An Open Letter to Whiteboards
Dear Whiteboards,
Do you remember when you were younger and one day at school you had a chalkboard in your classroom and then what felt like just a few days later (because trying to understand time when you are a kid is bananas) the school was filled with shiny new whiteboards? You know what I mean? Although I guess those of you born in the current century probably have no idea what I’m talking about. That’s depressing… does that mean there’s a whole generation of children who don’t even know what a chalkboard looks like? Or feels like? Or sounds like? I might even go so far as to describe that as horrifying except nothing is as horrifying as the chill that runs down your back when a piece of chalk catches and breaks on the board and you can feel the screeching noise all the way to your toes. There are children who may never know that particular brand of torture.
Okay, yes I’m exaggerating. Everyone knows about chalkboards but nowadays a chalkboard seems like a relic of the past or an item some hipster picked up at a flea market “downtown” and showed to his friend who works at Anthropologie and next thing you know chalkboards are all the rage (that’s how trends work, right?) but no one is actually using them, just turning them into tables or making signs outside vegan restaurants with clever daily affirmations.
That’s cool. Chalkboards can chill outside of cool bars in Brooklyn with names like “Seed Water” or “Pillar and Earth” or “Rick’s” or “Another Effortlessly Simple Name for a Cool Restaurant” all day for all I care. I’m way more into whiteboards. Whiteboards are my jam.
Whiteboards are great for the obvious reasons, mostly in that they are like way easier and more efficient and shinier and better for a lot of writing on them. Sure, they can look stark in an empty room, or add to clutter. And they’re not necessarily the most well-designed functional item that is also decorative and I mean, yeah, duh I’m a well-educated young hipster urbanite between the ages of 18 to 34: of course I think a chalkboard is more aesthetically pleasing! But when it comes down to efficiency – then the whiteboard is where it’s at.
And like chalkboard paint, you can make the walls of your office a whiteboard with that special whiteboard paint and then you can just write all over your walls which is super fun and/or convenient depending on if you are a small child or an adult who writes on whiteboards a lot of the time or somewhere in between.
Also I’m one of those people who weirdly loves the smell of gasoline, so yeah, it doesn’t hurt that those dry erase markers make my olfactory glands go gaga.
Best Regards,
Stamos
Still from The Big Bang Theory via CBS