Metafilter: The level of hatred was amazing and quite funny.
March 28, 2017 11:43 AM Subscribe
That's kind of a cute story, if I were that fellow I'd be proud too. And in retrospect, this suddenly seems incredibly mean spirited.
posted by Kikujiro's Summer at 12:03 PM on March 28, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by Kikujiro's Summer at 12:03 PM on March 28, 2017 [3 favorites]
I used to be a design snob (an everything snob, really), and dutifully hated Comic Sans. But as I've gotten older, I've realized that snobbiness is stupid and now I kind of like it. It's pretty useful if you want to be an oppositional shit to people who still think design snobbiness is important.
posted by kevinbelt at 12:18 PM on March 28, 2017 [22 favorites]
posted by kevinbelt at 12:18 PM on March 28, 2017 [22 favorites]
^^ I may be old enough to be over snobbery, but being an oppositional shit never seems to get old.
posted by kevinbelt at 12:19 PM on March 28, 2017 [34 favorites]
posted by kevinbelt at 12:19 PM on March 28, 2017 [34 favorites]
As a young child, I liked using Comic Sans. It was fun! As a teenager, I disliked it because everyone I looked up to did so. As a college student, I was somewhat puzzled why an acquaintance would use it in correspondence with professors. But after reading about how it may have a positive impact for people who suffer from dyslexia, I'm now a full-fledged supporter of Comic Sans.
I wish that the Chrome app called Comic Sans Everything would leave lowercase letters as they are.
posted by Warm Summer Night at 12:20 PM on March 28, 2017 [6 favorites]
I wish that the Chrome app called Comic Sans Everything would leave lowercase letters as they are.
posted by Warm Summer Night at 12:20 PM on March 28, 2017 [6 favorites]
Yeah obsessively jumping in to declare righteous hatred for a font is a shibboleth for indicating you're probably a deeply deeply infuriating person to hang out with.
posted by Jimbob at 12:25 PM on March 28, 2017 [17 favorites]
posted by Jimbob at 12:25 PM on March 28, 2017 [17 favorites]
...but being an oppositional shit never seems to get old.
I thought that was the point of being old because people assume you're too old to bother retaliating against.
posted by Evilspork at 12:36 PM on March 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
I thought that was the point of being old because people assume you're too old to bother retaliating against.
posted by Evilspork at 12:36 PM on March 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
From TFA: I couldn’t believe people could be so worked up over something as simple as a font.
This.
posted by Bringer Tom at 12:38 PM on March 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
This.
posted by Bringer Tom at 12:38 PM on March 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
Without Comic Sans MS, we would never have had Microsoft Comic Chat.
Without Microsoft Comic Chat, we never would have had Jerkcity.
Without Jerkcity, we never would have gotten Rands.
Well, actually, we'd still have Rands - just in a more boring form.
posted by JoeZydeco at 12:43 PM on March 28, 2017
Without Microsoft Comic Chat, we never would have had Jerkcity.
Without Jerkcity, we never would have gotten Rands.
Well, actually, we'd still have Rands - just in a more boring form.
posted by JoeZydeco at 12:43 PM on March 28, 2017
My 14 yr old recently got on the comic sans hate bandwagon, probably after seeing it overused by the very same adults who tried to get the hashtag #benice to trend at his middle school. Turns out "But Metafilter thinks its cool" is not actually the powerful counterargument I thought it was.
posted by selfmedicating at 12:43 PM on March 28, 2017 [10 favorites]
posted by selfmedicating at 12:43 PM on March 28, 2017 [10 favorites]
Comic Sans was the friendly rubber bumper on the iron anvil that was used for thousands, millions of what we'd now call corporate micro-aggressions in the 1990s and 2000s. Forced cheeriness, the fake smile and plastic flowers. "Fun" workplaces. Wearing more than the minimum number pieces of corporate-supplied flair.
It was supposed to be light-hearted, but it was the blackest of jokes from the company that to a generation was the heart of darkness itself. It was the font face of soulless despair.
Yeah, I'm really not over Comic Sans.
posted by bonehead at 12:45 PM on March 28, 2017 [24 favorites]
It was supposed to be light-hearted, but it was the blackest of jokes from the company that to a generation was the heart of darkness itself. It was the font face of soulless despair.
Yeah, I'm really not over Comic Sans.
posted by bonehead at 12:45 PM on March 28, 2017 [24 favorites]
It's totally fitting that it's based on The Watchmen, in my view. It's a joke the Comedian would have really appreciated.
posted by bonehead at 12:48 PM on March 28, 2017 [7 favorites]
posted by bonehead at 12:48 PM on March 28, 2017 [7 favorites]
I've always just assumed that the outsized dislike of Comic Sans is one of those internet pile-on things, where people compete to be the most irrationally angry about something fairly mundane.
