Instagram Stories' new font looks an awful lot like Comic Sans

Instagram rolled out several new fonts to Create Mode for Stories today, allowing users to issue their transient missives in a wider selection of styles. Typically, having more options to choose from when crafting Stories would be a welcome development.

However, numerous people have been distressed to discover one of Instagram's new fonts bears an upsetting similarity to Comic Sans — the most hated font in the world.

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Created by former Microsoft font designer Vincent Connare, Comic Sans was based on the lettering in graphic novels Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns (lettered by Dave Gibbons and John Costanza respectively). Though originally intended for use in comic software, its misapplication in professional settings has earned it widespread ire since its release in 1994.

Comic Sans makes sense when you're writing a children's puzzle book or making a meme. It's more jarring when it's being used by CERN scientists presenting historic Higgs boson findings.

Instagram's bubbly new text isn't actually the official Comic Sans font. Upon closer inspection, the new script plaguing Instagram has some minor variations from the infamous typeface, marking it a different beast altogether.

However, there's no denying that Instagram's ersatz Comic Sans carries with it the aesthetic spirit of its more famous predecessor.

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Some of Comic Sans' defenders argue that it actually makes text more accessible for people with dyslexia, as the irregularity of the font makes each letter easier to distinguish. Numerous other fonts can also help people with dyslexia, such as the much less controversial Arial, Calibri, and Century Gothic, however Comic Sans is one of the most frequently referenced typefaces.

Mashable has reached out to Instagram to confirm the identity of its mysterious new font, and whether accessibility was a consideration when deciding to introduce it.

But for most people, the true value in Instagram's off-brand Comic Sans is in its ability to add a powerful irritant to your emoji-speckled sentences. If you're looking to provoke rage in your followers and despair in your friends, this new font is a guaranteed game changer.

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