Meme Review: but it's a 👏quantified 👏typographic 👏analysis
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- čas přidán 19. 05. 2020
- I make do a typographic breakdown and meta-analysis on 90 top memes from Reddit. What can we learn from how fonts are used in memes?
We all have a stereotype of what font is used for memes: Impact. But does that still hold true in 2020? What fonts are most popular and what does that say about the modern state of memery?
Memes are vernacular typography, and so they can tell us a lot about how normal, non-designers use type. Also briefly mentioned are these automated font recognition tools if you want to try identifying suspicious fonts for yourself!
#Reddit #Memes #Typography
www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/
www.fontsquirrel.com/matcherator
All background music by Harris Heller - streambeats
/ @streambeatsbyharrishe...
Being able to guess that the person who made the meme may speak more than one language based on the font used is fascinating!
It's a pretty obscure, but fun skill. :)
the layers are delicious, indeed
It just goes to show how much information we all give away without realising it.
@@LinusBoman That is Sherlock-level kind of deduction.
My wife is a professional graphic designer who loves logos and typeface and I am a tech nerd who loves obscure facts. Please never stop making these videos.
Do you have a budget of 10,000,000$ to buy a house?
@@KitsumiTheFox lmao
Figuring out the platform and even the region of a meme's creator has definitely blown my mind.
This sub is such a gem, it deserves more views!
Thanks Igor!
It's frankly easy
@@gui18bif but rarely done, genius is the exploitation and communication of lesser known knowledge
impact font is still used heavily in more ironic contexts to go along with memes that parody the behavior of early internet users or people that are generally bad at meme creation design
I was gonna say this haha, it has gone through the cycle of being out of date and cringe to now being used ironically/nostalgically to the point where it may just find its way into being kinda relevant again
bottom text
A bit late to the party, but I have a theory about the meme with the typeface you identified as Product Sans. I think the font might actually be Google Sans, a variation of Product Sans made to be more legible in headers and short body texts for use in G-suite products and stock Android exclusively in Pixel phones. The person who made that meme probably did so with the Google Photos image editor on a Pixel phone, which has Google Sans available. I use Google Sans in my design job sometimes, when I need to replicate Android system UI in layouts. Also, I have a Pixel 4 :).
I was going to write a comment with a similar idea; I’d be curious to know what different meme generator default settings there are. Though I suppose there wouldn’t be a lot of data on something that niche.
posts meme:
noone:
Linus: *I know where you are from!!1!*
that is a useful trick
nobody:
I like how much low effort vibes this comment gives
@Simon S.
Hello mobile user, I see your typo
@@MonkOrMan "low effort" is not something that should be praised.
The production value is fantastic!
Thank you -- I dusted off my After Effects skills for this one! :)
I found this channel from Jay Foreman's tweet about the boroughs and it's very impressive for such a new channel. Interesting content and good production values, keep it up! :)
Thank you! I intend to! 😁
And there's me, using CD Fedra for memes, because I just like the corporate font of Czech Railways.
6:52 I think the Source Serif Pro is meant to imitate the "Free Real Estate" font.
As for Impact, I doubt convenience is the whole story. When I think of making a meme, the option of using impact is always present in the back of my head, but I think over time its meaning has changed from "epic meme font" to "vintage meme font" at best (if used consciously in the right context) and "Facebook meme font" at worst (may be used ironically), implying use by normies and boomers (Karens even) with a limited understanding of what a meme can be. To me, it appears as if the implicit rule is "don't use Impact unless you have a reason to". I may be biased though, since I already avoid these larger subs and may well be some kind of meme elitist.
The phrase 'meme elitist' is such a rollercoaster
Ok r/memes user
Yeah style choices in a genre always have to change over time to prevent getting stagnant. The great thing about memes are that they're able to morph and "evolve" pretty quickly.
Impact is like the Helvetica of meme fonts. It could be a conscious stylistic choice, it could be just the default option, or it could actually be a knockoff version. (Anton is to Impact as Arial is to Helvetica.)
Thank you, internet user who probably has a memeology PhD
I know there's only like 10 million ethnic Bulgarians worldwide but damn. The fact that you even considered the "It's a Russian troll" possibility seems crazy to me.
