This audio clip is tearing the internet apart. Like that dress, but this time it’s your ears
This audio clip is going to be impossible to avoid today so we might as well get it over with, right?
It’s a bit like that dress that people saw in different colours but instead of your eyes, you’ve got to use your ears.
Here goes …
What do you hear?! Yanny or Laurel pic.twitter.com/jvHhCbMc8I
— Cloe Feldman (@CloeCouture) May 15, 2018
We got ‘Yanny’ and we reckon we could listen to it a million times and never hear ‘Laurel’.
Except …
I'm puzzled that anyone can hear #Yanny – I hear #Laurel very clearly. It's not visual like the McGurk effect (https://t.co/cXgpBD29jt)– O can't even begin to hear #Yanny https://t.co/lFKWOABBD1
— Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) May 16, 2018
And Stephen Fry’s definitely got a bigger brain that us so everything we think is true is probably wrong.
At least we weren’t alone in our confusion.
Wait… I don’t get it. Is this a joke? It very clearly says “yanny” and in no way could it possibly be misheard as “laurel”…am I losing my mind?
— Colleen Ballinger (@ColleenB123) May 16, 2018
I think all the Yanny's are pranking us.
— Boogie LaurelLaurelLaurel (@LikeAFineWino) May 16, 2018
Yanny….I listened 10 times and cant figure out how anyone hears laurel
— Kay◟̽◞̽ (@hazzasxinfinity) May 15, 2018
How are y’all hearing yanny it clear as day says laurel
— Divonte Wilson (@Wilson1Divonte) May 15, 2018
how are y’all hearing laurel? it clear as day says yanny
— lexy rose (@imlexyrose) May 15, 2018
They are saying they hear “yanny” because they want attention….
— Domenic Z (@DomZenga) May 15, 2018
Okay once I sped it up I was able to hear Yanny but all I could hear was Laurel before. pic.twitter.com/4LQR2tnBun
— milinda (@FrcknZazzed) May 16, 2018
Bro it’s the opposite for me when You sped it up I could hear the laurel but when it’s normal all I hear is yanny
— Katelyn Johnson (@kateluhhn) May 16, 2018
you can hear both when you adjust the bass levels: pic.twitter.com/22boppUJS1
— Earth Vessel Quotes (@earthvessquotes) May 15, 2018
this is still just repeating laurel yall are liars
— mac. (@Naja_Hough) May 15, 2018
Laurel and Yanny are the horsemen of the apocalypse
— sarah (@SarahSahim) May 15, 2018
Yanny v. Laurel: Unpacking Meme Culture's Ageism Problem
— Madison Malone Kircher (@4evrmalone) May 15, 2018
You either die a Yanny or live long enough to see yourself become a Laurel.
— Madison Malone Kircher (@4evrmalone) May 15, 2018
There was one thing everyone could agree on, at least. It reminded everyone of this.
I'm flashing back to the white and gold dress or the blue and black dress, y'all. . .and I want to know if the people hearing Yanny saw a blue and black dress and the people hearing Laurel saw a white and gold one. pic.twitter.com/aBWpWJwzn6
— ️Dani ♿/#NEVERAGAIN (@ThatRealDani) May 15, 2018
And if you really want to know more about the science of it, then there’s a whole bunch of stuff here.
Here’s a little bit from the good people of The Verge.
“The secret is frequency. The acoustic information that makes us hear Yanny is higher frequency than the acoustic information that makes us hear Laurel. Some of the variation may be due to the audio system playing the sound, Reicke says. But some of it is also the mechanics of your ears, and what you’re expecting to hear.
Older adults tend to start losing their hearing at the higher frequency ranges, which could explain why Riecke could only hear Laurel, but his eight-year-old daughter could hear Yanny. It’s a phenomenon you can mimic on a computer, he says: if you remove all the low frequencies, you hear Yanny. If you remove the high frequencies, you hear Laurel.”
And there’s a video explainer here.
Last word (almost) to Stephen Fry.
Fascinating. I had thought maybe it was an age thing – like being too old to hear bats & dogwhistles. Thanks for helping out Josh. Still wonder how others hear #Yanny. Maybe they also like cilantro/coriander, which argues alien wrongness all round https://t.co/x84MxmiKQj
— Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) May 16, 2018
Yanny. Yanny. Yanny …