80: On Vocal Fry (Not Just For The Gals)

Research shows that da boiz exhibit vocal fry just as much as da goils. And yet somehow our brothers in christ only associate vocal fry with the "valley girl" archetype, and unfairly criticize it. (*Ironically* due to hardware issues this episode has audio distortion that kinda sounds like vocal fry throughout?? But we did cut the high pitched tone mentioned at the top, with a tool called spectral editing. Thanks, spectral editing.)
 
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hi, Hello, and welcome to Sad Girls against the Patriarchy.
I'm Alison and I'm Alexis, and we are your sad
Girls today. Just to bother you, we inserted a high pitched,

(00:31):
whining noise over the whole recording, just because if you're
having a good day, maybe now you're not.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
It's subliminal messages, you guys, why shouldn't you.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Yes, it's like the album playing backwards, saying like demonic words.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yeah, it's like give us five stars on Spotify.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
We do harp on that a lot. But actually there's
something wrong with these really nice microphones and we really
like to use and it makes us sad.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
Yeah, it's upsetting, and I'm sure it's something we could fix.
But I've been twenty minutes and we're very smart and
we're very good at this now. So yeah, we've been
doing it for two years, almost like we've got it.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
I know it'll be two years in April, I think, right,
I don't know. No, I want to be one year. No,
we start in twenty twenty three. Oh wait, it's twenty
twenty five. Now. Yeah, that's like such a nice number too,
But I'm gonna pause. We're changing our volume levels and
it's going to be great. You know what we're not doing, though,

(01:29):
local fry.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
I'm gonna be vocal frying like the entire time. It's
totally fine.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
What if we did that on purpose the whole episode,
just to make a point.

Speaker 3 (01:39):
I mean, I'm not like against it because it's like
so easy to talk this way. It's like the laziest
way to talk, and I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
I notice that when I'm more emotional, and yes, when
I'm more tired or like fatigued or as I was
reading at the end of your sentences, it's really normal
for people to kind of just pan out to do that, right,
We do that all the time, and it's fine.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, a little bit of local f is totally normal
in speech patterns.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
It's fine. Don't feel strange about your vocal fry. I don't.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
I didn't even think I had vocal fry until I
did like a voice lesson like it did a voice class,
and the teacher basically like did a write up on
like what your voices and like what your accent is
and all this stuff, and she was like, the first
thing is you're like all caps.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
She's like, vocal fry under the line, I was like, whoa.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
I was even doing my actor voice, like hello, I'm Alexis,
and today.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
We're gonna be in vocal fry, Like oh my god. Yeah,
we talked differently in different circumstances, like active voice totally
makes sense. And it makes sense also that people have
little dialectic things that they don't notice usually. I think
it's other people who notice those things. In us. Yes,
we are ourselves all the time, so we're a little
desensitized to it. And I think we live in the

(02:48):
vocal fry state. You thought it with the Sunshine State,
but California is something else. Yeah, it's the vocal fry state.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
So I think I we're more desensitized to it than
other people.

Speaker 1 (03:00):
Percent. One time with someone I was dating, I said
something about like I think I have a nice voice,
and you know, I'm talking like this and it's nice
to listen to and he kind of looked at me
and said, well, that's one of your voices. I was like, okay,
so you've all heard me shrieking in a really unattractive way.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
We have very expressive voices, and we have different voices
for different times, and.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Yes, yes, and this is good and normal and fine.
Today we are talking about vocal friars. You can tell
from the name of the episode and the preamble. First,
I was just gonna tell a little story because I
know you all love our stories about a bad doctor
experience I had. Because I have carpal tunnel and I'm
doing occupational therapy. What, by the way, I feel like
you would know what exactly is the difference between OT

(03:42):
and PT physical therapy.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
This isn't like a forur real definition.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
This is how I remember it.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
Yeah, it's so physical therapy is more like your gross
motor skills and like you're moving around kind of stuff
like walking and swimming and running and moving my arms.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
Like doing big stuff.

