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Claim: Microsoft's Wingdings font includes hidden anti-Semitic and 9/11-referential messages.
Example: [Collected via e-mail, 2001]
Origins: In the
When Microsoft developed a new graphical font, Webdings, in 1997, Kuresman said typographers took pains to ensure that the image corresponding with the capital letters NYC was a pleasant one. Users who type in that string of letters in Webdings are greeted with graphics for an eye, a heart and a city skyline, symbols for the message "I Love New York."
The darker message supposedly associated with those same letters in the Wingsdings font was noted as far back as 1992, when the New York Post tabloid published an breathless article about the discovery of a "secret anti-Semitic message apparently urging death to Jews in New York City":
One of the world's best-selling computer programs contains a secret anti-Semitic message apparently urging death to Jews in New York City. A computer consultant discovered the diabolic message while installing Microsoft's new The consultant was testing a mailing-address use of the program when he noticed the letters "NYC" had been replaced by a hateful message - a skull and crossbones, the Star of David and an approving thumbs-up symbol. Microsoft strongly denies any hidden message. Others disagree. "There's no way it could be a random coincidence," said Brian Young, a friend of the consultant, who does not wish to be named. "It's pretty scary. I was pretty shocked by the whole thing." Computer owners who use Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word or any other Microsoft program containing a print font named "Wingdings" can duplicate the anti-Semitic message by typing the letters "NYC" on their screen. Microsoft said "Wingdings" was designed by Bigelow and Holmes, an outside vendor, and denied that Microsoft intentionally designed the secret message. Prof. Charles Bigelow confirmed that his company provided the symbols, but insisted that Microsoft made the final "mapping" decisions assigning his symbols to specific keys on the keyboard. But a senior Microsoft spokesman said the charge that the fonts contain a hidden message is "outrageous." "It's like saying that if you randomly type out characters on a keyboard to spell 'Satan', you can do that, but it's incredible to say that there's anti-Semitism in Microsoft or one of its vendors," said Charles Hemingway. But Young, who discussed the matter with other computer consultants, isn't so sure it's just a coincidence. The "Wingdings" font contains no letters — just 255 symbols. Young calculated the odds of three letters of the alphabet being combined with 255 symbols, and said he found that the odds of obtaining the message were less than one in a trillion. "It's mind-blowing," said Young. "Somebody's responsible for this. This is very offensive." "I found it hard to believe some of the stories about the resurgence of Nazi sympathizers — but this puts things back into perspective."
We can certainly understand how people would respond with some shock to this apparent issue. We did too when it first came up nine years ago and we investigated it thoroughly in partnership with the Anti-Defamation League. The conclusion was that the sequence in the Wingdings character set is coincidental and that there was no malicious intent. In fact, it impacted several software companies at the time and continues to do so. Unfortunately, there was not an easy way to fix the problem. We understand that this requires explanation.
Wired magazine also interviewed a typographer who noted that the arrangement of symbols in the Wingdings font was surely nothing more than coincidence:
At the simplest level, wingdings and webdings are much like an alphabet of characters and provide thousands of potential combinations from which a person could choose. Changing the character set would create an impact of unknown scale on existing data and code using the affected font. Again, using the example of the alphabet, what would happen to existing documents and applications if we switched around a handful of letters? The likely result is that we would create significant issues for people, cause some unintended humorous moments and several offensive ones. For that reason Wingdings has been left unaltered since its inception.
Don Hosek, a typographer and editor of the typeface magazine Serif, said that graphic font designers don't usually pay much attention to the way particular images correspond to letters on the keyboard.
(Penn Jillette, of Penn & Teller fame, also penned a caustic essay on this phenomenon for PC Computing back in 1992.)
"We have enough symbols and combinations that it's almost inevitable that you'll find something that's a little sinister," he said. Although it's common for designers to include one or two deliberate messages — usually something innocent like a logo — it's safe to assume that the image strings on Wingdings were randomly generated. Hosek said he has known the creators of Wingdings — Charles Bigelow and Kris Holmes of the font design firm Bigelow & Holmes — for more than a decade and is convinced that they had not intended to offend anyone. "These are two of the most peace-loving people on the face of the Earth," he said. "There's no way it was anything other than an unfortunate coincidence." The last coincidence mentioned in the example quoted at the head of this page — that the arrangements of symbols corresponding to the string "Q33NY" in the Wingdings font is a "sign that Microsoft were involved in the terrorist attack" — is purely a contrived one. Although typing the characters  Additional information:  "MS Denies Wingding Thing, Again" (Wired News)
"I Heart My Dog's Head" (Penn Jillette)
Last updated: 11 December 2005 This material may not be reproduced without permission. snopes and the snopes.com logo are registered service marks of snopes.com.  Sources:
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