A mechanism or tactic · 1920 · Fan mail
The fan mail department
A physical object that had to be opened, a volume small enough for one person to hold, and a reply that was an exception. Clara Bow, Shirley Temple, Judy Garland, all had staff whose job was correspondence. Some of it came back.
The relationship before the technology that supposedly caused it. What the mail got right is rhythm and scarcity: it arrived, it was opened, sometimes it was answered. What the internet removed was the reply and the rhythm, not the feeling. Every 'the internet invented parasocial relationships' argument collapses here.
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