JSFiddle - React, Tailwind, and code Playground

HTML

<script src="http://ajax.microsoft.com/ajax/jquery.validate/1.7/jquery.validate.js"></script>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8.2/themes/ui-lightness/jquery-ui.css">
<div id="typehead">
    The Birdsong Collective and Micropress was founded in April 2008 with four goals in mind: to foster sustained collaboration among artists, musicians and writers in the form of an ongoing workshop; to continually encourage each other to produce creative work; to host free, public events where members can showcase works in progress; and to circulate members’ creative endeavors in a low-cost, easy to reproduce, and high-frequency format. Birdsong members share commitments to social movements of feminism, anti-racism, queer positivity, class-consciousness, and DIY cultural production. These commitments inform our creative work in many ways, ranging from the concrete to the theoretical to the experimental.
</div>

CSS

.newClass {
    left: -1px;
    top: -1px;
    color: red;
    position:relative;
}

JavaScript

function randomXToY(minVal,maxVal,floatVal)
{
    var randVal = minVal+(Math.random()*(maxVal-minVal));
    return typeof floatVal=='undefined'?Math.round(randVal):randVal.toFixed(floatVal);
}


var exploded = $('#typehead').text().split('');
var rdmltr = randomXToY(0,exploded.length);
while(exploded[rdmltr] == ' ') {
    rdmltr = randomXToY(0,exploded.length);
}
exploded[rdmltr] = '<span class="newClass">' + exploded[rdmltr] + '</span>';
$('#typehead').html(exploded.join(''));
var toffset = $('.newClass').offset();
alert(toffset.left + "," + toffset.top);