Speaker 3 (03:58):
Occupational therapy is like your fine motor skills, like I
need to learn how to eat again, Like a lot
of OT is like work with stroke patients, like tie
your shoe, learn how to write again. You know, these
like fine little things that you have to do. It's
more OT.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
Yeah, gross motor skills, not meaning like the disgusting ones,
but like the more major.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, the big ones. You're gross and fine.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
It's just funny one you're grosser, Yeah, you are grocer,
you're fine, Yeah, gross are fine. Yeah, there are totally
stroke patients there I perceived them to be. There was
a woman who was working with her physician or nurse
or someone in the hallway walking around who was saying like,
kale is the leafy green item, and like peaches are this,
and like going over things that obviously for us are

(04:38):
like so basic. But I realized, like, oh my god,
this woman is probably like relearning the world.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
Yes, stroke is like neuro stuff freaks me out so
much and it's so sad, But it's like your brain
like part of that got damage and you have to
relearn how to like sometimes read and write and like
no people's names and stuff you learned when you were
too young to remember when you learned exactly.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
It's so scary. Fortunately, though, the brain it's good at
all that, and even if you're older, it'll take a
little longer, but it's totally doable. But Carple Tunnel occupational
therapy very hands on. I went to a hand specialist
first who gave me the referral to OT and it
was first it was this like young, he was like
not a doctor yet, but he's doing his training or

(05:22):
hours or residency or whatever. It is, and as the
young guy comes in, he's like, Hi, I'm so and so,
and I'm not the doctor you'll be seeing, but I'm
just gonna do a little precursor exam and I'm gonna
let him know. Normally, I don't mind. I hate when
people are like I only want to talk to a doctor,
like I don't want to see a nurse practitioner, like
they probably know just as much and just like aren't
paid as well. Yes, So I don't normally mind when

(05:44):
someone is like that, because I've been that person in
a shop where it's like, oh, I only want to
talk to the owner, and I'm like, I'm probably going
to be more helpful just because I'm younger. It doesn't
mean I'm not competent.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
Right, It's like I'm doing more of the data days.

Speaker 3 (05:56):
Yes, they do the bigger picture stuff like your question
is probably more appropriate aimed at me anyways, exactly.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
So, yes, I'm sure our listeners are this way anyway.
But people really like it when you respect them. And
even if they seem like just the receptionists, like, there's
no harm in asking them the big questions because if
you just assume they don't know what they're talking about
they're not going.

Speaker 3 (06:15):
To feel respected, right, and they might know who you
need to ask that question to, you know, even if
they don't know the answer, they're like, but you.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
Know who will. Yeah, this guy, I also said, in
the same office today there was like a free coffee
station and coffee creamer and ask the people that deaker.
I'm like, you're so probably not the people to ask this,
but do you have more creamer? And they were like no,
but here's where you can find more creamer exactly. They
know where to get the stuff. Yes, But this guy
who saw me, he was just kind of I don't know,

(06:43):
I just felt very like dismissed. And he was like, yeah,
it's probably carple tona like you think, and it doesn't
look like you have any nerve damage yet, but he's
probably gonna recommend surgery for you because that's what we do.
You know. There's a little media nerve that is compressed
and they just do a little snip snip or something
and then you're fine. And then the doctor came in
and was like, yeah, you're actually right, it is carpal

(07:04):
tunnel and I'm like, yeah, I fucking know.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
Yeah, it's not like some like really obscure diagnosis.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
Yeah, I know there is like one thing that carple
tunnel is and you get tingly hands. You wake up
with tingly hands, and it's from repetitive motions usually like
clenching your hands in an unnatural way. That's what's happening.
But yeah, he was so condescending of like, yeah, you
actually correctly ascertain the situation, Like yeah, thanks, thanks so much. Thanks.
And then he was like, I think surgery would be

(07:32):
a great option for you. And I'm like, I would
like to try physical therapy or something first.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
Let me exhaust everything else first.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
Yeah, and he was like okay, yeah, if you really
want to sure, yeah, it might be a good option,
and so okay, occupational therapy. And then I went there
and this is just this totally sweet, lovely woman who
I just love working with, who's so hands on and
caring and like tailors everything to me and loves my feedback.
And it's like, thank you for communicating. And when he

(07:58):
told her he recommended surgery, she was like.

Speaker 3 (08:00):
No, yeah, you're hu insane, right, Like that's not the
first thing out the fucking gate, Like, I'm sorry, are
you guys doing kind of legal thing where you're like
referring it to your buddy who's the surgeon.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
And is like getting that money, Like what why are
we automatically.

Speaker 3 (08:12):
Going to surgery? That should be the last thing you
ever do.

