I tried to think of a way to answer this without being insulting. I’m not actually sure I can. Then again, I feel kind of insulted.

In the first place, I personally find that textual tricks detract from my enjoyment and comprehension of writing. Smaller text is harder for me to read, in a literal sense. I have correctors set up in Stylish to make tiny text larger. I think those tricks have applications, but I find them mostly to be in poetry, and they should be used sparingly.

In the second place, if a reader is concerned about the way my writing /looks/, maybe they should be reading someone else. My sole concern is that my writing conveys what I want it to convey, that the meaning is clear. Making the text larger or smaller, moving it across the screen, or changing fonts — these tools don’t provide anything to the meaning of my writing.

In the third place, computerized writing already comes equipped with standard ways of providing emphasis. Italics, bold, and underline are standardized across many different platforms, browsers, and operating systems — did you know that almost all the ways to make the text smaller don’t work in Tumblr’s mobile app? But bold, italic, and underline do.

I personally prefer not to even use those as a way of conveying emphasis. You will have noticed that I surrounded one word in the third paragraph with forward slashes. I tend to use those in place of italics, and I tend to use caps in place of bold. It’s faster for me, and I don’t have to argue with html or any given platform’s vagaries for interpreting ctrl+i and where it should end.

Frankly, I know all the html tricks for changing text size. I’m a web developer. I know all the css tricks Tumblr doesn’t allow. These are design elements, not writing elements.

Basically, the idea that I need to change the size of my text to make my writing look better is insulting. My writing stands on it’s own. It would be just as good if I handwrote it and snail mailed it to my partners. It would be just as good if I read it aloud. The smaller text does not constitute an improvement — and people who base their assessment of “quality” on that kind of thing aren’t people I want to write with anyway.