6:09 It might be an app developer or designer who installed it to make authentic mockups. SF Pro is the system font for iOS, iPad OS, macOS, and tvOS.
Nah, SF Pro is just pretty so many average people install it to use in apps like Pages
How do you know that it's that foriegn font that copied an older version of Roboto and not just a re-posted meme from when that was the newest version of Roboto?
Well one of the foreign ones is about covid so definitely not an old mene
He does bring up that the Hindi forked version of Roboto uses an older variant of the font, but it would've made more sense to say that the font was an older version of Roboto instead of going on a tangent about a localized version of it. The simpler explanation makes more sense here as a lot of Android apps include it without updating the font variant.
So the creator of the original meme is a time traveller that predicted covid?
Holy crap, i been watching a couple videos now i would have assumed you would have some sort of cult following from your production quality. It surprised the hell out of me to see less than a thousand views on such a quality video. You earned a sub.
You're too kind, PPP!
Are we sure the old Roboto is a Hindi font? If I remember correctly, Roboto has publicly gone through multiple revisions between versions of Android - is it possible someone just has an old phone whose manufacturer hasn't updated them to newer versions of Android and so their default font just is the older Roboto?
The older version of Roboto was used to make the version used for Hindi. Most likely they were in development at the same time and the font designer used the earlier version of Roboto he had available.
2:58 - The one on the left isn't Roboto. The *e* and several other details like the round dots don't match up at all. Not sure what it is.
The one on the right is Roboto through and through.
Google used this classic Holo Roboto (imho notable for the iconic *R*, *K* and *1*) in the Android Holo design era from Honeycomb until ICS, before the Material Design refresh in Lollipop, where it (and notably the aforementioned letters) got slightly redesigned.
So that look can't really be pinpointed to a certain non-english font, could be any other Roboto based one, an older phone, someone who just had both laying around and likes the classic one more (like me), or it could be that the editor still has the older Roboto included (e.g. Pixlr Express).
Also I'd say that Product Sans was popular among enthusiasts (I extracted it from some PDF, or ripped the woff2 from one of their servers, converting it to otf, quickly after Google started using it, to just have it around), but now it more widely available/popular generally.
But it's so fantastic to see a way too underrated channel about nerdy niche stuff like this!
Is it still available? Product Sans ? Can you... send it to me? 👀 Also just to have around.
@@sketchur product sans is not public domain, unfortunately. Google doesn't make it available because they made it for their own... products. It's part of their visual identity. although unlikely, you can literally get in trouble for using it
CORRECTION!
at 3:00 the font on the left is actually called Aileron. Just a little correction
I didn't expect a forensic analysis of meme fonts to be so exciting!
Loved this! My partner was watching it with me and said that Libra Sans was the default for LibreOffice- so it could have come from something like that? (For reference he uses this from the UK)
Thank you! Your partner is sort of right-- I forgot to mention in the video Libra Sans has a very similar name to Libre Sans *with an e* the free typeface bundled with Open Office, but the font designs are quite different. But yes, pronounced the same! So glad you enjoyed the video. 😁
@@LinusBoman And to add even more confusion, LibreOffice's default font is _Liberation_ Sans.
...And now I wonder what quirks _I'd_ bring if I ever started meming much. My main PC runs Linux, and I've never tried to do image editing on my phone or in Google's suite. So my first-reach tools would include LibreOffice and GiMP -- and a _very_ different selection of fonts from a typical Windows, Mac, or Android/Google user.
Heck, I probably even have a different font selection from a lot of Linux users, since I'm on a less-common distro (Manjaro, based on Arch), rather than a more common Debian/Ubuntu-family one (like Ubuntu itself or Mint.)
I can't believe you found a Cyrillic poster and instantly accused them of being a russian bot. Absolutely insane.
you know people from other countries post too?
I wonder how many memes have been made using Liberation Sans?
It's interesting because I believe it's the default font in LibreOffice and GIMP, which would give useful information about how many people have eschewed Adobe, Apple and Microsoft products to seek out open-source alternatives.
Well, clearly, not a whole lot. I wonder why ?
