diff --git a/PyPDF2/_utils.py b/PyPDF2/_utils.py
index b73fa93e1..e2521dc7e 100644
--- a/PyPDF2/_utils.py
+++ b/PyPDF2/_utils.py
@@ -56,7 +56,6 @@
     float, float, float, float, float, float
 ]
 
-bytes_type = bytes  # Works the same in Python 2.X and 3.X
 StreamType = Union[BytesIO, BufferedReader, BufferedWriter, FileIO]
 StrByteType = Union[str, StreamType]
 
diff --git a/PyPDF2/generic.py b/PyPDF2/generic.py
index e092c4aa4..ecf6ec211 100644
--- a/PyPDF2/generic.py
+++ b/PyPDF2/generic.py
@@ -48,7 +48,6 @@
     WHITESPACES,
     StreamType,
     b_,
-    bytes_type,
     deprecate_no_replacement,
     deprecate_with_replacement,
     hex_str,
@@ -496,7 +495,7 @@ def read_string_from_stream(
     return create_string_object(txt, forced_encoding)
 
 
-class ByteStringObject(bytes_type, PdfObject):  # type: ignore
+class ByteStringObject(bytes, PdfObject):  # type: ignore
     """
     Represents a string object where the text encoding could not be determined.
     This occurs quite often, as the PDF spec doesn't provide an alternate way to
@@ -1897,7 +1896,7 @@ def create_string_object(
     """
     if isinstance(string, str):
         return TextStringObject(string)
-    elif isinstance(string, bytes_type):
+    elif isinstance(string, bytes):
         if isinstance(forced_encoding, (list, dict)):
             out = ""
             for x in string: