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Comment by zetanor | Hacker News Reader

online sociability protip: writing in all lowercase outside of instant messaging comes across (to me) as weirdly manipulative, status seeking behavior. you want people to read your stuff and to come to some form of conclusion—you wouldn't be writing, editing and posting text otherwise—but you feel you have to put your ideas and your vulnerability behind a moat of detached, nonchalant aesthetics

nothing personnel, kid

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To me, all-lowercase text comes across one of two ways:

(a) I felt speed was far more important than readability (reasonable for rapid-fire short messages or constrained typing ability such as a flip phone, also a common way to imply "fuck you, my time is more important than yours" in longer forms such as email), or

(b) i'm 14 and e e cummings is so deep (blogs)

hmm, i have been writing all lowercase almost anywhere since a few decades. but it most people have complained about readability. this is the first time that someone suggests that it is manipulative, status seeking.

if i want people to read my stuff, then what kind of manipulation would writing all lower case accomplish? seems counterproductive. and if it is counterproductive then it can't really be manipulative in my favor. so why do it then? this is even more significant in german where all nouns are capitalized. there writing nouns in lowercase is not only an aesthetic difference, but a grammar violation. (and yet i do it anyways)

which status would i be seeking? (i am actually asking myself this question. depending on the answer i find, it might even get me to change my behavior).

writing all lower case has become a habit for me, that i stopped thinking about it. it's time to revisit that. interestingly at some point i decided to use capitals in blog posts. technically everything else is actually messaging, including email and HN.

lastly, the article is a list. it is not clear to me that lists have to start with capitals, since list items are not always complete sentences. they don't end with a period either. so even when capitalizing properly, i am unsure whether they should be capitalized.

I personally dislike all lowercase, to me it feels like not greeting someone but I don't get GP's argument either.

The article is a bullet point, yes, but some items have multiple sentences with no caps

funny you should say that, i frequently feel uncomfortable greeting people, because i don't know what greeting is appropriate. (this is exacerbated by the fact that i travel a lot and different cultures have very different ways to greet each other)

so if you feel that my lowercase writing is like i am not greeting you then that's the feeling i probably induce in others frequently. welcome to my world :-)

(multiple sentences appear only twice, btw, it's proof that the writer intended to write all lower case, but not strongly noticeable (to me at least))

> (and yet i do it anyways) > which status would I be seeking

You just answered your own question there. Being perceived as different, as beyond social conventions, as too cool for silly language rules. Or as they put in your parent comment - nonchalant

ok, that's helpful, thank you. but i think some background matters here: i was always (yes, since i can remember, at least starting from first grade) treated like an outsider. i was always treated like i was different despite growing up in a white homogeneous community simply because i was not a local and had difficulty making friends. my only defense was to run with it. it went as far as me wearing a different clothing style just to separate myself from everyone else. i toned that down when i realized that i would change my style if other started copying me. i decided to not let my behavior and actions be influenced by anyone else ever.

that has been the mantra for my whole life. (that doesn't mean i don't learn or wouldn't listen to reason, but it means that the changing something had to have a good reason. (and in the context of writing, for example, readability is a good reason, being perceived as different is not))

social conventions is something i have always struggled with. they often make no sense to me. why do i have to shake hands, for example? yes, there is a social and historical explanation, but the rituals are often so detailed, and so variable that i never know what is the right form in which situation.

so yeah, i am cool, even if i don't want to, and nonchalant describes to to a T.

i don't really want to change my behavior (i don't mean writing specifically) for the sake of becoming more accepted, because it also works as a filter. someone who can accept me despite my quirkiness is likely to be more open minded. it's a form of protection.

this thread is funny, i picked up lower case writing around the outset of puberty from someone who seemed a little more awake than average and i thought that was cool

hahaha

1. your comment is in lowercase 2. see bullet 2 of my post

I must admit I automatically downvote when I see that.

hacker news is not such a loftier place that I treat it much differently than instant messaging. but even still, there are plenty of reasons why someone might write how they do. i promise you that i am not trying to be manipulative or status seeking, i just have auto capitalization turned off and I don’t give two shits if weirdos like you don’t like it.

nothing personal kid

You wrote all that to some weirdo you don't give 2 shits? Even copied their closing quote? Hmm

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