Well yeah, they're free (as in $0)
Now I feel very old cause it's the first time I've heard of Canva and you are calling it the lowest effort program that should come to mind immediately.
And yes, I'm always reaching for either Impact or Comic Sans for my captions.
I'm pretty sure the average meme maker has also never heard of Canva, let alone used it
"Black sphynx of quartz judge my vow" is only a pangram if you spell sphinx with an i. I expected better from you, Linus!
5:03 It's actually Google Sans a variation of Product Sans
The idea that non-english fonts are disinformation agents is a little ridiculous. Those things happen for sure, but there are so many people who don't just speak english, there's no reason someone who uses one of those fonts has ill intent.
He never said this
@@randomstuffprod. 8:40 he did suggest that it could be related to Russian online propaganda. I agree that that is kind of a ridiculous suggestion. I remember me and plenty of other people being accused of being a Russian agent on Tumblr for having lefty political opinions. That was a different situation, but here I see the same moral panic about Russian propaganda in our good American internet
"This person used a Cyrillic font, so they may be a Russian agent" is just a problematic as "this person looks Middle Eastern, so they may be a member of Al Qaeda." Millions of people write in Cyrillic and don't work for the Russian government, just like how millions of people are from the Middle East and don't belong to a terrorist organization.
I don't think Linus thought that statement through because what he said essentially amounted to racial profiling via typography.
@@sudonim7552 well put
I’m pretty sure that the Product Sans meme was made with an online “meme creation” service that lets you make image macros in the style of twitter screenshots. That’s the default font they use on that service I’ve seen tons of memes that look like that.
Subscription earned, sir. As a fledgeling linguist (a fledgelinguist?) typography is the closest to fine art that I can wrap my head around.
I love "fledgelinguist", what a great portmanteau!
Love your channel! Keep up the great work. I studied some graphic design in school and can’t unsee all the poor typography, layouts, and logos in daily life. Your channel makes me feel much more normal! I swear it seems like 99% of the population don’t notice the things we do!
As a Bulgarian with mild amateurish interest in typography, I immediately recognized Libra Sans. At first it struck me as odd you haven't heard of the font, because (at least in my experience) most Bulgarians are as familiar with Libra Sans as they are with, say, if not Calibri, then with Roboto Slab.
Hello! Loved the video! Just wanted to say that in less used meme subreddits, impact font is used to add a layer of irony to memes, so it is very much still on top in some places!
Interesting point! Yes, I can imagine Impact being used ironically, especially to mock "normie memes" posted on Facebook and such. Especially with meta-memes, it can be a lot of work to untangle the layers of irony!
As a designer who's most likely going to start making some of my own design-related content on here, you are my favorite channel by far. Love your stuff!!!
I really struggle with Typography and whenever I try to learn more about it, I find it very.. uff.. complicated and boring =/ but your videos show that it can be really interesting. That was an amazing deepdive.
Thanks Zaun! I'm glad I could keep your interest 😄 That's the goal of the channel, to make this stuff accessible for people who aren't necessarily experts already.
Seriously loving your channel! You’re charm and knowledge and wit make for a perfect combination!
I AM VERY PROUD TO ANNOUNCE THAT IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE i was able to come to a hypothesis as to what font the "It's Free Real Estate" (the bottom caption of the image at 06:54) meme uses. It seems to be a bold variation of the font Abril Fatface. I would love to know what font it could actually be, because I was very proud and happy to just look at it and go "it's Abril Fatface." thanks linus i love your videos and the little typenerd community you've built on your channel. happy 2023 yall
I just discovered your channel yesterday (thank you, CZcams algorithm) and I am obsessed. Subscribed in a heartbeat, and now I'm stoked to watch the rest of your videos!
This just got recommended to me. How come this doesn't have more views? This video is so great!
Your videos really hit the spot! Thanks you I really appreciate the quality
Just found your videos. Flippin' awesome. Keep up the great work, sir!
I feel called out -- I use Product Sans in some of my personal typesetting. It's a gorgeous geometric typeface, and there isn't really a comparable alternative that has the same flair.
Man didn't expect myself to get into fonts..
great channel!
