If 2020 was a font, it would be Comic Sans: uneventful, uninspiring and unavoidably ubiquitous.

So perhaps I should be less surprised that the flat and flabby font has suddenly taken over my IG feed this week. What was once synonymous with friendly homemade birthday cards and year nine IT projects has now found an audience in social media’s most basic and bored.

Much like being unable to find anyone on the planet who hasn’t heard of coronavirus, there is probably no computer-literate person who hasn’t heard of Comic Sans. It’s the kind of font I can imagine Trump and American Karens using. It’s irritably simple yet smug.

But the depth of my distaste for Comic Sans isn’t purely autonomous. Back in 2011, US-based graphic designers Holly and David Combs created an anti-Comic Sans manifesto, in which they petitioned to “ban the use of the font Comic Sans and preserve the quality and traditions of typography.”

Fast-forward a decade and the manifesto not only still reads like an anti-Comic Sans scripture, but, with a few interchangeable words here and there, also reads like a 2020 warning – which someone should probs show to the aforementioned Trump and American Karens. It reads: “By banding together to eradicate this font [virus?] from the face of the earth we strive to ensure that future generations will be liberated from this epidemic [pandemic?!?] and never suffer this scourge that is the plague of our time.”

Created in 1994 by Vincent Connare, who designed the squiggly, unbearably child-like font to accompany a digital talking dog who guided new users around the Microsoft interface, the 25-year-old divisive font has now well and truly overstayed its welcome.

Listen, I know I’m not exactly one to talk. As much as I like to think I possess the elegance and refined qualities of Didot, I’m definitely more of a Century Gothic kinda gal. But why not give Times New Roman a go? She’s a straight-shooting, no-nonsense kinda typeface. Or if you want to add a little flare to your fonts, opt for Futura Std, who is basically the Misguided-wearing “woo” girl you’ll find at STK this weekend.

Whatever you choose, I hope this piece has inspired some revulsion within you that will eventually prompt you to return to Freight Sans, San Francisco or, if you’re using an Android phone, Roboto.

Now is not the time to unleash a new wave of Comic Sans on a defenceless world. You’re not oozing retro-chic, you associating yourself with the most maligned digital disaster in recent history – and all your followers are silently judging you for it.