Somebody stood in a store, picked up a wooden board that said Live Laugh Love in cursive, looked at it, and thought yes. This. This is what my wall needs.
Then paid money for it. Drove it home. Found a stud. Hung it up.
And then sat in that room, night after night, looking at it, and did not take it down.
Both halves of that are indefensible.
The buying is indefensible. A grown adult stood in a Hobby Lobby holding a plank with three verbs on it and made a decision. Nobody forced them. There was no emergency. They had a cart, they had an entire store, they had options, and they picked the board.
And the leaving it up is worse, because the buying took four seconds and the leaving it up has taken years. Every single day since has been another chance to walk over there and rip it off the wall, and every single day they look right at it and decide it stays.
Let's actually read it
Live.
Doing that. Currently. Have been for decades without a board.
Laugh.
Yes. When something is funny. That is how it works.
Love.
Fine. Sure. Agreed in principle.
So the sign isn't telling anybody anything. It isn't solving a problem. Nobody has ever walked into that house carrying a question the sign answers. It is just up there, in cursive, occupying a rectangle that could have been literally anything else in the world.
And who is it for? Guests? Are people coming over and thinking oh thank god, they live and laugh and love in here, I was worried I had walked into a hostage situation?
Or is it for the person who lives there? A daily reminder to laugh? Because if you need a fucking board to remember to laugh, the board is not the intervention you need.
Then it bred
It did not stop at Live Laugh Love. That was patient zero.
But First, Coffee.
This Kitchen Is Seasoned With Love. Which is a health code violation.
Home Is Where The Wi-Fi Is. Somebody wrote it, somebody approved it, somebody put it into production, and at no point in that entire chain did a single human being laugh. And it has been sitting on a shelf at Hobby Lobby ever since, waiting for somebody to come along and complete the transaction
And somebody always does.
Somebody designed that. A grown person sat down and designed it. Somebody manufactured it. Somebody trucked it across the country. Somebody put it on a shelf.
And then somebody else walked past a hundred other objects, stopped, picked that one up, and decided this was the thing.
Not art. Not a mirror. Not a photo of something that actually happened in their actual life. A board. With a saying. In cursive.
What is really going on
It is the same disease as small talk. It is the performance of a feeling instead of the feeling.
The sign does not mean you are happy. It means you would like people to assume you are happy so nobody has to look any closer. It is a press release about your emotional state, nailed to drywall, pre-empting the question.
And that would be fine, do whatever you want to your own walls, except they are never ironic. Not one of them. Every single one is sincere. Somebody hung that and meant it, with their whole chest.
That board was made in a factory by a stranger who has never met them. It is going to end up at a garage sale for two dollars. Somebody else will buy it and hang it in a different house where it will mean exactly what it meant in the last one, which is nothing, which is what it has always meant.
And then came the Cricut
Right when it looked like the ceiling had been reached, somebody invented a machine that lets you make the signs at home.
Now the saying does not have to be one of the classics. Now it can be anything. Anything at all. A genuinely impressive piece of engineering sitting on a kitchen table, capable of cutting any word in any font in any size.
And they used it to make Grateful Thankful Blessed and hung it over the dining room table.
Anything in the world. And that is what they picked.
Put nothing up
Or put up something with a traceable connection to your actual life. A photo from somewhere you have been. Art you chose because it did something to you. A shelf with objects on it that have a history.
Live Laugh Love is advice that applies identically to every human being alive, which means it was written for nobody, which means it has nothing to do with you, which is an insane thing to nail to a wall inside your own house.
You are a specific person with a specific life. Your wall should know that about you.
How to handle a sign situation
- Read it out loud. Every time you walk past it. Same voice every time. Eventually somebody asks you to stop, and then you get to ask why.
- Ask which one they are struggling with. Living, laughing, or loving. Ask sincerely. Wait for an answer. Do not rescue them.
- Give one as a gift. Custom, same font, same board. Have it say something specific and true about them. Cancels Plans. Talks Through Movies. Still Owes Dana Money. Now it's decor with a traceable connection to an actual life, which is exactly what they said they wanted. And they can't throw it out. It was a gift.
- Take it down and see how long it takes. Put it in a drawer. Say nothing. If nobody notices inside of a month you have proven the entire point and you get to bring it up at dinner.
Frequently asked questions
Is it really that bad?
Yes.
My grandma has one.
Different.
What if I like it?
Then keep it. This changes nothing. You will just know now.
Isn't this judgmental?
Yes.
What about Grateful Thankful Blessed?
Worse. Three words that mean the same thing, arranged to look like a journey.
What do I put up instead?
Anything from your own life. That is the entire test and most walls fail it.
A note on safety
None of this is advice. Number four cost a friendship of eleven years and the sign was accurate. We sell merch. We are not qualified to tell you what to do about your mother's kitchen, your sister-in-law's entryway, or the coworker who has one of these mounted above her monitor at work. Do what you want. You were going to.
