Guess what… the people who used AIM in 1999 are now middle aged…
Just looked at the algorithmic feed on Twitter to makes sure trends haven't shifted overnight, and zero people in that sample of hundreds of tweets used all lower case in the tweets. Not in science. Not in AI. Not in maths or politics or entertainment or media.
Sam is trying to bE dIFFERENT. He isn't adopting a norm but instead he's trying to make one. It looks ridiculous.
That is the professional Twitter class and is not at all representative of the norm. Click through to the replies. Sentence case is probably in the vast minority.
I promise you that it is neither a fad nor started with the AI bro.
Half true. In SMS it was just easier, but in IM it mostly was a thing because the IM client's message boundaries acted as markers for beginning/end of sentence, making the formatting unnecessary. That's why using correct capitalization and periods for single sentences came to be associated with a more formal/serious tone, it was unnecessary so including it meant you wanted to emphasize it.
Even back then we'd use regular formatting outside of IM or when sending multiple sentences in a single message.
> He's adopting the native culture rather than setting a trend.
If this was the intent, it's really coming off as that "Hello, fellow kids" meme, rather than genuine.
Maybe he should consider there are different registers of language, and code-switching is a thing. This now increasingly applies to written language, not just spoken language.
Writing this way in structured, formal discourse would be equivalent to a CEO using internet memes and trendy slang in board meetings.
Sam still uses capitalization in all of his essays, as do most people (including young people). In essays, like this one, it's distracting without it. I predict in 10 years the vast majority of people will all-lowercase on places like Twitter but almost no one will do it for essays.