Unrelated to the content of the article -- it appears that the font used in the article has (some) letters "dipping down" below others; for example, the "t" and

Unrelated to the content of the article -- it appears that the font used in the article has (some) letters "dipping down" below others; for example, the "t" and "i" in "noticing" don't have their bottoms at quite the same level. I don't know if this is just an illusion caused by font thickness or if this is stylistic choice, but I've seen a few of these styles floating around (usually in these "serious" longform articles). Since this doesn't technically have anything to do with the spacing between letters, is it accurate to call this a feature of kerning? If not, what is the term here? Is it mean to be evocative of typewritten text? While I don't necessarily dislike it, it did prove to be mildly distracting, hence the questions.