Vocal fry

[Idleplum]

Is it just me or are more and more people speaking with a vocal fry? It’s so common, it has to be intentional. I absolutely can’t stand it.

MAFS Australia used to be my guilty pleasure but I had to give it up because I couldn’t take listening to all those guys horrible voices. Now I feel like every video I see online has someone speaking like it and my body does this weird, scrunched up thing because I hate it so much.

Vocal fry has always been around, it’s just overused now in an attempt to be nonchalant. When someone’s speech patterns become too repetitive and predictable, it gets really annoying.

Zooey Deschanel does it on New Girl so I stopped watching as it made me cringe.

Is this the "born under a Wandring Star" sound?

AAAggghhh I hate this so much! I know exactly what you mean and it's unbearable!
The Doctor that often features on Jeremy Vines show does it and I have to turn the radio off when she comes on.

This is not a you problem. It's very very very much them.

Geoff Lindsey’s argument that women get criticised for vocal fry but men don’t because of misogyny is facile and completely undermined by the examples he gives eg Sean Connery.

The men are not dropping their voices to unnaturally low pitches, whereas the women are so it’s comparing apples and oranges.

It can still be annoying if over used by men but has to be a lot more extreme to be unpleasant because they are talking at their normal male pitch.

See, this is what I mean. I started noticing it with the Aussie men and like you say, it's so bad you just need to get away from the sound of it.

I actually don't think I know of many people that do it, it's more on videos/podcasts that I notice it and both genders - not more women over men.

This video is brilliant especially all the clips from 11.10 onwards.

quoted wrong post

So even when men do it, it’s women who are to blame 🙄

You rejected two women because of how they speak? Do you have an HR department? I’ve done a fair bit of hiring and dismissing someone because of how they speak, well I just can’t imagine that would be a valid reason without being discriminatory?

I think her name is Lorena, she has long hair with an undercut.

"intellectual pygmy" @Arraminta 😂

Someone on MN once referred to her as having a sticky mouth, IIRC.

Did she? All I can see is the name of a person that’s written a book.

Is it even possible in a non American accent?

I wondered this but check out the YouTube video by Dr Geoff Lindsay above, esp after 11/12 min - lots of clips of extreme vocal fry from British men in the past - BBC presenters, the actor who voiced Shere Khan, Sean Connery. Basically your classic old fashioned British posh baddie voice. And other nationalities too.

I don't understand your question. Of course it is.

Here's a crap clip of the Aussie guy that first ruined MAFS Australia for me. This isn't even that bad for him, but I CBA to scroll through endless clips and listen to horrible voices.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cb7MPS9LotS/

I had no idea what this meant until someone mentioned Australian male and I immediately thought of Chris Hemsworth as Thor (in that weird psuedo-British accent that he uses for the character). Is that the sort of thing?

I'll throw my own charge of discrimination in here. Vocal fry massively impairs intelligibility. If you have any degree of hearing loss, vocal fry makes the speaker incomprehensible, not just irritating. It excludes the hearing-impaired and many elderly.

Yes and it doesn't have to be on every word.

It's very common in public speaking on the last vowel sound in the sentence to give more time to think instead of saying um or er - dragging out the last vowel sound.

when I say public speaking I mean any situation where someone needs time to think before they carry on - so people being interviewed, politicians speaking in Parliament. It can develop into a habbit. Watch out for it and you'll see it more.

Juicy mouth!
A perfect way to describe Richard Osman.

I do hear it a lot online and I'm not a fan, is anyone? Apparently it was originally used by women to sound more intelligent or something which is just bizarre to me.

How so if it’s an affectation?

I think the most annoying is the long drawn out drawly long vowels turning downwards type of vocal fry.

This! Throw in video calls with cameras off so you can’t read their lips and it is so hard to understand what some people are saying. My hearing was damaged in my 20s so it’s especially difficult for me.

GIYF