Just post it
Old-fashioned postcards are likely to linger like the wine stain on the tablecloth of the past.
It’s no longer considered odd when posting photos of trips in exotic places — please note the Antarctic penguins at the background. Still, this bit of experience sharing (wish you were here) had been a travel tradition, though aimed at a much smaller group. One lamented though hardly noticed casualty of the travel culture of sharing is the decline of the postcard. This analog approach of buying a photo and then putting a short message on the back seems almost quaint now with the digital revolution.
Foreign trips, when over 10% of the population now live and work abroad with their families visiting them at least yearly, have become almost too ordinary to still merit a special correspondence.
Now, a phone is able to take selfies with the subject posing in front of some landmark to document a trip. These digital images are quickly uploaded in social media as a blast and sent to multiple recipients simultaneously. If wi-fi is available and free, the digital postcard with its hurried greeting is sent out with one push of a button.
And yet this e-greeting is too easily and conveniently sent to a large number of “friends” without even the cost of a stamp. Can the emotion of “I-can’t-believe-I’m-here” awe so earnestly expressed in a posting shared with those only marginally connected to the sender be as warmly received? Can the photos of the Eiffel Tower in the background with the “you should see how tall it is” sentiment come across as a case of simple bragging?
The old postcards are able to present artful photographs of Angkor Wat at sunset, Chartres Cathedral at dawn, or the Alaskan icebergs against a blue sky without the distraction of the sender’s image. Such artful renditions are trumped by even amateurish selfie shots of the subjects in front of the hazy attraction — is that the Notre Dame behind you?
Postcards have their limitations apart from the bother of finding and sending them. The space in the back of the scenic photo of Bratislava’s rehabilitated square after stamps and address cannot accommodate the recipe for Croque Monsieur that was served at a nearby cafe. It just allows a quick hello and a throwaway line — it’s great to listen to Bach from a string quartet inside this baroque church. The message can be summarized in two words (I’m here) and for the verbose, four words. (I’m here. You’re not.) Still, this throwback allows another hobby to thrive. This postcard greeting is sure to be the philatelist’s delight.
A postcard requires no response. No one writes back to a card sender in his temporary location with a gushing letter of appreciation saying how moved she was by the description of the famous bazaar in Istanbul. The postcard is hurriedly written with the understanding that the writer will be leaving right after mailing his greeting. This obfuscation of the source identified only as a nickname “Dan” also serves as protection from local authorities who may find offense at nasty comments on their city’s lack of latrines or the chaotic traffic.
What the digital culture offers, which the analogue postcard cannot possibly replicate, is conversation. When the tweet or posting announces a travel event (we are here in a bar just at the foot of the Parthenon, sipping white wine) the followers can react instantly if they care to — Whoa, Dude: that crimson pajama top you’re donning really goes well with the white wine.
But as in all memories (too many of them), old ones are eventually deleted or sent to the cloud. While the sentimental person can go through shoeboxes of old photos actually printed on paper or browse through postcards in the attic, the digital browser is likely to have switched to a newer gadget leaving the old baggage behind.
The ephemeral nature of digital records does not help future historians who troll through letters and postcards of the past, establishing both the emotion of the subject and his relationship to the recipient of a correspondence. Digital exchanges no matter how colorful get dumped into a black hole — you always f***-up my Christmas.
Still, digital transience allows traumas of painful partings (thanks for the memories) to be conveniently deleted, making it easier to move on.
Old-fashioned postcards are likely to linger like the wine stain on the tablecloth of the past, which too eventually fades. Even photos of happier times may fail to jog the memory — what was her name again?