ShmoopTube

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[Coop and Dino singing]

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Methods of human communication have changed a bunch over the years, from making cave paintings… [Person uses hands to paint an animal]

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…to…Snapchatting cave paintings...

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But one form of communication that's still going strong?

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Carrier pigeons! [A pigeon flys into a window]

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…wait.

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No one uses those anymore?

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That explains why our grandma never answers our Christmas cards… [Pigeons flying around Grandma's house]

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Anyway, a form that's actually still going strong is the art of writing letters!

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Before telephones, and way before the Internet, if you wanted to get in touch with someone,

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your options were pretty limited.

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You could either meet them in person… [Man and woman meet in person and pigeon flys past]

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…or write them a letter.

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Yup. That was pretty much it.

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Though if you were feeling lucky, you could yell out your window, and hope your friend

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would hear you… [Man shouts out of window]

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People often wrote their letters in longhand, being very careful about their handwriting.

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Because if you receive a letter that just looks like chicken scratch, the only message

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that gets through is…well… "a chicken scratched this."

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Letters were even sent before the invention of envelopes. [Letter folds]

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To seal a letter, you'd have to fold it, and seal it shut with some hot wax.

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Yeah, licking envelopes seems like the height of technology now, huh?

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There were also lots of conventions when it came to letter writing.

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Entire books were written about the proper way to write letters, with instructions on [Person takes book of how to write letters]

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how to strike just the right tone.

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…so…probably not what you want to read when you're on vacation by the pool. [Man reads book poolside]

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These books offered tips on how to write a letter of congratulations, or a letter of

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apology, or a letter of condolences.

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Because you don't want to take a congratulatory tone if someone just lost a pet.

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You might want to put away the glitter, too…

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Of course, letter writing wasn't a static art, and it adapted to technological changes.

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The introduction of the typewriter made the hand-written letter super rare… [Man using a typewriter]

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…and with the rise of Internet, a lot of would-be letters ended up as emails.

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Which definitely did not make envelope manufacturers happy.

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By now, the letter has become a bit of an endangered species.

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According to the U.S. Post Office, the average household gets just one written letter every

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two months.

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Which we think makes them special! [Old man grabbing post from mailbox]

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Think of how much time and effort someone put into that letter!

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We'd sure appreciate finding one of these endangered species in our mailbox…

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Definitely more than we'd appreciate finding an endangered tiger… [Tiger appears from mail box and old man falls over]

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