I love this channel; recently been working on a font transition for a project I'm a part of and I've fallen into rewatching all your videos on type
What I did not expect was to pay attention to your microphone. I recently got a new mic for voice recording, and on watching this video I recognized yours as the same one I got! That was an incredibly unexpected but entirely welcome dose of validation
The journey you took us on with this video is so interesting! 😮
Loving all the videos on this channel !
This is very fascinating!!! Really enjoyed it! :)
Actually an interesting direction from analysing memes. Nice vid
brilliant video! it honestly blew my mind ✨ looking forward for the next ones!
Glad you liked it. Thank you Jules!
I'm two years late, but as you mentionned Roboto originally had a curvy leg, but then was updated to have a straight one. But the presence of that old "R" curvy leg could simply mean that someone hasn't updated the Roboto font they downloaded on their computer. I know it happened to me for quite some time (because I don't pay *that* close of an attention to updates to my fonts)
This was a really interesting and weirdly informative video! Thanks for making it!
That Source font family is a great one. It has stuff for Latin, in addition to CJK. It’s from Adobe.
Also, I found out you helped with the Atkinson Hyperlegible font from the Braille people. That’s pretty cool. It’s good for captions.
I like your analysis. Brilliant!!
Great forensic typography channel. Hope your channel grow!
This is superb! I really like what you are doing!
a future video idea; The world behind Typefaces and copyright law. and commercial uses of open typography, such as microsoft, apple and google fonts. :)
Thank you Lewis! Much appreciated - yes, I'm working on a series covering the typefaces of the 3 you mentioned (plus maybe Adobe if people enjoy it) - I'll be sure to touch on copyright, as it's quite interesting in the case of Segoe UI particularly! Stay tuned! :)
Great work man! You just earned a new subscriber. Keep going! :)
Absolutely amazing video! What a gem.
If you ever do another video like this a subreddit like "starterpacks" would be an interesting lookthrough, as that sub has much more text and several images per post.
Mate your channel is blowing up, it's all over my recommendations and you have like 6,000 more subs than you did yesterday! Nice work!
What a wonderfully in-depth and informative video!
Thank you kindly!
Hello again! This video was surprisingly interesting! I'm going to share it! Also could you do a video on flags / coats of arms / logos of countries, or counties of England
Thanks Joseba! That's certainly a good topic idea - although Vexillology (the study of flags) isn't my forte and Heraldry is also a separate field - I would certainly think of doing it from a Graphic Design perspective, but I'd love to do it as a collab with someone with more specialist knowledge. Roman Mars from 99% Invisible has a great TED talk on flag design - you should definitely check it out if you haven't already :) czcams.com/video/pnv5iKB2hl4/video.html
ngl, I honestly didn't expect this video to actually be that interesting, and here I am nonetheless, eleven minutes later, smacking that subscribe button
5:05 I doubt it. It must be a default somewhere - a Pixel phone, a built-in Google app - I consider it unlikely that someone would install a font for that. Same for the San Fransisco font: perhaps a premium pro deluxe iPad app uses it.
8:00 ‘Libra Sans’ - it’s _Liberation Sans,_ which is the default Linux substitute for Arial. Libra Sans, as it says on the webpage at 8:13, is an extension to the Liberation font family.
People do not look further than defaults.
Picking a default font is _‘not a choice, but the absence of a choice’_ - Matthew Butterick
I love the forensics level approach here. It almost feels like the kind of thing I would see on a CSI or Criminal Minds type series to help narrow down a profile for the unsub.
Dude. What a voice, really relaxing. Also interesting video
Very interesting video, very happy I came across your channel. Keep up the great work.
Thanks Mike!
this is the most niche video I've ever been super interested in haha
I’m flabbergasted that Impact was so low! All this time I’ve been making sure to specifically use it whilst everyone else is just going rogue.
Libra Sans looks just like Liberation Sans and Arimo, both open-source metrically compatible Arial replacements. Arimo is used on Chromebooks. Back when I was using school Chromebooks, if I tried to type in Arial on a Google Doc (the default font on Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides), it would actually type in Arimo.
