Like the tone of a spoken voice, the characteristics of a typeface convey meaning. The design of the typeface is, in itself, its voice. Often this voice speaks louder than the text itself. Thus when designing a “Do Not Enter” sign the use of a heavy-stroked, attention-commanding font such as Impact or Arial Black is appropriate. Typesetting such a message in Comic Sans would be ludicrous. Though this is sort of misuse is frequent, it is unjustified. Clearly, Comic Sans as a voice conveys silliness, childish naivete, irreverence, and is far too casual for such a purpose. It is analogous to showing up for a black tie event in a clown costume.
In Autumn 1999, some hatinglosers not cool enough for teh Comic Sans decided to build an Internet Hate Machine to take out teh greatest font evar. The Ban Comic Sans movement claims that the font looks awful, gets overused on everything, and is otherwise just poop. WUT DO U MEAN? COMIC SANS IS AWESOME!
Since that time, lots of mindless sheep have started subscribing to teh Comic Sans hate. KNOCK IT OFF GUYZ THIS FONT RULZ!
Middle aged women that think it makes them look whimsical (protip: IT DOES!!!).
School teachers trying to make that 30 page paper on Moby Dick fun and exciting. Sure, you might do something you'd regret if it's in Helvetica, but Comic Sans? Sign us up!
Peter Principle-afflicted management at small companies that also ask their website developers for flashing backgrounds, embedded MIDIs, and to start off with an awesome poem the five year old son of the CEO wrote in Kindergarten. All very good ideas!
Your average sub-corporation organization. Campus newsletter? Comic Sans! Local theater putting on a play? Comic Sans! Vietnam veteran memorial being set up for this weekend? COMIC SANS OMG!
Satirical websites making fun of the childishness, inappropriateness, and sheer oversaturation of this font, but they're just haters!
