Birthday Cards, Ages 1-5 (#1)

INTRODUCTION:

1. Genre/Subgenre:  Cards meant for children ages 1-5, pre-reading age.
2. Interest: These kids can’t read. Why the hell do we feel the need to give them useless bits of paper with witty phrases on them if they’re not going to understand them? Half of them use a pun based on the number they’ve aged up to, and I know that when I was that age, I was too dumb to understand what a pun was, let alone why it’d be funny.
3. Corpus: Birthday cards, Hallmark cards, off-brand cards in a similarly cartoonish style. Pop-up cards, singing cards and sticker cards are exceptions in this genre, but their presence does show that the card business is trying to expand.
4. Examples:

 

• EXHIBIT A – “Cheshire Fox”

[1] 2 year old, ambiguous gender

[2] Animal design, large graphic print

[3] Rhyme scheme

• EXHIBIT B – “Go Ask Alice”

[1] 1 year old, feminine stereotype

[2] Animal design, small letters, hard to read font, “aesthetic” color scheme

[3] Religious imagery within the implications of “blessed” (subtle marketing?); no rhyme or pun

• EXHIBIT C – “Comic Sans Monkeys”

[1] 2 year old, ambiguous gender

[2] Animal design, clear formatting, HORRIBLE COLORSS ITS PAINFUL

[3] Rhymes, oddly placed all-caps, overly enthusiastic

• EXHIBIT D – “Capitalism”

[1] 2 year old, ambiguous gender

[2] Famous cartoon mascot, soothing color scheme, professionally produced, yet hard-to-read text?

[3] Rhyme scheme, waaaay too long to keep any 2 year old’s attention

• EXHIBIT E – “Soft Capitalism”

[1] 1 year old, ambiguous gender

[2] Famous cartoon mascot, pastel colors, aesthetic in a way, definitely screams something that would be for a baby. However, the text is UNREADABLY LIGHT, and there are like 4 fonts here

[3] Rhyme scheme, but it’s kind of hard to read so I’m sorry

 

CONTEXT:

1. Setting: So imagine you just got a FaceBook alert that says your 2-year-old baby cousin is about to turn 3 soon. Man, how time flies. You could have sworn you’d just seen pictures of them in the hospital when they were born! They’re your aunt’s kid’s child’s brother-in-law’s half something or other’s offspring. Needless to say, you know nothing about this kid. But you’re pretty sure that your aunt’s kid’s child’s brother-in-law’s half-something or other would be furious if you didn’t send them something as a reminder you know they exist, because that’s just how your aunt’s kid’s child’s brother-in-law’s half-something or other is. So, what to do? You get them a card, of course!
   These things appear in the wild at your local drug stores, Walmarts, holiday shoppes… Sometimes they’re mixed in with certain other holidays, but it’s rare. It’s not uncommon to give and receive them; it’s a customary action that America takes part in every time some person’s aunt’s kid’s child’s brother-in-law’s half-something or other’s offspring’s birthday comes around.
2. Subject: Typically, they feature an animal or a mascot. Disney in particular has a strangle hold on this kind of market, which isn’t surprising. Usually there’s a rhyme scheme, an incredibly groan-worthy pun, or just a small blurb about loving the receiver. However, who exactly is that receiver? Is it the parent or the child? What is assumed of the “giver” is that they’re getting the card for the child. However, in this particular subgenre of birthday cards, the receiver is literally illiterate. While there’s some kind of sentiment there, it’s weird that adults decide to give kids something that is useless to them – a piece of paper – in order to show them their affection.
3. Writers: This is a tricky one, but I’ve found a few articles. Apparently poetry writers get hired by Hallmark’s home base in Kansas and they just spend the day trying things out. However, it apparently has a lot more to do with market appeal and cultural awareness than it does silly little words. In that sense, one could assume the writers are slightly cynical, no matter how empathetic they come across as being.
4. Readers: The readers of said genre are those giving and receiving the cards. The giver has to access the card and purchase it. The reader plays no part in this deal, unlike with presents and gifts. It is my hypothesis that a card potentially says more about the giver than the receiver; they are the ones who picked it out and found value in the words written. It’s rare to hear someone say they’d read birthday cards for fun. And, in this particular case, the “target audience” can’t even read the cards themselves.
5. Purpose: This is all about capital. America is built on it, it’s structured on it, and that’s all I’m gonna say about that. It’s a gesture at best. Some people are incredibly emotional when their children receive birthday cards, but rarely, if ever, do the children feel the same way. They have no use for a card with pretty pictures on it. The purpose they fulfill, in my eyes, is one between the giver and the parent of the receiver. It’s a gift from one person who has said, “I would like you to read what I have to say about your child,” to another person who says, “I think that these words mean something about the thing I created.” It’s a selfish act on both sides, giving heightened value to print on paper. This is also true for all other forms of written media, but in this particular case, the audience that it is directed towards and referenced specifically to – as in, “I hope you have a good birthday!” written in black and white, addressed to the reader – does not care and does not have the ability to care about what is written there. These cards in and of themselves are a product of assumptions and selfishness, however well-meaning it may be.