Speaker 1 (08:15):
Because it just felt like the automatic like oh, if
you have this, then we do this, like not personalized care,
which I know is the thing that's hard because it's
like you have fifteen minutes and whatever they're rolling through people.
But just to have this is that distinction that we've
talked about and we're not just making this up. This
has been backed up by a lot of research that
women are more caring and empathetic and make better caretakers

(08:37):
because they're going to be more tuned into what you need. Yes,
So it's just a very clear example and she's like, no,
you don't need surgery, like you're you're thirty one, Like
you have had this problem for a short amount of type.
We just need to do some nerve gliding and work
with me, and like, don't go get surgery. I don't
like going to mail doctors. And it felt that kind
of prescriptionist or prescriptiveness I don't quite remember the word.

(08:58):
I'm not talking about medication, but just that kind of
like here's what you need. I've given you ten minutes
of my time or less, and I've decided you need this.

Speaker 3 (09:05):
Bye.

Speaker 1 (09:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (09:05):
It's like very formulaic. It's like everyone gets the same thing.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
Yeah, so I'm glad that I got the referral. That
was great. My gal, she's great, love her good.

Speaker 2 (09:16):
Plus, women are so grateful.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
Women are the greatest. And that's what we're here to say.
So let's talk about vocal Fire. We're gonna start with
the history and some definitions, and then we're gonna get
into the social implications and the you guessed it, sexism
behind it all. Oh yay, fucking I.

Speaker 3 (09:35):
Know you'd think you thought we were going to get
out of it.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
No, at this point, really two years in and we're
still talking about sexism. How much content could they possibly find?
So much?

Speaker 3 (09:46):
Yeah, that's that was the depressing but exhilarating part of
starting to do this podcast, Like.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
Oh no, endless content. Oh no, Yeah, we have a
Google doc of like forty ideas or something, and we
just got to pick one. Yep. Yeah, I hope people
liked our Wildfire episode that was out last week. That
one was a little different. Just got me thinking about
like how we do have our normal themes. I worded
that maybe we would sound like people would like the tone,
or maybe we would sound a little something or something.
But I think it was so emotional that it's like,

(10:12):
we're just talking about our feelings at this point, right,
So it's hard to argue with people's feelings for this
one though, we've got data and feelings. Ooh, magic combo.

Speaker 2 (10:21):
Do you want to take a break before we get
into it.

Speaker 1 (10:24):
I was just thinking the same thing, So stick around
and we'll come back with some her story. We're blaming

(10:48):
our microphone recording problems on the phallic objects in our
face today. Yeah, they are very phallics, not us. No,
it's the male codeed equipment, male code and equip it's
not recording. I actually do kind of think of recording
as male coded because there's so many fucking male podcast hosts.
But we're here to change that. Yeah, all right, Alexis

(11:09):
take it away, All right, So we're gonna talk about
vocal fry today. No, I'm just kidding, So vocal fry.

Speaker 3 (11:16):
It's also called creaky voice, which in most articles they
refer to it as creaky voice, which I think.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
Sounds like less professional.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
Yeah, it's like less of a scientific term. And I
don't think people say that in real life.

Speaker 3 (11:27):
No, but most articles use the term creaky voice or
a glottal fry. There's a couple other names for it,
but colloquially we now all know it as vocal fry. So,
vocal fry or glottalization is a low staccato vibration during speech,
produced by a slow fluttering of the vocal chords. The
vocal fry register is the lowest vocal register and is

(11:49):
produced through And this is another definition because we like
to talk about how air goes through our voice box
is to create this cool sound. So it's produced through
a loose glottal closure that permits air to bubble through
slowly with a popping or rattling sound of a very
low frequency.

Speaker 1 (12:06):
Do you understand that and plain and speak? And it's
okay if you don't, but I also don't. I mean
loose glottal closure, so it's not closing all the way
like usually when you talk, and from.

Speaker 3 (12:17):
Its air to bubble through slowly, so with popping a
rattling set, so it's like allowing more air to come
through is what I'm getting at from this, kay, yeah,
and continuing on this very lengthy definition. So during this phonation,
the I've never even heard of these, and I've taken
so much anatomy. The aritenoid are tonoid cartilages, Yeah, in
the larynix are drawn together, So the cartilages and the

(12:40):
larynix coming together, which causes the vocal folds to compress
rather tightly. Okay, so the vocal cords are compressing tightly
and they become relatively slack and compact, so they're getting together,
but then they're slacking and compacting.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
There's probably like a video on YouTube we could watch.

