I think it's interesting, and I appreciate, that fonts can communicate so much all by themselves, raise all kinds of opinions, a cult following or a shared 'in-culture'.<p>At uni, a friend and I spent ridiculous time 'perfecting' a few Latex documents for minor assignments, so that when handed over to the senior and cool infosec crowd supervising us would give it a quick glance, followed up by a “Is that latex? Looks good.”. Ironic detached praise and humbleness commenced. “It's alright I guess, sure”.<p>I don't think anyone was ever fooled into believing it was anything more than a play on a shared hacker appreciation. Of making the effort for no reason but it being harder than all the sane alternative ways of producing a document (I'm not a mathmaticians).<p>Computer Modern gives me the same feeling. The font not being a modern font is a useful feature if it supports what you want to say. It has enough character that the idea of people using it by accident feels unlikely. People who doesnt's care seem to prefer sans-serifs.<p>I don't find it strange that CM being so intertwined with the tools used by people who requires typesetting, not word processing, would find that there is a level of shared convention. Based on pragmatism or even aesthetics. As someone wrote in this thread,<p>> “When I see Computer Modern I see an author who didn't get distracted choosing a better font.”<p>If we're looking back, there are loads of fonts that literally couldn't have been designed with screens in mind, as screens weren't a thing. I don't that as a reason to dismiss their continued use by whoever see their purpose.<p>Disclaimer: IBM 3270 everything. Computer Modern when celebrating.