeks didn't have punctuation, and they had to invent it!

Terr_ 1y ago

Sometimes there's some sort of JS/CSS rendering trick that has broken on the page. However in this case words like "I'll" still contain their capital. In this context (not an immediate interactive chat) I find these issues awkward and disrespectful to the reader, the same as if the piece was filled with typos. When the author treats a post as worthless throwaway text which isn't worth fixing even when they have plenty of opportunity... Why would that be worth the time of a stranger to read?

treetalker 1y ago
I agree — yet here we are on the front page of HN.
- Terr_ 1y ago
  To twist a quote: The attention economy can remain irrational longer than I can remain sentient. :p
research_pie 1y ago
honestly the worst is when it’s all lowercase AND there are lots of typos.