why are the kids writing in all lowercase?

There are two types of smartphone users: those who have automatic capitalization (autocaps) turned on and those who don’t. Ask any millennial or gen-Zer, and they’ll likely hold some tribal loyalty to one side of the issue.

For those unfamiliar, “autocaps” is the default setting on a smartphone that capitalizes the first letter in a sentence as well as the pronoun “I” and proper nouns. So, who turns autocaps off and why? The answer likely varies from person to person, but here are my best guesses:

Having “autocaps off” helps separate work and leisure

The simplest reason why some people have auto caps turned off is that it separates professional and casual communications. Many people who have autocaps turned off on their phone do still follow traditional capitalization rules when writing in academic or professional settings. In an age when we are reachable by bosses and professors at all hours of the day via email and phone, the line between work hours and leisure time is increasingly blurred. Turning autocaps off can create a subtle distinction between professional and personal life.

Having autocaps off conveys tone and suggests a set of personality traits

As we all know, it can be hard to convey tone via text, and we sometimes have to use emojis to make our meanings known. By turning auto caps off, people can use capitalization as a means of expression, capitalizing only specific words For Emphasis. Capitalization is a big component of internet humor -- to young people online, capitalizing random letters like tHiS cOnVeYs a mOcKiNg or eXaSpErAtEd tOnE.

Having auto caps off also suggests certain personality traits. People who keep auto caps off are perceived as chill, edgy, artsy, and a bit aloof. Those who keep auto caps on are perceived as “locals,” people who are severe, uncool, and out-of-the-loop.

Having autocaps off signals membership in a community

Having autocaps off is a social marker on “stan Twitter,” a subset of the site where fans communicate about their favorite artists (usually K-Pop stars or other artists popular among gen-Z, such as Billie Eilish). Having autocaps off is also popular in the queer community and in the art world.

Where did this come from?

Some have linked the anti-capitalization trend to the feminist movement, citing writer and activist bell hooks’ choice to spell her name in all lowercase. In my opinion, the “autocaps off” trend is probably the inheritance of contemporary poetry stylized in all lowercase (think E.E. Cummings).

This might seem like a strange take from a writing tutor, but I see no problem with the lowercase trend. Writing conventions change -- we don’t capitalize lots of random words like Shakespeare or Jefferson once did, and that’s OK. (Well, most of us don’t.) Sure, writing in all lowercase isn’t “proper grammar." But those rules are made up, and they frequently serve as tools of oppression and exclusion, not tools of communication.

For autocaps haters, writing in all lowercase is a way of making language personal, expressive, and just a touch rebellious. To me, that’s kind of the whole point.