If you came of age in the late 2000s, like I did, you very likely hold a special place in your heart for Lil Wayne. The guy was a constant fixture in our lives, yelling in our ears about how he wanted to have sex with every girl in the world, and other stuff, I guess. That one feels the most salient.

The man is back! But I’ve changed…His new stuff is less like his best stuff, but it’s still unmistakably, unequivocally him. Do you guys also remember that video of the white kid rapping, and the tweet that said he was rapping in Times New Roman? God, I sound so fucking lame. Talking about a tweet.

Anyway, if you had to ascribe a font to Lil Wayne, what would it be? I would pick something like American Typewriter. “Haha, no! Lil Wayne raps in Wingdings for sure!” No, fuck you. Stop with the Wingdings shit. God.

OK. Can we pause for a second? I just have to explain myself. I really don’t like being a guy who keeps talking about tweets. I can’t believe this is where I am. Can I maybe explain why?

I was reading this Lil Wayne article, and I was thinking about how unique his voice/drawl is. Good enough starting point, right? And then I remembered that (legitimately funny) tweet. And then I was going to do a whole thing about how Ritam changed the font on me.

You get it? You can kind of imagine what the whole vibe was going to be. I just had to think of a pretty convoluted lede to get there. I mean, I didn’t have to. I chose to do that. But you can all attest—usually I’m not this off my game. OK—I guess I might as well steel myself and get back on track.

As you may have noticed, the font—and thus, my voice—has been ripped out from underneath me. Anything I had drafted beforehand needed to be scrapped. I was ready to write about how Brie Larson is just a YouTuber now, or maybe how I found a Twitter account where this woman posts photos of the wrinkly soles of her feet because it turns that’s a kink. But once I was hit with this:

It became evidently clear I could no longer continue. I couldn’t sully the royal austerity of this new font by spilling ink about dudes horny for wrinkly feet. What would I do? What else could—

Do you see? Do you see how I did it again?? I started talking about tweets. Good lord. This is so stupid. Why are we all doing this? Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter fully of lightly researched, three-quarters-baked musings on online culture. You definitely can’t get that anywhere else!

It’s actually hella embarrassing to be a guy who references tweets in real life. Is this all there is? We just assume cultural discourse based on someone else’s assumption, and then we spiral, recursively, referencing increasingly removed conversation points until no one is even remotely discussing anything tangible, let alone intelligible to an outside interloper? And then I go on with my day and read a damn Franzen novel??????!

The font itself is fine, I guess. Ritam chose a good one. What do you guys think? I don’t even know what it’s called. Going to try out some words and phrases and see how they look in their new outfits:

Chollampat

SARS-CoV-2

Ari J. Elkins

Shit

I’m Kumail Nanjiani, and this is Jackass

Comptroller

Thank you guys so much for 100K. Make sure to like and subscribe.

Humira adalimumab

It’s growing on me more, this font. I could see myself alternately writing a deeply reported investigation into Warby Parker’s company culture, as well as a GQ profile of Jason Momoa titled “Jason Momoa Is Here—And He’s Not Going Anywhere.”

Even this GQ profile shit—I’m referencing something that you would know about if you spent a significant portion of your time reading celebrity profiles online. Embarrassing.

Is it true that the dominant mode of conversation now is talking about something you saw online? “Have you seen this?"; “You gotta check this out…”; “I was dying at this…” etc. It sure feels like it. The past year-and-a-half has rendered us all unable to live fully outside, touch real things, so I guess this is how it is.

I think the reason it feels so gross is that you are, essentially, circling the drain and talking about nothing. A dude somewhere said this one thing—now let’s talk about it. My referencing it is a point in my favor, because I am the one who has brought it up first, even though we all will eventually remember it, too. Now that we’ve all shared the moment of recognition, what’s next? “Oh, did you see this other thing?”

I guess I should get back to the font thing at some point. I feel more comfortable hanging out here, honestly. But I don’t know where to go with it now. It feels, conceptually, dead in the water. I don’t even know where the thread is on the Lil Wayne stuff. But I just need something to tie it all together.

You guys remember this?

ritam @mehtaritam

this site is full of 38 year old "design nerds" who think it is very interesting to be excited about fonts. it's 2020. everyone knows and likes fonts now. 99% invisible has been one of the most popular podcasts for like 10 years. it is not PUNK to know what freaking kerning is!!!

June 30th 2020

10 Likes

Ritam’s Footnote

yOu GuYs REmEmBer THiS?

ritam @mehtaritam

Looks like Brie Larson went from making Room to making videos in her Room

February 5th 2021

2 Likes