lowercase.

005: on knowing what a f*cking poetic license is

I spent my life trying to correct the mistakes I made in my eagerness to make the right choices. While trying to correct a mistake, I would make another. I'm an innocent culprit.

- Clarice Lispector

1.

it’s currently six forty-five a.m and i’m in college right now (yes,already), and i’m thinking about this specific academic environment. and i’m also thinking, as a writer, about how tiring it is to be a part of it. everything that you write with your whole heart will be, eventually, rewritten. and rewritten. and re-rewritten based solely on your mistakes. your thoughts and your morals and your life values will be crossed with a red line to fit a grammatical definition that you didn’t create. you will write in a language that isn’t your own. you’ll slowly disappear until you open your eyes and find out that you’re the only one left in your advanced english studies class.

you wake up early to study the authors that probably despised what you are and what you represent and you’re expected to continuously bring your professors essays with a posh language that is completely outdated and incredibly elitist every single week. and as someone who’s currently sick and tired of having to think about all of that and go into a spiral, let me assure you that you should write however you want on social media. the way we write on our newsletters, blogs and instagram captions is a sign of culture, and our culture is constantly changing by the second. matter of fact, it might even change right now, while i’m writing this to you.

one of the topics i love to talk about the most is writers who didn’t necessarily follow the “right language grammar norms” because of factors as lack of formal education due to poverty or poetic licenses (yes, this exists), and this topic always makes me realize that even if i graduate college fully comprehending the grammar norms, i still have the poetic license to write however i want because i’m not obligated to do anything like that when i’m writing for the internet.

this newsletter is an extension of myself and, if anything, i write in lowercase and i use huge blocks of text to get closer to you, in a way. this brings us closer together and doesn’t create an abyss like the one i currently see at my college campus. i find the proper norm to be rather segregational sometimes (when used in a context that isn’t totally necessary). it feels like a cold empty room that came fresh out of “Severance”.

no one’s talking about lowercase affecting your career in the future like a monster under your bed, the works i (and my fellow writer friends) write for magazines or newspapers are *completely* different. this is a substack blog. it’s not that deep.

there’s a huge variety of culture out there, and you can learn so much from unexpected events and sources. just remember that many future lawyers and doctors are learning new words through rap music. i know i did 🫶🏻 (thank you Kendrick Lamar for teaching the kids what the word ‘conniving’ means).

you can know thou, you can use thou, you will use thou, actually, in a few occasions. but if you don’t want to use it on the internet, IT’S OK!!!!!!!!!!! if you don’t feel like it, you don’t have to. if your work is understandable and it doesn’t feel like a mistake, take your poetic licenses on social media, babe! just remember to know thou ( and uppercase) and it’s perspective, too. this is all about finding the right fit but also knowing that you will have to use the norm in places that require it. it is what it is.

if you feel like

a colonizer language

that probably isn’t your first language

& it’s norms

isn’t really for you

choose

lowercase

on the internet

I shall not judge you it’s ok :)

just write and use your poetic license wisely! this is about sharing (at least this newsletter is)

much love (& see u next week - i promise),

AMANDA

also unpretentiously leaving my Buy Me A Coffee link bcs why not