font people scare me

I was reading a thread on metafilter about which font one should use for a resume. I assumed the response would be “It does not matter”, but no, the font people are out in force. Dozens of responses of which particular font to use.

I am not a font person. I don’t really get it. Fonts pretty much all look the same to me. Sure, I can see obvious stuff like serif/san-serif or grunge fonts or other obvious elements. But of any of the normal fonts, they don’t really matter. I almost always just use whatever the default font is for whatever app/desktop/os I’m using.

I suspect the fontophilia some people seem to exhibit has some form of synthesia at it’s roots. Or perhaps, it’s just one more random thing for people to be geeks and snobs[1] about. Font choice seems to have the combination of being essentially arbitrary in nature, while offering plenty of opportunities for hyperbole (“omg! you freaking moron! Times New Roman is unreadable! Are you blind or just public schooled?”) that makes it a perfect target for snobbery.

[1] For years I’ve threatened to start a blog about the various levels of snobbery and the people who provide it. I could compare and contrast people dedication and aesthetic ethic and lambaste those whose snobbery does not meet my high standard and studied critical eye. I would be a snob snob.

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