Saturday Night Live doesn't pull punches. While the sketch show is known for its brutal takedowns of Donald Trump and other government officials, Saturday night's season 43 premiere directed its ire towards a different subject: the Papyrus font. You know, the font you used for school projects about Egyptian history and literally nothing else? SNL was similarly dismissive, centering their frustration around the fact that its most widely known as the font for the Avatar movies. The sketch quickly went viral, so much so that the creator of Papyrus himself weighed in.
"I woke up this morning Sunday and my email was full," he told CBSN. "I had a lot of people telling me, 'Did you see this Saturday Night Live thing?' I took a look at it and me and my wife were like cracking up, I mean we couldn't stop laughing. It was one of the best things I've seen."
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As for the font itself, the origins of Papyrus are much more innocent than the sketch would have you believe.
"I designed the font when I was 23 years old. I was right out of college," Costella continued. "I was kind of just struggling with some different life issues, I was studying the Bible, looking for God and this font came to mind, this idea of, thinking about the biblical times and Egypt and the Middle East. I just started scribbling this alphabet while I was at work and it kind of looked pretty cool."
However, he never thought it would have ended up being such a recognizable design, nor that it would become a staple of every computer's font options.
" It was not my intent to be used for everything — it's way overused," he admits. However, he still stands by it. "I'm a graphic designer as well, I'm an illustrator ... I believe it's a well-designed font, it's well-thought out."
And since it inspired a sketch as hilarious as this one, we'll let it stick around. Watch below!
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