zlacker

You mention the technical aspect (readability) and others have suggested the aesthetic, but you could also look at it as a form of rhetoric. I'm not sure it's really effective because it sort of grates on the ear for anyone over 35, but maybe there's a point in distinguishing itself from AI sloptext.

Incidentally, millenials also used the "no caps" style but mainly for "marginalia" (at most paragraph-length notes, observations), while for older generations it was almost always associated with a modernist aesthetic and thus appeared primarily in functional or environmental text (restaurant menus, signage, your business card, bloomingdales, etc.). It may be interesting to note that the inverse ALL CAPS style conveyed modernity in the last tech revolution (the evolution of the Microsoft logo, for example).

>>defgen+(OP)
> but maybe there's a point in distinguishing itself from AI sloptext

Surprisingly, I have seen lower case AI slop - like anything else, can be prompted and made to happen!

>>defgen+(OP)
nobody shouts in lowercase—it whispers its way into being, a small insurgency against The Proper Way To Speak ; )

-- inspired by e.e. cummings!

>>defgen+(OP)
I was using all lowercase as my default for internet comments (and personal journal entries) for at least a solid decade, starting from some point in the 90s. I saw it as a way to take a step back from being pretentious.

I eventually ran into so much resistance and hate about it that I decided conforming to writing in a way that people aren't actively hostile to was a better approach to communicating my thoughts than getting hung up on an aesthetic choice.

Having started out as a counterculture type, that will always be in my blood, but I've relearned this lesson over and over again in many situations-- it's usually better to focus on clear communication and getting things done unless your non-standard format is a critical part of whatever message you're trying to send at the moment.

>>eggy+D7
> Additionally, The Chicago Manual of Style, which prescribes favoring non-standard capitalization of names in accordance with the bearer's strongly stated preference, notes "E. E. Cummings can be safely capitalized; it was one of his publishers, not he himself, who lowercased his name."[65]

>>slfnfl+V9
I'm a big fan of counter culture and so on, but generally the point of text is to be read and using all lower case just makes it harder for all your readers, which seems like the worst form of arrogance.

>>eggy+D7
But then Clawd gets capitalized...

>>defgen+(OP)
> [No-caps text] sort of grates on the ear for anyone over 35 [...] Incidentally, millenials also used the "no caps" style but mainly for "marginalia" (at most paragraph-length notes, observations)

I (a millenial) carried over the no-caps style from IRC (where IME it was and remains nearly universal) to ICQ to $CURRENT_IM_NETWORK, so for me TFA reads like a chat log (except I guess for the period at the end of each paragraph, that shouldn’t be there). Funnily enough, people older than me who started IMing later than me don’t usually follow this style—I suspect automatic capitalization on mobile phones is to blame.