Speaker 3 (12:58):
Yes, it's all basically about there's air passing through the
glottal closure, which is how you talk anyways. But this
also says characteristic low popping or rattling sound.

Speaker 1 (13:07):
So the folds in your throat are those like actual
folds of skin? Do you know?

Speaker 3 (13:13):
No? I think it's it's like your voice box, because
it's like the way we make sound is by air
going through our voice box and like opening our closing
a certain amount.

Speaker 1 (13:22):
That's how you get the different sounds. That makes sense.
So I guess this is about.

Speaker 3 (13:27):
How the vocal folds are compressing together, but then they slack.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
Yeah, that's where I got I know. I'm like, I'm
sure that is all correct, true and correct. You found
this from the right source. But my yeah, lacking of
understanding of the vocal system.

Speaker 3 (13:42):
Yeah, I mean it's hindering me. Voice is very interesting,
but in linguistics gets very like criticular, and we have
like their own language and like the phonetic language and
all this shit. And it's just like I'm just gonna
read this and like maybe someone will get it a
little bit better, but I know it has to do,
you know, just a different way that are, like we're
putting stuff together and I'm feeling like I feel it

(14:04):
when I do the vocal fry, like you kind of
feel it vibrating a little bit more.

Speaker 1 (14:07):
That's like if you like touched, like you're touch it. Yeah,
you know, if you put your hand to your throat
right now and you say the baby c's along with us,
heybe I had just had the flail. Wanted our listeners
to have like an interactive experience. Yes, but yeah you'll
feel okay, you feel your throat buzzing more interestingly.

Speaker 3 (14:29):
Yeah, So I'm guessing that's where it's like it's getting together,
but then also it's lacking.

Speaker 1 (14:35):
Yeah, okay, so it's compressing, but it's like maybe like
not as engaged in the right way.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
Yeah, it's like not as tight as maybe it usually
is when you talk.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
So it's like looser says.

Speaker 3 (14:45):
Maybe allowing more airin to like kind of vibrate a
little bit more, is maybe what I'm getting at.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
Yeah, And obviously people do this without recognizing it, without
trying to. It's even putting less effort into your speech
when you use vocal fry.

Speaker 3 (14:57):
Yeah, it's sometimes it's kind of nice to just vocal
fry it out. Yeah, just nice and lazy fry it out. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
I mean I felt like I was vocal frying it
out when.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
I had the flu.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
I was like, hey, it's a I got this cool cuff.

Speaker 1 (15:08):
What's happening? Yeah, which is allowed obviously when you're sick.

Speaker 3 (15:12):
Yes, yes, And we'll get into more of the kind
of pathology of vocal fry in a little bit.

Speaker 2 (15:18):
But there are three to four vocal registers.

Speaker 3 (15:23):
So the top one I saw, and I always saw
this in a couple places, The highest is a whistle,
So that would be like the highest, and then falsetto
which I'm sure you've heard of, and then the normal
voice register is called the modal voice register m od al,
and then below that is vocal fry and the lowest
that they've had anyone talk in. A vocal fry is

(15:44):
up to eight octaves lower than a normal modal voice register,
so it can get really low.

Speaker 1 (15:49):
And I'm guessing that was a dude.

Speaker 2 (15:51):
It was a dude, Okay.

Speaker 3 (15:53):
But since the nineteen sixties is when vocal fry has
been recognized as the lowest of the registers. Findings also
show that vocal fry or girl I speech is useful
in speaker identification, so it also serves as like a
marker for boundaries, right, like we were saying, Usually when
they find vocal fry in American accents, it's at like
the end.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
Of a sentence. Yeah, it's going down.

Speaker 2 (16:15):
We're like, this is how you know I'm done?

Speaker 1 (16:17):
Yeah? Did you see this thing about It was David Crystal,
linguistics professor, just when you said the nineteen sixties, I
found this in my portion too. He said, as far
back as nineteen sixty four he noticed it was away
for British men to denote their superior social standing. Yes,
I have that quote in here. Yeah, right, good, keep going.

(16:38):
I won't say it again. No, no, I'm just saying
like it was. That's so interesting. That very interesting, Like
that's not what I associate with superior social status British men.
But who am I to argue with doctor Christal White?
I don't. I don't know there.

