Residents in coastal areas of the southeastern U.S. who remain in the path of Hurricane Matthew are reportedly being struck by waves of dangerously large fonts, with some measuring as many as 236 points tall.
“I haven’t seen typeface this big since Hurricane Andrew in 1992,” said Daytona Beach resident Gus T. Wynd, 73, referring to a now-famous Miami Herald 244-point headline that simply read “Uh-oh.”
“Soon as I went on the CNN website today, I got walloped right in the eyes with a real scary 186-pointer, knocked me off my chair, so I fell on my cat Igor, and now he’s got a broken leg and won’t stop meowing,” he said.
Many of the fonts are so large that they’re reaching as far inland as the midwestern state of Iowa, where some residents are said to be too afraid to even turn on their tablets and laptops.
Paul Riggs, a self-described daredevil from Des Moines, says he was almost killed when at the urging of friends he opened a news app on his Android smartphone and the whole screen immediately filled up with a single letter.
“It was a big black D, must have been 136 points big, scared the crap out of me,” he said. “I didn’t even scroll down to see the next letter, just dropped my phone, but it rebounded and hit me right here above the eye, got cut up pretty good. Just hope my brains didn’t leak out.”
Experts are advising people all across the country to avoid reading newspapers, both print or online, unless they are prepared to have their eyes forced open and violated by screaming boldface type. If you do get injured by large font, it is recommended to sit in a dark room for 20 minutes and switch to radio for obtaining hurricane updates.