The phony chirpiness bothers me some, but it's a minor annoyance.
posted by ernielundquist at 12:48 PM on March 28, 2017 [2 favorites]
The phony chirpiness bothers me some, but it's a minor annoyance.
posted by ernielundquist at 12:48 PM on March 28, 2017 [2 favorites]
bonehead: "It's totally fitting that it's based on The Watchmen, in my view. It's a joke the Comedian would have really appreciated."
Everybody laugh.
posted by Samizdata at 12:50 PM on March 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
Everybody laugh.
posted by Samizdata at 12:50 PM on March 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
What do you think you're running from?! The disease is inside of you!
posted by comealongpole at 12:59 PM on March 28, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by comealongpole at 12:59 PM on March 28, 2017 [3 favorites]
I thought that hating Comic Sans was old news, and now we're all supposed to focus on hating Papyrus.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 1:01 PM on March 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 1:01 PM on March 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
Undertale has made it impossible to hate Papyrus (as well as the comic Sans).
posted by NMcCoy at 1:26 PM on March 28, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by NMcCoy at 1:26 PM on March 28, 2017 [4 favorites]
Yeah obsessively jumping in to declare righteous hatred for a font is a shibboleth for indicating you're probably a deeply deeply infuriating person to hang out with.
Well then you're not invited to our seder.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 1:27 PM on March 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
Well then you're not invited to our seder.
posted by overeducated_alligator at 1:27 PM on March 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
Dogs don’t talk in Times New Roman! Conceptually, it made no sense.
posted by redsparkler at 1:38 PM on March 28, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by redsparkler at 1:38 PM on March 28, 2017 [4 favorites]
Pish. Everyone knows dogs talk in Wingdings.
posted by fimbulvetr at 1:43 PM on March 28, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by fimbulvetr at 1:43 PM on March 28, 2017 [3 favorites]
I always envisioned Dog as set in some kind of sans-serif italicized font. Not the kind of italics with curly feet, just kind of a slanted version of the regular font.
Cat font has curly feet, but it's not very slanted. Not a true cursive, though; more readable than that.
posted by amtho at 1:48 PM on March 28, 2017 [3 favorites]
Cat font has curly feet, but it's not very slanted. Not a true cursive, though; more readable than that.
posted by amtho at 1:48 PM on March 28, 2017 [3 favorites]
Can this thread be in Comic Sans? It would be oh so special.
posted by graymouser at 1:51 PM on March 28, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by graymouser at 1:51 PM on March 28, 2017 [3 favorites]
Somewhere along the way, hate of inappropriate Comic Sans got conflated with general hatred of the font.
It's a fine font for children's birthday invitations. It's a fine font for a dog.
The hatred comes from that coworker who has to show how "quirky" they are, and they use it in their professional emails. Or you go into a bathroom at a restaurant, and the sign saying employees must wash their hands is in Comic Sans. Food safety! Hygiene! In the jokiest font possible?
Comic Sans isn't terrible, it's just misunderstood. And misused. Horribly, frequently misused.
posted by explosion at 1:56 PM on March 28, 2017 [8 favorites]
It's a fine font for children's birthday invitations. It's a fine font for a dog.
The hatred comes from that coworker who has to show how "quirky" they are, and they use it in their professional emails. Or you go into a bathroom at a restaurant, and the sign saying employees must wash their hands is in Comic Sans. Food safety! Hygiene! In the jokiest font possible?
Comic Sans isn't terrible, it's just misunderstood. And misused. Horribly, frequently misused.
posted by explosion at 1:56 PM on March 28, 2017 [8 favorites]
No MeFi thread on Comic Sans is complete without a link to garius's King of Comic Sans story from 2009.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 1:57 PM on March 28, 2017 [6 favorites]
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 1:57 PM on March 28, 2017 [6 favorites]
I never had any experience with fontophobia until I made a calendar. Then two perfectly nice people, got out the knives, and lost their minds over a calendar I was making. Fontophobia, and it's squirrely sibling fontofilia are two sides of a mythical mind beast, spawned in graphics, and design classes. For a while I felt bereft of font mojo, design sense, and aesthetically challenged, until I realized fontofobia is a crippling disease, then I went on merrily making calendars. The fontophiliacs mumbled, and slavered, and gnashed their teeth, whenever they saw me and my calendars, so I stuck to figure study sessions, and the occasional glass of wine. One of the fontofiliacs made a painting, a portrait of her friend with a glass of wine. She asked me how I liked it, I mentioned that liquids portrayed with oil paint have to follow the laws of physics, and lie on the horizon line, rather than appear as wine jello in a glass. Comic Sans, charming, she married her cousin and their kids all turned out Cheap Fire.
posted by Oyéah at 2:00 PM on March 28, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Oyéah at 2:00 PM on March 28, 2017 [2 favorites]
Look. My colleague who uses comic sans font for his presentations also wears a bowtie on Friday. Enough said?
posted by acrasis at 2:33 PM on March 28, 2017 [4 favorites]
posted by acrasis at 2:33 PM on March 28, 2017 [4 favorites]
Hey internet! How are you. I have a proposal.
