Another Book!

Posted by: dkoupf on: May 14, 2009

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Another book has come out of a successful (pseudo scrap writing) website:

Postcards From Yo Momma is sort of a scrap writing website, neglected  by me until now because what it contains is not exactly scrap writing. Subtitled “A repository of modern day maternal correspondence,” the site solicits goofy, odd, embarrassing, passive-aggressive, and otherwise humorous emails from moms to their children. The emails are reprinted exactly, like so:

This is paperless scrap writing. Thus, I guess one could say that it epitomizes scrap writing in the digital age.

But surely moms leave ridiculous, hilarious, and web-worthy handwritten notes as well — I know my mom does. Moms unfamiliar with the Internet and its potential for awkward correspondence could also contribute to this site. Why the interest in only one materiality? In the video posted above, one creator of the website describes how communication between mothers and their children has changed with the popularization of the Internet, which allows for almost constant communication between familial units. Still, I think this project would be enhanced by the addition of handwritten scraps — at the very least, it would clarify the title of the site, which doesn’t make a lot of sense as is:  these aren’t postcards from mommas; they’re emails from mommas. And though the website’s about page alludes to the invention of its title, it doesn’t explain why it works:  the creators write, “We mulled over a few different names, and then Jessica suggested Postcards From Yo Momma. And thus a website, and a phenomenon, was born.” The title is catchy but not necessarily accurate.

Anyway, back to the book. As I’ve suggested before, many website-inspired books seem to function mainly as gift books or coffee table books, and the creators, Jessica Grose and Doree Shafrir, make it clear that their book, Love, Mom:  Poignant, Goofy, Brilliant Messages from Home, serves as the perfect gift to enjoy with one’s mother. It was even published shortly before Mother’s Day, and I almost wish I’d known about it then so that I could have bought it for my mom. While she’s become quite adept at surfing the Internet, she always prefers paper-page to web-page, and I think she’d get a real kick out of some of these messages.

The book contains 200 never-before-seen emails, so the project of designing the book didn’t entail choosing from the submissions already featured on the website; rather, it entailed choosing content not available elsewhere. Thus, the book exists somewhat independently from the website, offering content that the website does not provide. That’s something of a gimmick — you can’t see these postcards from yo momma anywhere else — but it also suggests, once again, that books and websites are different and separate media:  the book offers something that the website does not, and the website offers something that the book does not. In fact, in the above video, Grose and Shafrif share their thoughts regarding what the book format would enable them to do that the website would not. They note that for the book, rather than merely reproducing submissions, they also generated some of their own content, which included, for example, rules for moms endeavoring to correspond with their children. Thus, the website operates more as an archive, collecting and disseminating examples, while the book is a more appropriate venue for commentary, analysis, and other meta components.

Another issue altogether:  “book trailers.”

A post for another day:  the people behind scrap writing websites. Postcards From Yo Momma includes interesting background information about Grose and Shafrif, two young writers who have worked for major print and online publications.

Tags: books, creators, email, gift book, materiality, medium, postcards from yo momma, pseudo scrap writing, technology, websites