Just discovered channel, love the content 👌 keep it up man
Roboto once had a curved R leg. It was in a later update that Roboto got a straight leg, probably when Material rolled around because I think Android used Open Sans until Honeycomb (3) or ICS (4.0) and stuck since until likely Lollipop (5)
Interestingly enough, Product Sans was used in Oreo (8) for parts of the system font, so that has to be looked deeper into...
i immediately recognized the font at 6:07 as the one used for instagram stories on ios, so i imagine that was probably how those memes were made
interesting how impact has made a huge ironic return. on instagram, the most popular kinds of memes all seem to be screenshots of others' posts right now, which often use the default instagram story font, the whisper font, two of the tiktok fonts, and the default facebook post font. however, most of these don't really fall under the "image macro" category. whisper certainly does, at least in the original post, but i'm not sure if posting a screenshot of another's post makes the text no longer count as your own. anyway, i digress, point is a lot of the most popular memes now on instagram have fonts from other social media sites *if* they can be counted. reddit, on the other hand, is largely the same as when you pulled your data, with the exception of impact's return
That's so interesting and just, so entertaining to know these completely obscured facts XD
A video we never knew we needed
Cool video! Immediately subscribed!
Great vid!
I'm a product designer who uses SF Pro and Product Sans quite a bit. Unfortunately, never thought to use them for memes.
I just use Helvetica, cause that's what dominated before the Impact phase.
I've also used Libra Sans before - I think cause the author once offered it as a free font on either dribbble or behance.
Would be interested to see how this has changed nearly 3 years later and with a wider selection of subreddits. Including cross-platform screenshots (e.g. Twitter to Reddit or 4chan to Tumblr) might produce interesting results and allow us to get an idea of how posts "flow" between platforms
I'm an Indian and I can say your pronunciation of Devanagri was very correct. kudos 👏🏼
I use SF on Linux because I like how it looks lol, particularly SF display or whatever it's called, for obvious reasons.
Is it possible that the person supposedly using Yantramanav was JUST using the old version of Roboto? I, for one, have an older version installed on my PC (and it does not self-update, obviously), which doesn't make me live in Southern Asia.
A note, which may be helpful: Anton Black is available for free in the widely used Pics Art application. At the same time Arial can be found in the (now dying) Photoshop Mix application. Perhaps there's a little analytical error there, as both are cross-platform.
It's crazy how much you can learn about someone just by analyzing the font !
First vid of yours Ive seen such a nice soothing voice
Best channel under 20k subs. Facts
I used Impact and MSPaint to create a meme to send to a colleague this week and I feel old
I am currently studying forensic linguistics, where (put really simply) we learn how to notice certain styles and idiosyncrasies in speech and writing, that can be linked to other identifying characteristics (like who the individual is, their native language, their gender, age, etc.). This is a really fascinating addition to that knowledge, and I wonder if it will be added to forensic linguistic courses in the future, I hope so!
That is some Sherlock Holmes-esque analysis
Source Serif (and Sans and Mono) were Adobe’s first open source fonts. I think they’re quite nice looking. It’s a good set of default fonts for personal needs.
Whenever I have made memes, I tend to use online photoshop like editors and often use a comic based font like Comic Book.
Imagine leaking your home address because of a font
Why was this video so good
Awesome video! Sleeping kitty spotted near the end...
SF Pro (6:08) looks a lot like the default "classic" font when making an Instagram story, but I didn't do a pixel analysis so it could just be a lookalike.
That would be for iOS devices, yeah. It may have been made on Instagram and exported for Reddit
1:58 FINALLY I see people calling out Anton. Cheap ripoff that I've been warning people about for YEARS.
Imagine being a google or apple employee, secretly making memes while at work, and you’re caught because of your font
lmao, i wonder what the hell my meme font choices say about me. the text alignment, though, is a dead giveaway that i make them on mobile.
Impact is still super popular but mostly in ironic memes
Hey Linus, thanks for the video! Not sure if the historic data can be found in the Reddit API, but we can surely take / use snapshots of the daily top list in order to have historic data available eventually.
this is such an interesting discussion! also imma be real i have never heard of canva in my life godbless
It’s at this point Catswell realized she was font nerd. Subscribed
That’s absolutely fascinating
5:05 Google fan here! The Google Photos app uses Product Sans as the default font to add text to images. So maybe that meme was made on a phone.