Rule one: All headings shall be Garamond.
Rule two: Everything else shall be Helvetica neue.
Violation of these rules shall carry the death penalty. I calculate the overall savings to the global economy at about $400 million gajillion p.a., easily enough to offset the cost of institutionalizing everybody who ever said something like "I feel like we need a more playful typeface here."
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 2:47 PM on March 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
Rule one: All headings shall be Garamond.
Rule two: Everything else shall be Helvetica neue.
Violation of these rules shall carry the death penalty. I calculate the overall savings to the global economy at about $400 million gajillion p.a., easily enough to offset the cost of institutionalizing everybody who ever said something like "I feel like we need a more playful typeface here."
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 2:47 PM on March 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
Kinda bummed that my favorite Comic Sans thread no longer has everything displayed in Comic Sans in the Modern theme.
posted by infinitewindow at 2:49 PM on March 28, 2017
posted by infinitewindow at 2:49 PM on March 28, 2017
I have a probably untestable hypothesis that 50% of the innapropriate use and 95% of the snobbery would never happen if the name did not include the word Comic.
posted by Dr Dracator at 2:58 PM on March 28, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by Dr Dracator at 2:58 PM on March 28, 2017 [3 favorites]
"Yeah obsessively jumping in to declare righteous hatred for a font is a shibboleth for indicating you're probably a deeply deeply infuriating person to hang out with."
The system works!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:01 PM on March 28, 2017 [6 favorites]
The system works!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 3:01 PM on March 28, 2017 [6 favorites]
I think Helvetica must be the secretly most-hated. Everybody says they love Helvetica, but really, its in every damned thing, how could you? As a designer, how can you just pull that trigger over and over again and feel good about it?
posted by Ogre Lawless at 3:02 PM on March 28, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Ogre Lawless at 3:02 PM on March 28, 2017 [2 favorites]
> I think Helvetica must be the secretly most-hated.
I agree - if I was a certain kind of web designer, it would basically be the font that tells me I'm wasting my life. It's FINE, and the incremental difference I'm making by painfully switching to Bell Gothic is just a reminder that flipping burgers would be of more use to humanity.
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 3:27 PM on March 28, 2017 [4 favorites]
I agree - if I was a certain kind of web designer, it would basically be the font that tells me I'm wasting my life. It's FINE, and the incremental difference I'm making by painfully switching to Bell Gothic is just a reminder that flipping burgers would be of more use to humanity.
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 3:27 PM on March 28, 2017 [4 favorites]
There are times when Comic Sans is fine. There are better options out there that I'd prefer, but none that are as widely available. That said, people use in inappropriately all the effing time and that infuriates me. It's not so much the thing itself, it's how often it is seen.
That said, I get particularly annoyed by it because my SO uses it or one of its close copies on her cell phone. It's much harder for me to read than whatever Google is using as their font in stock Android these days. (The pre-ICS font was abysmal, though) I think part of it is that there isn't enough differentiation between caps and lowercase.
I'd care a lot less if she hadn't been handing me her phone telling me to read stuff on it in that damn font for the past 8-10 years.
posted by wierdo at 3:28 PM on March 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
That said, I get particularly annoyed by it because my SO uses it or one of its close copies on her cell phone. It's much harder for me to read than whatever Google is using as their font in stock Android these days. (The pre-ICS font was abysmal, though) I think part of it is that there isn't enough differentiation between caps and lowercase.
I'd care a lot less if she hadn't been handing me her phone telling me to read stuff on it in that damn font for the past 8-10 years.
posted by wierdo at 3:28 PM on March 28, 2017 [1 favorite]
I still think the sternly worded paper letter from the Court of Appeals in my state re a check mark I left unchecked on the webform for State bar fees was a weird document to produce in Comic Sans, though.
posted by atomicstone at 3:33 PM on March 28, 2017 [7 favorites]
posted by atomicstone at 3:33 PM on March 28, 2017 [7 favorites]
It's a fine font for a dog.
Who's a good font? You are!
posted by betweenthebars at 4:12 PM on March 28, 2017 [2 favorites]
Who's a good font? You are!
posted by betweenthebars at 4:12 PM on March 28, 2017 [2 favorites]
The hatred is mostly a sort of in joke, right? But I think it's perfectly reasonable to dislike the font, it's ugly and it gets overused because it's the only legible but non serious font people have access to by default. The way it's obviously aimed at young children makes it seem condescending when it's used otherwise, like having someone talk at you really slowly and explain every big word.
