“Because Life Is More Than Texts, Smiley faces and xoxos”: It is also handwriting!

May 20th, 2012

As some of you know, my next book will be a history of handwriting that asks some more general questions about how writing is changing along the way. So imagine my delight to follow the  Samsung Galaxy Note campaign, which is entirely predicated on  handwriting nostaglis. This is a smartphone with

“a pen with a brain built for big ideas” 

a pen so smart it has its own apps

to make something no one else can 

Why?

“Because life is more than texts, smiley faces and xoxos.”

Life is also handwriting! Because handwriting, the ad campaign tells us, involves the authentic hand–your child writing “wish you were here!” on a picture they send you through the internet. It is writing lines of poetry! Girls in a classroom creating poetry! You can’t do that with an impersonal personal computer, the ad tells us: you need a smart pen too  pen with a brain.

Are you a blogger? Then you need “handmade posts!”  It will add a “human element” to blog posts”  And handmade texts!

(do I need to go on about the irony of “handmade” posts or texts? You guys are smart enough to sniff out the analysis, no?)

Trafficking in nostalgia, a new technology tries to make us like it by convincing us it is more personal, authentic and original to handwriting a blog post or text than it is to type one.