I am here today with Times New Roman, a font which is used to create words in most newspapers and school assignments.
GW: Welcome, TNR.
TNR: Thanks. This is a little weird. I've never been interviewed before.
GW: Why do you think that is?
TNR: I'm a font.
GW: Explain to those who might not know what a font is.
TNR: I'm a typeface. Notice how the end of my letter "t" is a little curly? Not everybody can pull that off.
GW: And supposedly that makes you easier to read than some others.
TNR: That's just hype. But you know, you repeat a thing often enough...
GW: Teachers often insist their students use Times New Roman when writing school assignments. This seems to be true across the entire country. Why do you think that is?
TNR: I have a great agent.
GW: (laughing) Is that it? How about a shout-out?
TNR: Yo, Morty! You go, dude! See you at the thing next weekend.
GW: The thing?
TNR: Bill Gates is having an exclusive little thing for serif fonts in the Bahamas.
GW: Serif fonts. You mean the fonts that have the curly letters.
TNR: Yeah. My man Courier will be there. Bodoni. Palatino.
GW: I take it Comic Sans is not invited.
TNR. Ha ha. Comic Sans! There are sans-serif fonts and then there are SANS-SERIF fonts. That dude is deeply without serif. And usually purple. Third graders love him, though. I'm not hating.
GW: What do you think makes a great font?
TNR: The ability to be bold.
GW: It's true. Some can't be.
TNR: I will never understand that.
GW: Me neither. How hard is that?
TNR: Right?
GW: So you are the default font, the Coca-Cola of typeface. What's the downside?
TNR: People only use my 12 point size. Branch out, folks! Have you checked me out at 8? I still look sharp. My 72 point is strangely slimming. People are always like, "Have you lost weight?"
GW: Do you have any rivals?
TNR: Calibri is the default in MS Word, but people always switch Calibri to me, which does not engender a lot of good will. Luckily I only see him once a year, at Burning Man, and he's usually hammered. Nobody likes being number two.
GW: What's next for TNR?
TNR: We're contemplating Times Really New Roman. Each letter would have an embedded tattoo. That's just between us.
GW: Now that's bold.
TNR: It's just TNR being TNR, baby.
. . .
