I sent a zine to The Light Phone guys...
and they responded.
*Quick disclaimer: I’m not affiliated with The Light Phone and this post isn’t sponsored in any way. I’m just a happy customer who wanted to tell you the story about my fanmail adventure.
The Light Phone is a minimalist phone company with a phone that’s “designed to be used as little as possible.”
I discovered them a couple of years ago when I had reached such a point of phone addiction and tech burnout that I practically cried with joy when I dropped my smartphone in the bathtub (not on purpose, I promise).
I researched “dumb phones” for a while, trying out a cheap flip phone to keep me connected in the meantime, but it didn’t function properly. Despite the setback, I was living free and gloriously those several sunlit days without a phone. “Message me on Instagram!” I happily told my friends and family, and then I proceeded to access my messages from my laptop when I got around to it, not from the supercomputer in my pocket. I wasn’t always immediately available. I wasn’t tethered to an invisible string. I was in bliss.
I’m exaggerating a little bit there, but that quietness and peace was something I thought I’d lost, and it felt really, really good to have it back for a bit.
I am by nature, I think, an obsessive person. My fingers itch for immediate relief, immediate answers, which a smartphone provides with the touch of the screen. That’s revolutionary and great for a plethora of things (emergencies, looking up directions, watching videos, writing the next great American novel, etc), but I think I missed the moments of critical thinking, of boredom.
I think it was through my research that I stumbled on a dumb-phone review on YouTube. The Light Phone II didn’t look like any other phone on the market. It was soft and grey with an e-ink screen, like an e-reader. Paired with their beautiful design and marketing, I think my attention turned like a deer sniffing a lush patch of grass.
I’m a sucker for good marketing and web design: quiet videos, grainy photography, soft, peaceful, gentle reassurances that a phone can just be a tool, and that’s it. I ordered the Light Phone II and loooooooooved it.
Not to say it didn’t have a few issues. The e-ink screen, which in theory I love, was slow, but it did make me more intentional about my texting, which I didn’t mind. The directions tool didn’t function great, I had to borrow a car GPS that eventually broke, too.
But, I was willing to make a few sacrifices in exchange for my peace. I would look up directions before going places. I’d call more often because I didn’t want to text. I’d usually be out with friends anyway, so I’d use their phone if I had to. I read a lot, and drew a lot. I used that phone for 1-2 years.
When smartphones are the main and easy option (and let’s face it, the world doesn’t really let you NOT have a smartphone: QR codes, ticket apps, restaurant menu access, banking apps, GPS…) I just didn’t know it was possible to have a non-addictive option. My infatuation with this little grey box, I realized, wasn’t really about the phone itself. I got all self-reflective and had to look at my (toxic) relationship to technology and why I was craving a tool and not a scrolling machine.
That’s where this zine was born:
And then, when the Light Phone III was announced with major upgrades and strong hardware, I wanted it like that deer wanting that patch of grass, yum yum.
My sweet husband was actually the one who suggested I send my zine to the folks at Light Phone. At first I was like, “Nonono noooo way. They’re probably too busy to respond, too busy to care. It’s a nerdy thing to do. Fanmail. Omg. I am a nerd.”
But he convinced me to at least try, that couldn’t hurt, right? So I grabbed the email from the site and wrote up a message, thanking them for encourgaing better relationships with technology, that I made a zine or whatever, would love to send you one but totally okay if not.
And then, only one day later, they responded:
I was shook. How cool. How very cool. And that’s the whole point of art, isn’t it? The hope that it heals, empathizes, and connects with other people. I was so happy.
I sent them some zines, and they sent me some radical merch:
My husband was right, of course. Sometimes the nerdy thing to do is exactly the right thing to do. And now I have a pretty sweet hat, shirt, and a story that makes me smile every time I think about it. Plus, over in NYC, the Light Phone team has a little handmade zine sitting on their desk.
Sometimes the best connections happen when we're brave enough to reach out, whether that's putting down the smartphone or writing a vulnerable email to strangers who turned out not to be strangers at all. Maybe that's the real magic of choosing intentional tools: they create space for the kind of connections that actually matter.*
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I have a few copies left, so if you’d like to get the zine, I HATE MY PHONE, send me a message
xo