Comment by tdeck
2 days ago
People always criticize Hallmark but it was never my understanding that the pre-written sentiment in those cards in any way obviated the need to write your own message. In fact, apart from generic Christmas cards you might get from insurers, and "thank you" cards from charities, I can't think of a time I've gotten such a card without a personal message written in it.
Are people really buying the "sorry for your loss" cards, just signing under the prewritten text, and sending them to someone?
There's a spectrum, including people who write almost nothing but choose really nice and non standard cards that properly convey they took time and effort find that specific one, and the people who use generic cards with 1500 words written on every free space they could find on the card.
My main gripe with cards with pre-written message is they deprive from the choice to write simple and obvious things. If your card already says "Happy Birthday" it will just be that much lazier for you to only write that on the dedicated space for a personal message.
In a way, a blank card with only these word would probably work better, and I feel people too often overlook that choice and go the Hallmark way instead because it feels like the default. Or plain bail out of the interaction because it just become a hurdle to them as they don't find anything else to say.
If I'm being honest with myself, the "Happy Birthday" pre-written text forces me to choose something else to write as my personal message.
Yeah, it's frustrating in the moment that the exact sentiment I want to express (have a happy birthday) is already taken and repeating it seems lazy, but when I think about it: it's lazy to just express such a generic sentiment anyway.
Asking them to think on the year, and to look ahead, maybe reminding them of some things they've done and achieved is not only nicer to receive, it's nicer to write too.
I don't hate Hallmark for this (though I do in the moment that I'm confronted with this random creative challenge).
Lois C.K says this about George Carlin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R37zkizucPU
> So I was doing it at a Chinese restaurant called Kowloon in Boston, it’s August, Massachusetts, and I was sitting in my car after the show just feeling like, “This was all a big mistake, I’m not good enough, and I felt like my jokes were a trap, and I listened to a CD of George talking about comedy and workshopping it and talking about it seriously, and the thing that blew me away about this fellow was he kept putting out—specials, every year there’d be a new George Carlin special, a new George Carlin album, they just kept coming, and each one was deeper than the next, and I just thought, how can he do that? And it made me literally cry that I could never do that. I was telling the same jokes for fifteen years, so I’m listening and they asked him, “How do you do all this material?” And I hear him and he says, “I just decided every year I’d be working on that year’s special, and I do the special and then I just chuck out the material and then I start with nothing.” And I thought, “That’s crazy. How do you throw away. It took me fifteen years to build this shitty hour. If I throw it away, I’ve got nothing.”
> But he gave me the courage to try, but also I was desperate, what the fuck else was I going to do? This idea that you throw everything away and you start over again. And I thought, “Well, okay, when you’re done telling jokes about airplanes and dogs, and you throw those away, what have you got left?” You can only dig deeper, you can start talking about your feelings and who you are and then you do those jokes and they’re gone. You’ve gotta dig deeper, so you start thinking about your fears and your nightmares, and doing jokes about that, and then they’re gone. [and so on].
My point is, it forces you to dig a bit deeper.
This is of course a great point.
I have the feeling we're not that far apart on principle, as I see the starting from a blank state as a nice default that will often lead to nice things.
That's kinda why I enjoy plain non-descript cards even if people then write platitudes on them. It's still their own platitudes that resonate with them. Also people that can dig deeper tend to feel the pressure to so anyway in my experience, and people who stay very terse often couldn't really go beyond.
The most interesting instance of this is remote family that are only easily accessible by message, and we see some sending walls of greetings, while others will write a full email with a photo and 10 words top, their name included.
If my in-laws are any indication, yes.
15 years and I’ve only ever had “Dear bobnamob, <pre printed seasonal or birthday pleasantry> Love, <in-law x> & <in-law y>”
Can I recommend that you do the same to them except write your handwritten parts on the back of the card.