Case closed: Using lowercase letters is cool, get used to it
Lowercase is a mood, not a typo. It’s soft, raw, a little emo — the ultimate vibe. Pop stars are using it, so are big brands.We are so over Title Case
Capital letters were the backbone of Western civilisation. They paraded about at the start of sentences, puffed up proper nouns and gave the vibe of owning the message. Kids learnt A before a. Essays, emails, even birthday cards demanded formality as the norm.
Even Nostradamus couldn’t predict that Gen Z would come along and shake up capitalisation, of all things. Effortless, unbothered lowercase text came in, pushing the big letters out of the chat. Now, capital letters are lucky if they get a cameo in a password.
Some call it a rebellion against arbitrary grammar rules. Some see it as a minimalist aesthetic, others view it as laziness. But really, it seems like the Roman script went to therapy and learnt to let go. Hand your English teacher a hankie so she can have a good cry. And learn to deal with it. Lowercase is about more than refusing to hit the shift key.
Of course, tech has something to do with it. Email got us used to lowercase handles. In chatrooms, ALL CAPS was the equivalent of shouting. Then, in the 2010s with Tumblr, lowercase matched the soft-focus, artistic, emotional vulnerability that the platform stood for. It felt more casual, more personal, more real – perfect for a generation that sought authenticity as the world moved online. Look at the logos for Twitter and Facebook – not an uppercase in sight. Now look at the logos for Bitcoin, AirBnB, Kate Spade, Dyson and Zomato. Taking capitals out makes capitalism look cosy.
Poets of our age – pop musicians – seem to especially love the new style. Billie Eilish’s song titles go lowercase on several albums, echoing her sad whisper vocals. In Ariana Grande’s 2019 song, thank u, next, lowercase gives the sense of being unbothered, detached. In Olivia Rodrigo’s 2021 album, sour, the track listing and social media rollout were all in lowercase. It felt like notes written in the middle of a teenage meltdown.
Capital letters have a job to do. In the absence of spaces, they help to distinguish NowHere from NoWhere. But at a time when more is typed than said, the rules have changed. Hi is try-hard; hi is chill; HI means you’re screaming for attention; hiiiii means you’re ready to cry. aLtErNaTiNG cApS is sarcasm; capitalising only the first word is equivalent to being scolded in a grown-up voice.
But lowercase means soft, quotidian, like a day in pandemic lockdown: ‘baked banana bread. had a small breakdown. watered my plants’.
No one’s died yet from misreading a message in lower case. And most people haven’t even noticed that their world has sandpapered the harsh edges of capitalisation away. As young people send out more emails at work, signing off with ‘best’ and ‘thanks’, the style has already entered the workplace. It’s not a glitch, it’s how Gen-Z copes, how brands flirt and how the internet processes everything. Lowercase didn’t win by being loud – it won by being everywhere. So the next time your phone corrects i to I, feel free to correct it back.
From HT Brunch, May 10, 2025
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