So why is this?
Well, to start, the funny ones always seem to fly better than the ones that attempt to be heartfelt. Funny cards meant to be utterly ridiculous allow us to skirt around the serious nature of a lot of special occasions. A lot of people can laugh at a similar concept: funny looking animals, old fashioned drawings doing inappropriate things, old people in general, the list goes on. The funny message allows you, if necessary, to add your own personal message, because it never attempted to say anything substantial. A funny card's sole purpose is to put a smile on the gift-receivers face.
The heart felt cards are impossible to pick out. I think this is because we wrestle with the idea of the message on the card being our voice and also the voice of the gift-receiver. We must satisfy two conditions when selecting a greeting card: we must identify with the message of the card and truly believe that those words could come out of our mouth, and we must be able to envision the gift-receiver saying these words as well.
On the other end, when we receive the card, I usually don't carefully read the message on the card, my eyes immediately jump to the hand written, more personal, thoughtful note. Its because of this experience that I often buy blank cards with a simple image on it. Usually those cards are less expensive anyway!
Greeting cards are expected now, and are well accepted. However, I believe they allow us to be rhetorically lazy. Putting the time into writing a witty note or a heartfelt note is more meaningful than allowing the words on the card to do all the work. And like I said before, it's not like they're doing that much work! All parties involved know it--the words on the card mean nothing--but we allow them to do the rhetorical work for us anyways.
So next time, if you're broke and don't have time to run to McLanahans for a card for your friend, write them a handwritten note instead. You're time and thoughtfulness will be much appreciated.
