Joe Biden’s video announcing — shocker! — that he’s running for reelection was quite well done, except for one thing: the on-screen graphics were in cursive. As I used to tell the startup founders I advised about their pitch decks, that’s a no-no if you’re trying to appeal to a younger demographic (technically we’re all in a younger demo than Biden, but that’s not my point).
The problem is that most people under 35 years old grew up typing on touchscreens and keyboards, so they rarely hand-write anything. And when they do, it’s not in cursive, which looks to them like something out of the 18th century (“Dude, have you seen the Declaration Of Independence? What’s with the giant F where there should be an S?”)
Of course, Biden’s from an era when “penmanship” was a subject in school and learning cursive was mandatory, but in 2010, when he was Vice President, the US government officially removed cursive from the Common Core Standards for K-12 education.
I doubt even his seven grandchildren can read the on-screen messages in his video.