Vocal fry on podcasts. Anyone immediately put off by a voice?

[auberginefortea]

I listen to quite a few podcasts, mainly from the UK and US. Is anyone else immediately put off by certain voices? I really struggle with the kind of vocal fry I sometime hear. It seems that it's often US journalists, and it's a real shame as the topic can sound quite interesting ... but the voice, oh my god.

Isn't REEsearch the noun, and r'SEARCH the verb? Nobody says "REEsearching", and nobody says "I presented my r'SEARCH", do they?

Confess I am mid-Atlantic after decades in both the UK and the US, so may not be the authority!

I think vocal fry started with the likes of Paris Hilton back in the '00s. It was used to convey a sentiment of "I'm so rich, I don't need to be doing this [talking to you]. I'm doing you a favour". Hence the barely-awake, slow drawl of minimum effort.

Nowadays it's morphed into a simple "I'm doing you a favour", hence the barista YT clip above. The problem is that, for people other than the Kim Kardashians of the world, the generation most likely to deploy vocal fry today is also the generation which is not doing anyone but itself a favour, and also likes to voice (especially to the people who are enabling their employment) their dissatisfaction with their lives and that specific job.

'Twas ever thus. It's an affected attitude to communicate the same frustrations and troubled energy as every preceding teenage (now 20s, also!) generation.

@StoneTheCrone . Yes.
I'm another who doesn't like Amol Rajan's voice. He seems to stumble over the words a bit. I can tolerate it.

I find the Saturday morning shows a switch-off but I like The Week in Westminster.

@Raincloudsonasunnyday, both are reSEARCH

There's an ad on Facebook for some band called the crawlers (I think) and the vocal fry on the girl trying to convince me to buy her album literally turns my stomach.

Just seeing her face pop on fb now is enough to make me cringe.

How to pronounce the verb

How to pronounce the noun

@WhoppingBigBackside According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it would appear we're both wrong!

Yes, I can't stand it. But I'm ND and I think it's some sort of sensory ick.

I always call that a Nasally Voice.

There was an American woman used on an Amazon advert last year (promoting an internship or similar) it was awful, and I had to mute it every time.

It always reminds me of "And this one tiiiime, at bannd cammmmp"

They're both pronounced r'search. As I said earlier! 😁 I fear it's a lost battle though. Almost everyone says REEsearch. 🙄

No - look at the second British English pronunciation of the noun. It's REEsearch. There's no battle to win or lose, both are correct! One less thing to get irritated by (vocal fry is bad enough).

@RainbowZebraWarrior its not the tone it’s the long, drawn out last word.

I heard that episode too!

it’s a bit annoying but I can still listen

Classic example here.😂
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M07dbv0Xkt0

Omg. I was thinking this just the other day. Had to switch off an American podcast because the presenters were just annoying me. Mostly women but there are some men who are equally irritating.

I felt awful admitting it to myself so I'm glad it's not just me.

Yes yes yes to wet mouth noises. I have to turn off the traffic on radio 2 as the female presenters has exactly that. Also really sadis the latest audio book by billy connollly. I know it probably is down to his illness but I really struggle to listen to it.

@Raincloudsonasunnyday , I'm not. Just because people say REE-search doesn't make it right.
Look at the one for integral.

I'm not going to lose sleep over it. Mischeevious and nukuler are more annoying.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels like this. There's one podcast by a "thought leader" in the US division of my company who I feel I should listen to, but I find it so hard.

My pet hate is whispery voices, where it sounds as if they’ve got the got the microphone really close and they are whispering. I think they are trying to sound serious or conspiratorial or intimate or something. Just sounds stupid - talk properly!! Grace Dent is unlistenable for this reason.

Also people who drop their ts! They are being paid to speak ffs. There is a trailer on on of the podcast I listen to at the moment “are feeling crea’ive’ 😡

Grace Dent is unlistenable for this reason. The Untold would have been better kept that way.

Tried listening to Things Fell Apart and decided that I preferred silence.

I listen to the Evolution of Horror podcast and there's a US Freudian therapist on there whose voice sounds so affected I have to switch off whenever she is on. It sounds like she's making an effort to seduce the listener and to my ears it is very close to parody. Ugh!

I’ve been saying this for ages about Rory Stewart on The Rest is Politics. I’ve had to turn off some episodes because his vocal fry is so unbearable.

Totally agree with The Untold, it was actually The Unlistenable.

@Teddleshon , I call Don't Log Off something else. Do Switch Off is the polite version.

I had to stop listening to an audio book because the intonation was terrible. Every sentence was monotonously the same and sounded like she was reading stations for British Rail services. I completely lost the plot of the book by Chpt 2, which was a shame as the bits I could zone in for seemed well written. Authors must be so frustrated by this!

I was going to mention Grace Dent but wasn't sure of the name so I looked up some YouTube videos. I found some where she spoke quite normally so decided that I must have the wrong person. But I was right! It's even worse to know that she can talk normally and that the whisperyness is put on.

I tried Things Fell Apart and couldn't get past the Introducing piece and a few minutes of the first episode. It ran along the lines of "you'll never believe what happened that time. And who knew the ramifications it would have, in a New York suburb, forty years later. But it started in an existential movement in France in 1960 ..." And so on and so forth. I was left scratching my head, wondering what on earth he was talking about (the title, 1000 Dolls, gave no clue). I think that I was supposed to be intrigued; instead, I was bemused and bored. So nil points for both content and delivery.