Papyrus - SNL

Saturday Night Live0 HN recommenders · 2021–2026
25.8M views · comedy · evergreen · Uploaded 2017-10-01

An SNL sketch in which Ryan Gosling's character is obsessed with the font choice (Papyrus) in the movie Avatar's title. It is a comedy bit about a widely mocked typeface.

Posted as a joke in threads about typefaces and typography.

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9 comments from Hacker News

@45ure2021 · in “Typography of 2001: A Space Odyssey (2014)”

It does seem to stir up some strong emotions. Years after Avatar's release, there's one thing Steven (Ryan Gosling) just can't get over. [VIDEO]

@thegabriele2023 · in “Word-as-Image for Semantic Typography”

Avatar (billions in box office) and papyrus come to mind (classic: [VIDEO] ). Sometimes the triteness it's just...ok?

@ly3xqhl8g92023 · in “Intel One Mono Typeface”

"He just highlighted Avatar, he clicked the drop down menu, and then he randomly selected Papyrus, like a thoughtless child just wandering by a garden yanking leaves along the way." [1] As iconic a moment as the creation of the first sans serif font [2]. [1] [VIDEO] [2] "The earliest printing typefaces which omitted serifs were not intended to render contemporary texts, but to represent inscriptions in Ancient Greek and Etruscan. Thus, Thomas Dempster's De Etruria regali libri VII (1723), used special types intended for the representation of Etruscan epigraphy, and in c. 1745, the Caslon foundry made Etruscan types for pamphlets written by Etruscan scholar John Swinton." [LINK] .

@esafak2023 · in “KernType – A Letter Spacing Game”

Papyrus! As it happens I have a friend who worked on the Avatar poster and he loves this SNL sketch: [VIDEO]

@Terr_2023 · in “Going back to the old (pre-X) Twitter iOS app”

> It has recontextualised every other redesign I can remember disdaining in my life. But does it go so far that it even excuses Papyrus? :P [VIDEO]

@irrational2023 · in “Using popular font Proxima Nova could get you sued”

Don’t you dare forget Papyrus! [VIDEO] But, the reality is 99.9999% of websites can use one of the free Google fonts. The other .0001% could too, but they want to show that they are not like all the other websites.

@HenryBemis2023 · in “Ask HN: Would you buy 'JOI' from bladerunner if it existed?”

I assume this is a Blade Runner 2 thingie.. which I actively deny its existence, as the first (and ofc the only one) is one of the best sci-fi movies ever made, so there was never a need to make another one. So your question is moot because there is no JOI in Blade Runner (the good - orthodox - 1!) :) But because I am "a generous god" ("300" reference), for the fans of Ryan Gosling, you can always watch his SNL - Papyrus skit: [VIDEO]

@esafak2024 · in “Web design inspiration catalog”

If you are a designer and think about this all day, you might have reason to take offense. Here's a humorous look from the designer's side: [VIDEO]

@Apocryphon2026 · in “Buttered Crumpet, a custom typeface for Wallace and Gromit”

I feel like hipster typography is as much an intrinsic part of 2010s culture as cafes that have a barn aesthetic, or startups named after common nouns. SNL made a sketch about Papyrus almost ten years ago: [VIDEO] [LINK]