Bundle better fonts, basically, Open Dyslexic for example is lovely.
posted by lucidium at 4:55 PM on March 28, 2017 [3 favorites]
Bundle better fonts, basically, Open Dyslexic for example is lovely.
posted by lucidium at 4:55 PM on March 28, 2017 [3 favorites]
I've always just assumed that the outsized dislike of Comic Sans is one of those internet pile-on things, where people compete to be the most irrationally angry about something fairly mundane.
Nickelback should use Comic Sans on their next album cover.
posted by 445supermag at 5:21 PM on March 28, 2017 [6 favorites]
Nickelback should use Comic Sans on their next album cover.
posted by 445supermag at 5:21 PM on March 28, 2017 [6 favorites]
Another previously:
An Exploration of the Typeface Everyone Loves to Hate
posted by eye of newt at 8:41 PM on March 28, 2017
An Exploration of the Typeface Everyone Loves to Hate
posted by eye of newt at 8:41 PM on March 28, 2017
Comic Sans is easy for me to read. Also Open Dyslexic. I teach a lot and I've noticed that these fonts are easy for other people to read too so much as I get mocked I do use them both pretty liberally.
And the CERN thing doesn't surprise me at all. Engineers etc freaking love comic sans. It makes equations VERY easy to read. I sit through enough math heavy presentations every year to have grown to appreciate it for that alone.
posted by fshgrl at 10:02 PM on March 28, 2017 [2 favorites]
And the CERN thing doesn't surprise me at all. Engineers etc freaking love comic sans. It makes equations VERY easy to read. I sit through enough math heavy presentations every year to have grown to appreciate it for that alone.
posted by fshgrl at 10:02 PM on March 28, 2017 [2 favorites]
Futura Bold or GTFO
posted by pxe2000 at 3:35 AM on March 29, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by pxe2000 at 3:35 AM on March 29, 2017 [1 favorite]
Wiki: "Examples of uses to which it has been considered poorly suited have been a Dutch war memorial, printed advice for rape victims, blog posts by a law firm and as a font recommended for résumés in careers training."
The hatred is real.
posted by waving at 5:46 AM on March 29, 2017 [2 favorites]
The hatred is real.
posted by waving at 5:46 AM on March 29, 2017 [2 favorites]
Myself, I make sure that all of my written communications are composed in the medium of "jagged lines carved upon my own forearms with shards of broken glass." Sure, the kerning can get a little weird, and the inevitable mass of scar tissue creates some legibility issues, but I take solace in knowing that I have achieved ideological font purity. 𝙉𝙤 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙞𝙘 𝙨𝙖𝙣𝙨 𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙚!
posted by Mayor West at 6:31 AM on March 29, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Mayor West at 6:31 AM on March 29, 2017 [2 favorites]
> . My colleague who uses comic sans font for his presentations also wears a bowtie on Friday. Enough said?
I see, you are saying comic sans is cool.
[BTW can we enable inline styles for these threads? Pleeease? ]
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 6:45 AM on March 29, 2017
I see, you are saying comic sans is cool.
[BTW can we enable inline styles for these threads? Pleeease? ]
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 6:45 AM on March 29, 2017
I find the font distasteful for most purposes - but volunteering for Cub Scouts, I use a "SIMILAR but not Comic Sans" font (Chalkduster, I think) in a lot of things I give to the kids. Because kids seem to be OK with the font, and items intended for kids can use a kid-friendly font. To a POINT anyway: I distinctly recall feeling pandered to as I got a bit older when people took the laziest way possible to say "it's for fun and for kids" like the backwards R in Toys R Us - why? Lazy.
But Comic Sans... picture my face when I saw they'd used it in the lettering for one of the local Boy Scout council buildings. Out front, by the road, engraved in the granite sign. Yeah. I would not want to be the person who made that choice, because you'd never win.
(I feel that a serif font works better for engraved lettering, anyway... Trajan perhaps?)
posted by caution live frogs at 3:11 PM on March 29, 2017 [1 favorite]
But Comic Sans... picture my face when I saw they'd used it in the lettering for one of the local Boy Scout council buildings. Out front, by the road, engraved in the granite sign. Yeah. I would not want to be the person who made that choice, because you'd never win.
(I feel that a serif font works better for engraved lettering, anyway... Trajan perhaps?)
posted by caution live frogs at 3:11 PM on March 29, 2017 [1 favorite]
« Older “...it weighs about as much as a refrigerator,” | AD 12,017: Hull Kingston Rovers must play all away... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by Fizz at 11:45 AM on March 28, 2017 [10 favorites]