Reading between the lines of an email inbox

Paying homage to the artifacts of everyday life

One of my fantasy dimensions is this: A person’s email inbox is a fun place to be. I have an email inbox. You have an email inbox. We both have usernames like SoccerGirl97 or AHCoffeeQueen; neither of us play soccer or drink coffee or are girls at all. We message and we status and we create who we are. My keyboard has run off its leash when Seventeen Magazine bursts through my screen. Amanda Bynes and 4 Moves to Awesome Legs. We have legs? Oh yes! We are girls, and we drink coffee and play soccer and have legs.¹ 

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The Email Inbox

Sometime before January 7, 1997, my mom made her first email account. We know this because she spent her maternity leave on AOL’s collectibles boards, exchanging beanie babies for money orders from strangers online.² Her AOL handle started with an “a” so that her contact would sort to the top of everyone’s address books. My dad took the opposite approach. His email started with a “z” so that no one would find him online ever.³ 

I have a tendency to romanticize the 90s indie tech scene, but there is definitely truth to the sentiment that email has lost its imagination in the past decade. Even in 2015, I was asked on a date via email. Inboxes were personal spaces! Now, my email has been held hostage by companies and regulations. Verify your account! Was this you? New activity on your profile. Venmo transactions are worse; I get three emails for every transaction, and users can’t disable those. The personal correspondence that I still conduct via email is drowned out by automated responses to every move I make online.

Reclaiming my email as a private space is a complicated goal though. Maybe I shouldn’t exchange unfettered access to my inbox for 10% off a $300 cycling kit, but I do need (in a modern, American sense) a lot of the services that require my email. Increasing the amount of Fun things in my inbox is no solution either. Yes, I watched The Good Place, and yes, I know that hoarding emails is bad for the environment. Sending and storing emails uses more energy than we realize, and most of that energy is still sourced from fossil fuels. So what is there to do?

I achieved inbox zero.

Actually, I achieved inbox seven. I’m currently sitting at inbox 21. I spent the better part of last week sifting through my over 3,000 emails,⁴ sorting them into folders or sending them to the trash. The subject lines merged into their own stories as I clicked, scrolled, dragged, and dropped my way through my own personal history.

Thank you for your application / Welcome to the Grizzlies Family / Longform Article for Your Reading List / Fwd: Zoom Invite / ColourPop® Order Confirmation #19023918 / Please validate your Letterboxd account / VIBE CHECK: FREE TO DELETE AND IGNORE / Epic Design Pads Custom Order / Michaela Oakland Vibrator Giveaway / Alexis Smith invited you on their Chicago, IL trip / Updated invitation: Legends of the Bad Bitches Presents: The City We Became / Teaching Books

Each email is an artifact to that exact moment in my life.  Like the sludge that slugs leave behind, these are remnants of my emotional responses as I moved throughout the world.

I’m particularly drawn to an exchange with an eye insurance claims representative who I was being lightly argumentative with. The subtext of that interaction is screaming at me. 

Email inboxes are time capsules. I have a newfound fondness for the automated messages that flood my Gmail. Although they read as being cold and impersonal, they were all triggered by very human actions that are worth commemorating. 

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Five artifacts you can create with your friends

Artifacts are revealing partially because they emerge from life as you live it. However, there are some habits you can develop to 🦾 optimize 🦾 artifact generation. 

1. Info-graphics: The earnestness and effort required for these speak volumes. Info-graphics say, “This random event is important enough to me to memorialize with a Canva file that no one outside of this group chat will ever see.”

2. Checks: In 2021, Kendall County resident John Paul Gairhan mailed me a physical check to pay for his portion of our Memphis Grizzlies ticket package. I still have that check to this day. I am considering getting it framed. 

3. Party invitations: Here’s an easy one. You’re throwing a party? Having a gathering? Forcing your friends to come over for a round of charades? Send them a proper invitation in the mail. You can find blank invites at most thrift stores for under a dollar. 

4. Gifts: This is a potent and lawless category. Here are some examples that I’m fond of.

   • My godmother got me a livelaughlove style mug with my name printed all over it. The thought of her custom ordering this gift tickles me every time I think of it. What search terms do you use to end up on that specific corner of Etsy?

   • Kendall County resident Currie McKinley spent weeks making a double-sided hand-shaped pillow for a friend’s birthday. This description does not do the gift justice, so please refer to the image above. 

   • My sister (Libra) bought me (Capricorn) a Libra themed candle for Christmas. That was so Libra of her.

5. Siri transcriptions: One time, I went to my friends’ apartment to talk shit and watercolor some party invitations. The talking shit was unintentionally documented because he was running a text-to-speech the entire time. 

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One final thought

Fulfillment is driven by creation, not consumption. Make more things!

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Thank you for being here,

Kendall

1. Jenny Slate opens the first chapter of her book Little Weirds with the phrase, “One of my fantasy dimensions is.”

2. This is the first time I've told a story about my mom and thought, "She's just like me fr."

3. This is one of many times I've told a story about my dad and thought, "He's just like me fr."

4. This is not a lot of emails. I have always been one for digital cleanliness. Even in the heyday of my shitposting, I would delete things as fast as I posted them.