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the stylistic choice to write in lowercase is a dead horse that’s been beaten, flogged, and beaten again. and yet, it’s having a moment. wired investigates. www.wired.com/story/the-ca...

for one side of the internet, lowercase writing is feminine. the virality of instapoet rupi kaur and foundational tumblr blogs like “justgirlythings” cemented lowercase as an expression of femininity in early social media.

but also, behind every “justgirlythings” fan is a 4chan power user. lowercase in the digital sphere goes back a long way and is part of a larger tradition. perhaps it has always been the hallmark of the outsider.

the modern internet was first developed by computer scientists using rigid programming languages where the distinction between uppercase and lowercase was important.

then, once the “normies” got access through providers like aol, they started using proper grammar and correct capitalization, blissfully unaware of the rules that maintained the ecosystem they had just besieged.

today, lowercase can be clickbait, or a strategy of gen z-ers to read as less intense. it can also be a status symbol, or a way to signal human authorship. finally, pockets of the internet still see lowercase as somehow antiestablishment.