"i don't wanna write this down,
wanna tell you how i feel right now" - mos def
Nobody wants to write anything down anymore, or so it seems. I know I'm guilty. The only time I use a pen these days is when I'm confronted with a bill from a company that doesn't have online billing. In which case, I have to physically write out a check, including my signature, which now resembles something the creators of the Palmer Method would never recognize as their teachings. A pen is as foreign in my hand as a good idea is in the head of emperor Bush. But that's another story. It seems we are in the midst of a writing revolution my friends. One which has more people than ever writing, although, nobody seems to be physically writing.
The last time I wrote a letter? Hmmm. I think it was in '97. It was one of those, "you gonna lose your booty privileges if I don't get a love letter", love letters. Before that, I think it was '88. And maybe one in '87. In my entire life I've probably written less than 5 letters by hand. In each one, my writing style was somewhat formal. I even remember looking up examples of a letter before writing them. How things have changed. Nobody looks up an example of an email before you send one, because all that formal crap has been thrown out the door. On the average day, I send off a hundred electric (e) mails easy. Some are just phrases. Others, one line sentences. While others are long and thought out, consisting of several paragraphs of edited copy. We've all become masters of this new form of writing. Tone of voice is the one thing we've all learned to be careful of with emails. Jokes don't always come off as jokes. And sarcastic statements tend to sit there flat on the page, making the sender seem less like a person with charisma, and more like an a**-hole. So in our quest to communicate as clear as possible, we created emoticons like (lol) and (rofl). These emoticons allow us to convey complex emotions without explanation. This is especially affective in modes of communication with quicker response times like, two-ways, text messages, and instant messenger. I don't think people today have more to say than people of past eras, but technology has bridged the distance gap that makes us feel alone and distant. So not only does everybody have some device or form of staying in touch with his fellow man, we all have plenty to say-- I mean, write.
The blog world is the biggest example of the enormity and regularity with which people are writing these days. Some of these blogs are maintained by people whose full time job is do nothing but blog. In other words, these are people who do nothing all day but WRITE. Writing has become a past time that is considered, FUN. The only thing better than reading a provocative blog is responding, provocatively. We all have thoughts and opinions. Before these opinions went unsaid, unshared, and unheard. because the only uniformed way of sharing them was the editorial page of a newspaper. But now the physical ease with which we type on a keyboard invites us all to join in on the conversation. Typing, although a skill, isn't as painful as writing by hand. In grade school I had a callus on the middle finger of my writing hand from writing with pencils. I hated the feeling, which made me hate writing. Even typing on a type writer back in the day was painful. But as technology improves, we are finally able to communicate through the written form, at a rate much closer to the speed at which we think.
Technology isn't the only reason we're writing more. Lifestyle is important. And the hip hop lifestyle begs us to write like no other. The emcee is the most celebrated aspect of hip hop culture. Few people want to be the b-boy, the graph artist, the dj. But everybody wants to be the emcee, why? Maybe it's because the essence of emceeing is writing, and everyone feels they too can write. When I was a kid, we all had little rhymes and stuff that we did for fun. Well, today, it continues but on a whole other level. Kids aren't writing for fun, they are writing to get rich, as a way out of the hood. The degree of intensity with which young people write now is so different from back then. Everybody has a rhyme. Some are better than others but everybody has one. I have a little cousin who is quiet who I never would have thought of as the type of little kids I'm talking about. But sure enough, at a family gathering, I look over in the corner, and guess who's busting a self written rhyme? She is. When I thought about it, it made me smile. We perceive the youth of this country as fat spoiled kids whose brains are eroding as they watch TV and play PlayStation all day. Yeah, that is true for some. But many others are spending their spare time writing. No, it's not always with a pad and a pen. Often times it's on a computer. But they're still trying to unlock new ways of conveying their thoughts and emotions. They are creating witty rhymes as a means of exercising their brains. Today, writing it down means typing it in. And tomorrow, it may mean speaking into a device that types it for us. Whatever the case, not only is technology and lifestyle revolutionizing what we write, when we write, and where we write. It's also revolutionizing HOW we write it. One luv.
