The rise of racist fonts

So many headlines over the last year have read more like deadpan satire than actual news that it’s hard to believe we don’t live in an episode of Chris Morris’s still unequalled The Day Today. Take this example last week from the Guardian: ‘Tom Hanks’s son criticized for using “racist” font on merchandise collection.’

As I sat down to interrogate Times New Roman’s imperialist past to ensure my letter to the editor wouldn’t be similarly charged, I discovered CNN had run an entire feature on those belittling artefacts of Orientalism, the ‘Chop Suey’ fonts. So now here we are, coming up on two hundred years since The Spectator leant its shoulder to driving through the Great Reform Bill of 1832, discussing the possibility of a Typeface of Evil.

Young Hanks — who I think it’s fair to say deserves to be referenced only in his filial relation to The Great Tom rather than by his own forename, or brand, or QI code or whatever kids have these days — has unquestionably kicked a singularly stinky fox into the henhouse of popular discourse here.