My hatred of sans serif

There is enough evidence out there of the approaching apocalypse. I don't  need to add more fuel to the fire. But I can't help myself: this is an issue that has gone unadressed too long.

Everyone using sans serif fonts. Stop. Please stop. God may forgive you, eventually. I won't.

Pay attention: sans serif is for headlines and callouts. It's not for body text. What is wrong with you people?

Somewhere along the way, we all drank the Koolaid and started using sans serifs, like Arial and Helvetica, as the font for our body text. Not having any real reason to do it, we simply accepted it and then promoted its use like it was the Gospels. Even my trusty blogspot, owned by Google, the last bastion of Internet Freedom, those saints whose motto is 'Do No Evil' , even they have imposed this scourge on us. There is no way to change their font unless you manually edit the html.

There is a simple reason why you use serif fonts for the body text: it's more readable. Study after study has shown that people read text faster and with greater comprehension when the font is NOT sans serif. Apparently the little hooky things and flourishes on each letter in a serif font serve a purpose: they help the brain assemble the letters into words faster.

Still, no one seems to care. They continue printing everything in a font that was designed to be used in headlines only. Why? Because the graphic designers have somehow taken over the asylum. It's as if the head of the Science Faculty is Oral Roberts and now we are all presenting evolution as 'this other possible alternative to Seven Days'.

I know my lamentations will fall on deaf ears. But maybe there is one single designer out there who has half a clue. Maybe just one website art director who understands that content needs to be understood, not just pretty. But I doubt it. Web Designers are to the Internet what the Pharisees were to the Jews. Put that in your hat and eat it.

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