Snail Mail is Making a Comeback

A little more than a generation ago, email was an exciting novelty.  When the magic words “you’ve got mail” popped on the screen, people raced to their computers to view their messages. Email ended the wait for the postman along with the need to search for paper and stamps to respond.

Now, change is in the air. As Gen Z embraces an “analogue” lifestyle that values slower and more intentional ways of connecting, old-fashioned “snail mail” is making a comeback, Dazed reports.

@natashahmedx i’m starting a mail club!!! i’ll have subscriptions open later this month 🙂 #mailclub #snailmail ♬ orange soda – koteon

A Pause to Reflect
“Physical mail creates a pause,” Atlanta-based artist and graphic design student Jaylan Birdsong tells Dazed. “It asks you to slow down, touch paper, sit with an image, flip through a zine, tape it to a wall, or tuck it into a journal.”

Birdsong said sharing her work on platforms like Instagram often made it feel as though it was “disappearing into a void.” That feeling helped inspire the Perch Post, a mail club that sends a themed monthly envelope filled with her printed creations. What started as 25 fans has grown into a community of 1,600 and counting.

@martina_calvi_ I hope she loves it 💌 #penpalwithme #penpal #snailmail ♬ Arizona Dreaming (Remastered) – Piero Piccioni

Pen Pals Are Back
People are also longing for connection, and pen pal services offer that free of charge, The Guardian reports.

Writer Rachel Symes may be the fairy godmother of modern pen pals. As the pandemic hit in spring, 2020, Symes launched the pen-pal matching service Penpalooza to connect people through physical letters. Today, more than 15,000 people have signed up for the service. 

Symes tells The Guardian that as an extrovert, hearing from people brings her joy. She also believes the positive impact goes both ways. “Know that your letter, no matter its legibility or coherence, will be met with absolute excitement,” she says. “Whatever you put in the mail, even if it does not rise to the great epistolary heights that you someday hope to emulate, it is still a surprise on its way to enliven someone’s dreary mailbox.”

Unlike email, which gets deleted in a flash or lost in an overloaded inbox, letters can be stored in a box tied with ribbon, treasured and reread over and over. When it comes to sparking joy, there is nothing like a letter in the mailbox.