Bring back handwriting.

Handwriting is dead, long live handwriting! (Also, say hi to my new feature... yet to be named.)

Can't you see
In my handwriting
The curve of my g?
The longing…

—PJ Harvey, “The Letter”

I am obsessed with handwriting, and have been since I can remember. When I was a child, my Nana bought me some calligraphy pens and paper. I practiced and practiced, making sharp exits, and accenting the letters with fancy loops I now know are called “flourishes.”

When I was in grade school, I read The Babysitters Club series, as all tweens did in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. The books contained each character's handwriting, invented by book designer Hollie Tommasino. You could feel the essence of their personalities oozing from the page, through the written word. This design choice humanized them—and effectively. Stacey’s was my favorite, probably because of the heart-topped letters, but I always wanted to be a Mary Anne.

Images of the original books from BSC Fandom Wiki

This “visual personality” had me thinking a lot about my own handwriting at the time, but also made me more conscious about the penmanship of others.

Did they take a long time to sign their name or was it a scribbly line?

How did they cross their t or dot their i?

What kind of a slant did they have?

Did they write their cursive “by the book” or did they improvise?

Did it change over time and grow with them as they aged?

And now, as an adult, I still think about how sometimes handwriting can be tied to one’s personality, and—maybe I’ve watched too much Forensic Files—to their identity.

In grade school, the girl with the best penmanship in the class broke her right arm, and she was stuck in a cast for six weeks. I watched her struggle to write with her left hand for the duration, wondering if she could ever achieve the same perfection with her non-dominant hand. She didn’t, and it made me surprisingly happy… as if she were one of us—an imperfect, regular kid with basic handwriting (at least until she healed).

Growing up, I had friends whose handwriting was so bizarre, matching their quirks perfectly. I loved this parallel. There was one girl who I thought was just the coolest, and she had handwriting to match. Once, I stole her discarded papers and studied them like a manual.

In high school and college, there were other girls with beautiful penmanship. I watched them gracefully adorn the page. Again, I examined their notebook preferences and pen choices. Why choose a Pilot or a Pentel, or a classic Bic? Why blue over black? Who was this rebel who chose purple?

I, on the other hand, was lost. I’d always struggled with my identity, and this also made it difficult for me to stick to one handwriting style, one type of pen, or one style of paper. These varied with each and every day, and every emotional state. I operated on feeling over method and routine. And in adolescence, there are so. many. emotions.

I wondered, and still wonder to this day, whether my obsession over handwriting caused my penmanship to be so schizophrenic, or maybe it was my tumultuous emotional state?

Why couldn’t I just stick with a style? And why did I care so much?

I equated this inability to be consistent with weakness, with ignorance.

I thought I needed to commit to one thing, one style, one persona, in order to be confident in myself—to know myself.¹

Handwriting was just one spoke on the ”know thyself wheel” I invented to help categorize myself and others, alongside wardrobe, hobbies, interests, books, movies, music, and the like. The things that (in my youthful naïveté) I thought make you, YOU.

I still use pen and paper every day—for thoughts, to-do lists, random doodles, and notes.² Despite our digital lifestyles, I know plenty of people who still like the tactile satisfaction of writing things out by hand. Screens are convenient, no doubt, but it’s actually nice to take a break and let my eyes rest.

And yet, here we are, where handwriting’s no longer a school requirement, and cursive is practically useless.³ I’m pretty sure it will be dead within the next 1-2 generations if we don’t try and keep it alive.⁴

As I was thinking about rebranding as Blob, I dug deep to uncover what was truly meaningful to me. I wanted to continue a digital writing practice, but how could I combine my love of all things Internet with the lost art of print, handwritten notes, and zines?

Big Tech (and this includes Substack) flattens our personalities to logos, hex codes, (limited) font choices, and screen constraints. We all know we’re bigger and more vibrant than the pixels we’re reduced to on a digital screen. Of course, we’ve got video and podcasts, and I sure do love an audiobook and a good audio read here on the ‘stack. But, the fluidity of our wandering minds and the imperfect curves of letters on a page capture the rawness of being human—encapsulating both the present moment and traces of our past.⁵

I started drawing Blob logos in a notebook, but was inspired on vacation to get out my iPhone and quickly sketch them in Messages, texting myself all sorts of blobby shapes. It felt personal, and I felt more connected to myself in a way I hadn’t in a long time. By simply by removing the keyboard “middleman” from my conversation, I had a more tactile experience.⁶ And I loved it.

How do I do more of this? I thought. And, given how “disconnectedly connected” we all are, how do I use these digital tools to foster more human intimacy online?

I used to read a teen magazine, the name of which I cannot remember (and shockingly couldn’t find in a Google search but it was probably Seventeen) in which the cover star would handwrite their answers to questions in a regular feature. Being such a sucker for writing, and not having a zillion ways to access these stars like we do now, I would pore over the handwriting again and again. It was more intimate, and made me feel a tiny bit closer to them, despite how inaccessible those stars were before the Internet. The little imperfections, the hasty scrawling, the incomplete sentences, haphazard punctuation... it was all so deeply gratifying.

Eureka!

If I could do Q&As with a creative people and they write (or draw) their responses, I would still be able to share this digitally and—maybe some day—physically. This would remove the cloaking of fonts, while exposing one’s humanity, bringing us just a tiiiiiny bit closer. 🫂

Yes, it’s a big ask of creatives to spend this much time on an interview for this lil newsletter/blog thing, and we’re all too busy and very exhausted, but… could it work?

We are going to find out.

You might not be as obsessed with handwriting as I am, but I hope you’ll find it entertaining, inspiring, heartfelt, and—above all else—more human.

The first one is coming soon—please pass it on and subscribe!

OK folks, I’m gonna need some assistance:

1. I haven’t named this feature yet and so if you have a great suggestion, please put it in the comments!

2. Do you know someone cool I should feature? Please share! 📩 blobzine AT gmail.com

3. Are you obsessed with handwriting, too? I want to know you. Reveal yourselves!

1. I wish someone had told me how multi-faceted I was and that this was a good thing!

2. If you like note-taking, check out

Noted

~ it’s a visual wonderland!

3. According to our advanced tech-driven society, but obvs I do not share this sentiment.

4. I’m an advocate for archiving, both physically and digitally. We should preserve whatever we can for as long as possible.

5. I also feel this way about aging faces, which we are currently Botoxing away!

6. People are craving tactile these days. Print mags are coming back. People are making zines. Buttons are returning to phones and cars. We are getting tangible again, people!!!