Like most Gen X-ers, 51-year-old Angelina Jolie likely had to study penmanship in elementary school. (As a fellow Gen X-er, I can attest that this particular class often lowered my grade point average.) But now that many schools place less emphasis on cursive, younger generations might struggle not only to write it, but to read it, too.
A recent post on the How Everything Works Instagram page shared a thank-you note reportedly written by Jolie for hotel staff. As the note goes viral, many have weighed in, calling it mostly illegible. This is causing quite a stir between generations, with some blaming a lack of education on this subject as the culprit.
A ‘thank you’ note became a puzzle
The original poster added, for context, “Angelina Jolie left a handwritten thank you note for the staff after staying at a luxury hotel, but the internet quickly became more interested in trying to read it. Her distinctive cursive proved so difficult to decipher that people began sharing their guesses about what the note actually said, turning a simple message into an unexpected online puzzle. Some words were easier to make out than others, but the handwriting became the main attraction, with fans collectively trying to decode the entire note. What started as a thoughtful gesture from Jolie ended up becoming a viral guessing game over her handwriting.”
Many commenters tried to transcribe the letter, which appears to have first been shared back in October, 2023. One commenter immediately notes how difficult it might be for Gen Z to read it. She first shares her take on what the note says. “‘Thank you for a restful stay at your beautiful resort. The ‘Maria’ crew had a lovely time here. With love, Angelina Jolie’ — With some context and if you know cursive, you can make most of it out. I don’t think any GenZ’s would know what this said.”
Others suggested it was some kind of medical professional “script.” This Instagrammer explains, in part, ” This is NOT script. It’s just her sloppy ‘style’ of writing. Yes. I’m a nurse.”
A Millennial weighed in as well, joking, “That’s definitely written in Sanskrit cause it can’t be English. I am a millennial who learned cursive growing up.”
A lost art for Gen Z
To that point, in an article for The Atlantic titled “Gen Z Never Learned to Read Cursive,” professor and former president of Harvard University Drew Gilpin Faust explains that this was a decision made at the federal level. “In 2010, cursive was omitted from the new national Common Core standards for K–12 education.”
Faust adds a personal anecdote. “The students in my class, and their peers, were then somewhere in elementary school. Handwriting instruction had already been declining as laptops and tablets and lessons in ‘keyboarding’ assumed an ever more prominent place in the classroom. Most of my students remembered getting no more than a year or so of somewhat desultory cursive training, which was often pushed aside by a growing emphasis on ‘teaching to the test.. Now in college, they represent the vanguard of a cursiveless world.”
‘The tyranny of relevance’
She shares how this has caused a bit of an uproar among educators. “Defenders of script argued variously that knowledge of cursive was ‘a basic right,’ a key connection between hand and brain, an essential form of self-discipline, and a fundamental expression of identity. Its disappearance would represent a craven submission to ‘the tyranny of relevance.’ ”
The world has continued to spin, even though many Gen Z-ers can’t write in cursive. But the debate continues.
Unique style
Another person on X defended Jolie’s handwriting. “She doesn’t have ‘poor’ handwriting. She has a unique, personalized handwriting style, deliberately cultivated, which lots of people used to have, and which everyone could mostly ‘decipher’ because of experience and exposure to many styles of handwriting. Not being able to write by hand in cursive is as serious an impediment as jumping straight to walking without going through the crawling stage as a toddler. Your brain needs it.”
And this person takes it far less seriously. “”It’s like we have our own secret code the youngins can’t crack.”
