 |
No matter how you slice, receiving a personal letter by post, ranks pretty high in terms of romantic and/or sentimental gestures. It’s up there with baking a new neighbor a welcome-cake, making a mix tape (physical that is) and giving a stranger a compliment (in person). Hell, it sure beats the pants off of sending an email, or worse an SMS (don’t make me compare it to a Tweet. Too embarrassing). But there seems to be a lack of personal letters being sent in this old-timey manner. Partly it deals the old timey-ness that can’t be escaped, and the other part, and I know this will sting for some of you- is that we’ve gotten lazy. Lazy welcomes, lazy compliments, lazy romance. We seek out the most time-effective measures to take in order to connect with those we actually care about. Someone wanted to put a (temporary) stop this that just so happens to highlight our Future Sign: Analogue Update perfectly.
A new community arts project dubbed Snail Mail My Email is making waves by providing the unique and quirky service of handwriting and snail mailing your emails. The site states:
Snail Mail My Email is a month-long (July 15 - August 15), interactive community art project which seeks to both share the warm-fuzzy feeling of receiving a personalized letter as well as inspire people to send their own snail mail. Anyone with internet access can partake by simply sending an email, after which the very same message will be handwritten and physically mailed to the chosen recipient anywhere in the world, completely free ofcharge.
In a culture overrun with instant gratification and on-demand services, this project cultivates appreciation for the lost art of letter writing.
 | letter example |
So, get reacquainted with your jittery nerves and familiarize yourself with things like “anticipation” “suspense” and (gasp) “patience” by using Snail Mail My Email. Give it a shot. The worst thing that could happen is you make someone’s day a little brighter, and who couldn’t benefit from that?
Links to Consider: