Lowercase Writing: From 1960s Computing to Contemporary Digital Culture
The history of using all lowercase letters is intricate. Internet linguist Adam Aleksic highlights that while this trend has become popular among young women on Tumblr, prominent online communities typically refrain from using standard punctuation. This practice traces back to 1963 with the teletype model 33, which only allowed uppercase letters. Ken Thompson, one of Unix's co-creators, mentioned that lowercase emerged from the TTY model 33. Early programming languages such as FORTRAN and Lisp predominantly featured uppercase due to character restrictions. In 1969, Unix introduced naming styles like snake_case. By 1979, uppercase had begun to be interpreted as SHOUTING. AOL's alteration to Usenet access in 1993 further diminished lowercase usage. Nowadays, lowercase often conveys status or antiestablishment sentiments, sparking ongoing discussions about its implications in digital culture.
Key facts
- The teletype model 33, which debuted in 1963, was a popular terminal that supported only uppercase characters.
- Ken Thompson, 83, co-created Unix and noted that lowercase started with single-case TTY model 33.
- Early programming languages like FORTRAN, Pascal, and Lisp were written exclusively in uppercase due to terminal limitations.
- Unix, developed in 1969 by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Douglas McIlroy, and Bob Morris, supported two cases and established naming conventions.
- The Jargon File consecrated uppercase as SHOUTING by the time Usenet was created in 1979.
- In September 1993, AOL made Usenet access a sign-on service, leading to an influx of users who used proper capitalization.
- Gong.io analyzed over 85 million cold emails and found lowercase subject lines get twice as many opens.
- Jack Dorsey announced layoffs of 40 percent of staff in an all-lowercase tweet in February.
- Rayne Fisher-Quann, who writes the all-lowercase blog Internet Princess, has recently switched to proper capitalization.
Entities
Artists
- Rayne Fisher-Quann
- Becky Campos
- Rupi Kaur
- Adam Aleksic
- Ken Thompson
- Dennis Ritchie
- Douglas McIlroy
- Bob Morris
- Gretchen McCulloch
- Jack Dorsey
- Michelle Liang
- Jeffrey Epstein
- Bell Hooks
- E. E. Cummings
- Sam Kriss
- Charli XCX
Institutions
- Internet Princess
- JustGirlyThings
- Tumblr
- 4chan
- Bell Labs
- Unix
- AOL
- Usenet
- IRC
- World Wide Web
- Gong.io
- Substack
- Wired
Locations
- Brooklyn
- United States
- SoHo
- New York City
- Punjab
- India