The Current new SLOWLY user experience – 1
New SLOWLY user's experiences – Low Effort Letters
I had commented on zer0foxweregiven's original post at Reddit, and was very pleased to see the very detailed report of her experience.
A new SLOWLY user, only two weeks in, zer0fox has received a lof of junk mail – and I fear that is happening with many other people too.
It deserved to appear here in our SLOWLY-themed blog, and receive more attention, readers. So here it is.
My first reaction
...was a brief comment I posted in her topic, with my personal impressions and asking if she would like to see it here, as a Guest Author post. This is a partial quote of my first comment in the topic :
I write a Blog that specializes in Slowly and pen pal theme posts, and the moment I looked at your OP above I knew I would like to ask the question.
Which is, would you be willing to allow me to publish your full text above as a Guest Post in my Blog? Here is an example I did, of a Guest post from another user's contribution here in the sub, which I think is very nice and deserves to be seen.
Lightly edited, added some images related to the text, plus some horizontal rulers, both for easier reading. Hope you find this report from the front lines useful. 🙂😎
Short, low effort letters
A Guest post by zer0foxweregiven, original posted on Reddit here.
Filled on our Sub-Reddit under the Penpal_Experiences Topics Flair.
Hey there,
I have been using Slowly only for a week and a half, and decided to share my experiences so far, in hope of getting some advice!
First of all, I have written to someone, and it is really fun to exchange letters with them. And that alone made it worthwhile to create a SLOWLY account! But of course I also received letters.
So, I have received a total of 12 letters.
Three letters had only 8 lines of text each, in one of them the longest sentence was 5 words long; and in another one, the guy wanted to talk about sex and “share pictures” . To be fair, I marked “sex” as Interest, because I thought it meant that I was interested in talking about it, so that one's on me.
But the way he wrote was just weird, and made me uncomfortable. (I have since removed sex from my interests)
Four letters had only 4 lines each, one ended with the lovely implied accusation “would be nice if someone would finally answer” and one just dropped his Telegram username.
And more arrived
Then came two with 5 lines. In one, the guy stated he just discovered the app, despite his 100: something ratio. And the last two letters were 15 and 18 lines long.
This was for the full text – including greeting, farewell and other phrases after which you leave a blank line...
Zero letters referred to anything included on my profile's About Me.
And only one person wrote me a decent letter with ~500 words.
zer0fox had done it
At the beginning I read the guide in this sub on “About me“s, and listed things that I like, what I'm looking for, etc. And I took care not to write too much, so that it doesn't become too long or confusing.
Through this time in the app, I edited my profile, even wrote in that I don't want short copy & paste messages, and even removed problematic interests; but nothing changed.
Has anyone had similar experiences? Is it common to get so many low effort letters?
It takes a toll on you
I thought the point of Slowly is writing long and meaningful letters, to slow down. I can't believe people send messages with 4 lines that travel halfway around the world until they arrive...
To be honest, I don't get excited anymore when I see a letter is sent. I try to stay as neutral as possible, so that my expectations are not disappointed again.
Btw, in my case all of the letters were from guys (I'm female), only the 500 word letter wasn't.
Yann's reply
...in abbreviated form. Original was posted here.
Hello Zerof0x and welcome to the Slowly community and our subreddit.
I really enjoyed reading your post, so well explained and detailed. Documents really well what is going on for new users those days, I am the local moderator and content provider and have seen many posts and topics indicating that very unpleasant things are happening to many people.
Ghosting, accounts deactivated without a whisper of a goodbye note, short messages that I refuse to call 'letters', which for me are meaningful communication and so enjoyable.
First of all, do not despair
...there seems to be a deluge of junk accounts, people who don't care, have no idea what letters, the Slowly app or pen pal correspondence are.
But there ARE good people, believe me, you can read the testimony of users who have been around longer, some of the Slowly Stories features on their site, some of the 'Slowly Stories' labelled posts here in our own sub too.
I have posted many of my own letters, without any sensitive or personal information, so people can see examples of good letters and how they are so enjoyable to read, and to reply to.
[...some text clipped out...]
I need to write about the dismal situation I see reported by newer user, like you did here.
If you accepted my offer for a Guest Author Blog post, you would be helping me bring this to the forefront and call Slowly Team's attention to it -– and maybe we can convince them it's a serious issue and is damaging the whole ecosystem here.
Thank you, sincerely.
Yann2.
Famous Last Words
Special thank you to all the folks behind the SLOWLY app.
Letters we share, with pen pals all over the world. A modern day take in the traditional penpal experience. Come and join us, using SLOWLY.
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This page created in MarkDown language. Thank you for reading, feel free to comment, via a direct message to my Twitter account – or the Reddit one.
You can also post a public comment in the Reddit thread for it here.
yann2@bsky.social