So, a bit of a different video today. I kind of fell down a rabbit hole while
researching an upcoming video about Microsoft fonts and this is the result.
Now, I'll admit I enjoy a good meme as much as the next bloke but it's been a
while since I'd say I kept up with recent developments. But when it comes to
internet memes one font comes to mind: Impact and, at least according to Google
Images, I am not the only person with this association. But rather than just
accept this stereotype, I dove in to Reddit to see if Impact is still the font of
choice for online meme-ery. Well after scrutinising almost 100 top
memes and giving them way too much thought, the results are in.
And they're rather surprising.
To get a good cross section across Reddit, I actually took the
top 30 image macros from the last year from three subreddits: r/memes,
r/memeeconomy and r/dankmemes. Now to be considered an image
macro, a meme should have an image juxtaposed with text that someone has
added after the fact. That means no phone screen shots and no unedited subtitles
over a still from a TV show or movie. I selected these three subreddits as they
were each founded in a different year and so I expect the demographics to
slightly differ. So I wanted to see if that would be reflected in how people
used fonts. To begin with, Impact, the font that reigned supreme for so long is
certainly not the Titan it once was. Out of 90 images only three, it appears, chose
to use Impact. But it gets even worse – in fact only one of these is the genuine
Impact. Looking closer, some of these proportions seemed off to me.
A little bit too slender, the counters slightly too sharp. Eventually I figured
out the identity of this clone font: Anton. A free Google web font and an option
close to the top of the font selection list on Canva.
So if Impact isn't the font of memes anymore, what is? So, we begin with the
biggest and oldest subreddit r/memes. Here Microsoft make a decent
showing. Of course, we have Arial, as well as Calibri (the default font of Microsoft
Office). Impact, that old standard and Segoe UI (Microsoft's standard user
interface font). We also see the vintage screen font, Verdana.
Next we have a modest showing from Apple with, of course, Helvetica
being bundled both with MacOS and iOS devices.
Lastly, Google takes the lion's share here thanks to both Google web fonts as
well as Android. Open Sans is one of their more popular free-to-use web fonts,
as well as being a suggested search term within font selection on Canva. And of
course we have the system default font of Android: Roboto. Now these two final
memes posed more of a challenge. At first I thought these were also set in
Roboto but then I noticed that capital R didn't quite look right. The curved leg was
more reminiscent of Helvetica than Roboto. Finally I found what looks like
the likely culprit. It is a font on Google fonts called Yantramanav. Now
English, Spanish, German and many other Western languages are all based around
the same Latin alphabet. Yantramanav is not it is designed for
Devanagari script (which I'm sure I'm mispronouncing) but more importantly, it
is a writing system used by many South Asian languages, including Hindi. And this
font was designed to complement Roboto. In fact Yantramanav means "robot" in Hindi.
And so for the design of the Latin character set, it simply copied Roboto.
Just an earlier version than the one we have now.
That's why there's a discrepancy between the design of the capital R in these
fonts, as well as other small details, I'm sure. Now this is not an isolated
practice. For example, in Microsoft Word if you select a font for a non-Latin
language like Thai or Arabic and start to type in English, you'll find it
defaults back to Segoe, Microsoft's default system font. But probably not the
most recent version. Likely whatever version was most recent when this
particular font was released. So this piece of evidence strongly suggests that
the people who made these two memes both live somewhere on the South Asian
continent or at least have their computer set to a language which is not
based on the Latin alphabet. Not something I expected to uncover
while analysing memes but an interesting side journey. This leaves us with a
solitary meme that does not use a font provided by any of those three companies.
Now at first glance I thought this type might be Gotham, as it is quite a modern
interpretation of the geometric sans-serif design. Gotham is quite well
known for being the font used in Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. But
that capital G next to the O looked strangely familiar. And finally it
clicked; this was Google, but not Google web fonts. It was the Google logo. This is
actually a custom corporate font made for Google called Product Sans which
leads to the question: was this meme simply made by an extreme Google fan who
downloaded their corporate typeface? Or was it made by someone who works for or
at Google? Let's take a look at the most recent of these three subreddits,
r/memeeconomy and here Microsoft have got a significantly smaller showing, but
there's a lot of the same font choices except for this last one here.
