This is (ab)using unicode, for example the F is actually a Mathematical Bold Fraktur Capital F:<p><a href="https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/U+1D571" rel="nofollow">https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/U+1D571</a><p>This is terrible for screen readers and the like which are unable to read or understand these unicode characters making accessibility a real concern.
Ỹ̹̼̰͚̺̥ẻ̥̏p͔̭͙̐ͪ̇͊,̤̪̯̙̣ ̰̣̼̻̺͈a̜͚̟ll ̮̼̙̗o͇f̜ t̳̬͍̤͖h̝o͉͚̩̗s̠͙̗̝̬͕ͅḙ͇̬̱͔̟ ͖̘̖͉ͅa͇̥̖͎̜͇r͓̳e͔̙͙ ̞̦͈u̪̤̳̟̞̰s̼̣̩̗i̭̯n͔̟̞͕̹g̩͇͍̗͖̻ ͕̪̮̩v͙̳͍̞͓ͅa̹̫̰ͅlịd̯͚̘̯ ̤̙A̜̪S̗͎͖̥̠̳C͇̮I͓̭̟̲I̦̟̲/̶̞̞̱͈̰̣͙̥̹̪̯͚̝͈̹̹ ̛͈̱̻͍̬̟͙̰̠̟̖̕Ú̡͉͙̻̗͙̭͉̖̖n̨̡̗̩͈̭̻͕̭͇͇̲͙̖̫̯̜͚͈ͅi͏̷̀͏̪͎̜̜̠͇̩͙̗̯͍̮̜͖̮͓͓̫c̺͉̦͓͙̤̼̰̀͠ͅo͏̯̜̥̣̯͕̻̮͘͡d̖͉͈̬͍̩͚̬̯̰̳̀́͞ͅe̡̗̻̫͕̙̘̲̫̦͉̬̖̭̺͡͝ ͖̺̳̟͓͇c̠̟͎̼̲̳h͖̣͕̯a̜͔͉̼̮r̗a̰̘̭͚̠̮̝c̱̰̦͕̰ͅͅt͉er̟͉̫͍̥̦s͈͖̤̞.<p>...<p>日本の作品も (🅙🅐🅟🅐🅝🅔🅢🅔 also works)<p>中国也有作品 (ℭ𝔥𝔦𝔫𝔢𝔰𝔢 too)<p>etc.<p>╔═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗<p>║ Those have been around for a very long time and were very popular on teen blogging platforms like skyrock, myspace, etc. ║<p>╚═════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝<p>ヾ(＾-＾)ノ
Please don't use this. Concrete example: if you use the OpenDyslexia font and have configured your browser to override individual website's fonts, this is what you see: <a href="https://i.imgur.com/aCk2ShW.png" rel="nofollow">https://i.imgur.com/aCk2ShW.png</a>
Note: To see what Unicode characters are in a piece of text, one can paste them into a tool like Uniview: <a href="https://r12a.github.io/uniview/" rel="nofollow">https://r12a.github.io/uniview/</a> (Developed by one of the W3C i18n people)
Interesting, looks like Firefox automatically resolves these to the real letters in the address bar, but leaves them as is for google search. Nice job aggregating these into an easy-to-use font.
Nice! Submission's UI is way slicker, but for more options and a more OG-web feel, this page is my go-to for these: <a href="http://qaz.wtf/u/convert.cgi?text=This+is+pretty+fun+too.+Do+something+for+your+group+tag" rel="nofollow">http://qaz.wtf/u/convert.cgi?text=This+is+pretty+fun+too.+Do...</a>
I've been using <a href="http://qaz.wtf/u/convert.cgi" rel="nofollow">http://qaz.wtf/u/convert.cgi</a> for ages. Little bit more dated interface, but same idea. That utility also does some pseudo-alphabets using characters from other scripts.
Doesn't seem to work on Android devices. All I see is missing unicode characters. Roboto doesn't seem to have have these glyphs.<p>On Mac, most of the glyps in the title seem to be from STIX font.
There is some explanation here: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18468045" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18468045</a>
It should definitely include Zalgo Text (or Cthulhu text as I know it): <a href="https://www.zalgotextgenerator.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.zalgotextgenerator.com/</a><p>I know it from the first reply here, which I would say it's a well known StackOverflow question/answer by now: <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/q/1732348/938236" rel="nofollow">https://stackoverflow.com/q/1732348/938236</a>
Whenever Fraktur comes up I feel compelled to link to one of my favorite Wikipedia articles, about a German ideological debate centered around two font faces, Antiqua and Fraktur: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiqua%E2%80%93Fraktur_dispute" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiqua%E2%80%93Fraktur_disput...</a>
I notice this is already being abused in submissions to HN. Sigh. A user being able to override a site's restrictions on their input seems like a horrendous idea, not to mention the accessibility implications.<p>Just looking at the comment section here I have concluded that this is a blight on the web. Sites (unfortunately) should go ahead and update to strip this BS out
I am partial to using Unicode Emoji to add graphics/icons to applications that don't support those. Surprisingly, almost no software removes emoji symbol range (HN does, wisely). But this seems more annoying than clever. I mean, it's still text, except barely readable and bound to break some common-sense UI interactions.
Very cool. I don't know if this counts as a bug as it's not really the intended use, but if I copy one of the results and then paste it into the "Write something here..." input, all the results then match the pasted style rather than being re-styled.
Seems like a good place to plug this: <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/glitchtext/id1412938752?ls=1&mt=8" rel="nofollow">https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/glitchtext/id1412938752?ls=1...</a>
There's a program/extension somewhere that allows these extra "fonts" in facebook comments sections... One of my family members started typing in some weird math font that broke on my old tablet.
I tried some diacritics letters and the site didn't handle those. Is it issue of the site? or those special characters don't include various latin based diacritics? German Umlauts? Polish ąęćłńóśźż ? etc
not sure if it's been mentioned already but <a href="https://tell.wtf" rel="nofollow">https://tell.wtf</a> offers a similar service to this along with a rather intelligent unicode pallete and the ability to draw characters to try and match characters you're looking for. also, since z̼͖̺̠̰͇̙̓͛ͮͩͦ̎ͦ̑ͅa̘̫͈̭͌͛͌̇̇̍l͕͖͉̭̰ͬ̍ͤ͆̊ͨg͎͚̥͎͔͕ͥ̿o͎̜̓̇ͫ̉͊ͨ͊ was mentioned, <a href="https://eeemo.net" rel="nofollow">https://eeemo.net</a> ftw
It's not actually a fancy font but different Unicode codepoints. "a" is not "𝖆" as far as Unicode is concerned. The Latin alphabet is mapped into Unicode for different uses.<p>In the end abuse of these characters will lead to even more variants being created covering the accented letters too. You can't leave out all the languages that have an extended alphabet, can you?<p><a href="https://xkcd.com/1726/" rel="nofollow">https://xkcd.com/1726/</a>