Ambivalently Yours

(Boy standing at greeting card rack called "Starter Sympathy Cards," reading "No Way!", "Trag-o-rama," etc.)

Americans purchase about 7 billion greeting cards every year, and we have an ever-expanding variety of messages to choose from. Gone are the days when “Happy Birthday” and “Get Well Soon” were our only options (setting aside the life-saving “blank inside” cards). Today, your average card buyer can congratulate someone on their first house, send a coworker off to a new job, or express sympathy on the loss of a pet.

And yet, all this bounty hasn’t really changed our love/hate relationship with the peculiar social nicety that is the greeting card. Sure, most of us like receiving cards, and maybe a few of us actually enjoy writing them out and sending them. But the vast majority of us see greeting cards purely as a necessary evil – a gesture which is now so common as to be expected, and which at times becomes more exasperating to the sender than it is pleasing to the recipient. As such, the greeting card conundrum is perfect fodder for jokes, and, of course, for New Yorker cartoons.

(Man in greeting card section labeled "Stop Sending Me Cards.")

For every person who delights in receiving these well wishes, there’s another as disgruntled as the subject of Gahan Wilson’s cartoon, who’s in the market for a “Stop Sending Me Cards” card. Roz Chast has published nearly two dozen cartoons featuring greeting cards, typically depicting her own original card designs appropriate for a variety of eccentric occasions, themes, and recipients. From “Valentines for Republicans” to “Cards for Oneself,” Roz has all your card needs covered. Fellow New Yorker cartoonists Chris Weyant and Mick Stevens have also used their drawings to poke fun at greeting cards and the hyperactive greeting card industry itself.

(Politician browsing the "Diplomatic Apology" greeting card section.)

(Cards a person would give to themselves.)

(Man contemplates the "Good luck with the American health-care system" section of the card aisle.)