Avenir Next, quite a well-established font from Linotype that comes bundled with
Microsoft Office online. Apple have slightly stronger representation here
with Helvetica in this subreddit, including half a usage of Helvetica here
and half something else, which we'll address in a moment. But Google clearly
dominates once again with Yantramanav being the other half of the
meme in question. As well as the Impact impersonator, Anton. Open Sans, Roboto and
a set of three display fonts available on Canva from Google fonts. Which leaves
us with two instances of outliers both from the same user. And again it seems
like a strangely familiar font. After some digging it turns out this is SF Pro,
the corporate typeface of Apple. Also not something they package with their own
software but something you have to seek out and download. Which leaves us asking:
is this an Apple fan or is it an Apple employee posing as a meme loving teen?
I'll leave you to speculate on that one. Lastly we have r/dankmemes, here
Microsoft has a similar share to previously. With mostly Arial and
a single instance of Verdana. This group definitely has the strongest
representation for Helvetica from Apple, but Google once again comes out on top
with a familiar selection of typefaces. As well as this oddity. At first I was
convinced this was some kind of print font, but it turns out to actually be a
Google web font. Though clearly it's a type revival of a classic typeface – check
out the ball terminals on those Rs and Ys. Very nice, I have to say! This is
actually a font called Source Serif Pro. Which leaves us with our final mystery
font. This was by far the most confusing of all the fonts in this set. It's full
of little details which would make you think it would be quite easy to identify.
There is a spurred lowercase A like in Helvetica. You have this geometric Y but
the tail is slightly curved. You have squarish counters inside the lowercase O
and G, but then you have this capital J with a singular arm coming from the top.
As well as squared dots on the I and question mark. All of these details
should add up to something very easily identifiable by type nerds or by
automated type recognition software. But I tried to process this through "What the
font?" as well as "Matcherator" and neither one could identify it. Eventually I was
reduced to searching manually through every possible option on Canva. And
finally I found it: Libra Sans [not Libre Sans]. A font I had never heard of
before, somewhat understandably, as it was designed by an obscure Bulgarian font
designer to support the Bulgarian language in Cyrillic script. This again
strongly suggests this user is not a native English speaker.
In this case there are two explanations: this user does seem to post a lot of
different memes in various different fonts and this could just point to the
fact they are reposting content that they've found elsewhere online. On the
other hand, Reddit has been known to be a target of organised foreign trolling
campaigns by organisations like Russia's Internet Research Agency. A common tactic
amongst these troll accounts is to post to popular subreddits in order to
build Reddit Karma. Choosing to use one obscure Cyrillic alphabet font does not
prove things one way or the other but there is a good reason to consider using
this font type a graphically suspect. How language is used in public speeches, in
literature and other high prestige contexts is not the same as how it's
used in everyday conversation. The name for this informal everyday speech is
vernacular. And memes are interesting to analyse as typographic specimens because
they are an example of vernacular typography. Inherent to the image macro
format is their low effort construction. The subspecies of meme known as the high
effort meme reinforces this expectation that memes are meant to be an
off-the-cuff, quick-and-dirty format. This is why Impact had such a long run. In the
early days of the web, MS Paint was probably the easiest tool to reach for
to get the job done and Impact came pre-installed, sitting there, ready to use.
The results from Reddit in 2020 back up this quick and dirty ethos. It's just
that the tools have changed. The quickest tool to reach for isn't on Windows
anymore, it's on our phones and in our browsers with tools like Canva. These
tools all come with default settings. Choices determined by software. The low
effort option is to just leave these settings unchanged. So any deviation from
those defaults should raise some red flags about the origins of these
creations. I do wish that Reddit made it possible
to sort by top posts from previous years. I think it would be quite interesting to
chart the rise and fall in popularity of different fonts over time. So if you do
know how to get that data please let me know in the comments. If you've watched
all the way to the end of this video, thank you so much for your time. If you
can click on one of the buttons below to like, subscribe or leave me a comment
that would all help people discover my videos. The biggest favour you could do me
right now would be simply to share this video with someone you think would be
interested. Whether that's sending a link to a friend or sharing it on another
online platform, that would be greatly appreciated.
I've been Linus ranting at length about fonts and I hope to see you in a future video.