Speaker 3 (16:54):
Creaky voice is also frequent in a number of languages.
It's like important to the pronunciation of certain words and
their languages, and the one that they use the most.
As an example of this is Finnish, which makes sense
because I've heard a lot of Finnish and there's definitely like,
for some reason, Finnish people when they talk English, like
when they speak English there it's like normal, It's like

(17:14):
we're having a normal conversation. Then they speak Finnish and
then it goes like four octaves lower and they speak
like really far down for some reason. But I was
like that makes sense, Yeah, from like the Finnish I've heard.
For some reason, it's like language you speak likes is
how you say thank you?

Speaker 1 (17:28):
And are you going to say the part about probably right?
The language is like different tones making different meanings. Yes, cool, yeah, No,
it's it's that's the thing.

Speaker 3 (17:36):
It's like there was a for about what native American
language it is, but there's one where to say the
word day, like their word for day. It's like you
have to use a vocal fry otherwise it means completely
different word Chinese too, and tone makes a difference how
you say it. They reference Chinese, Finnish, Swedish, and then
like check and it was one other one that I
didn't writewally, girls, Yeah, my favorite language is the one

(17:59):
I'm the valid ethnicity.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
They forgot to mention the most important one.

Speaker 3 (18:05):
So back in the day, they considered vocal fry to
be a dysphonia, so it'd be like a pathological issue.
So like a speech impediment was what it used to
be characterized as, and it was considered to be a
voice disorder that led to vocal cord damage. However, recently
they're like, if you're not doing it all the time,
it's totally fine, Like yeah, if you talk like this constantly,

(18:28):
like that can cause some minor damage to your vocal cords.
But usually if someone's continuously vocal frying, they have something
wrong with them. That's not necessarily the vocal fry issues,
like they might have like a respiratory issue or something
else that's causing their voice to do that all the time.
There was a study in twenty eleven from Long Island University,
and I wouldn't say it coined the term vocal fry,

(18:49):
but it kind of put it out into like the ether,
like this is kind of when it sort of popped
off in popularity. And by popularity, I mean, what's the
word like total disregard and abhorrentate. But it was a
terrible study. So they only studied thirty four female students
at Long Island University, but they noted about two thirds.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
Used vocal fry and mostly at the end of their sentences.

Speaker 1 (19:15):
Are you shit talking Long Island University studious? It's like this,
I said it.

Speaker 3 (19:21):
Yeah, I'm sorry, Long Island Great. No.

Speaker 1 (19:25):
I saw this study too, Yeah, and I was like,
why didn't you include men in the study. It's not
like only thirty four women sign up? They only recruited women.

Speaker 3 (19:32):
Yeah, they only wanted to study women because they were like,
I'm really annoyed by the way these women talk and
I want.

Speaker 1 (19:37):
To study it. Huh.

Speaker 3 (19:39):
But this this study gets brought up in like almost
every fucking article I read, and I'm like, why are
we still referencing this like scientifically unsound study.

Speaker 2 (19:48):
It's that that pool, that data pool is teeny fucking tiny.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
Yes, but yeah.

Speaker 3 (19:53):
So, during the twentieth century, vocal fry in English was
most commonly associated with male speakers of RP English, which
has received pronunciation. So that's like your Fencier, Posh debonot
English accents. But the most notable example that they use
that I feel like is still.

Speaker 1 (20:13):
Relevant because there was a lot of ones.

Speaker 3 (20:15):
I was like, I don't know who the fuck you're
talking about, but Sean Connrie is James Bond.

Speaker 1 (20:19):
Oh I know who that is?

Speaker 3 (20:21):
Yeah, like very like right, like very proper, but also like, yeah,
if you think about it, he'd be vocal Fryan.

Speaker 1 (20:27):
I guess I can't hear his voice in my head,
but usually I don't understand pop culture references, and I
totally know who Sean Connery is and James Bond, and
he's like, you know, the ideal or something like women
want him and men want to be him or something
like that, so you know it must be okay, right,
So vocal fry is okay, if you know he does it,
we'll get into that. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (20:46):
And then my last thing is I tried to find
data to back this up, and there was no concrete data.
It's more like a theory that everyone kind of agrees with.
Because I was like, where does this because it's a
trend now, right of.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
Like vocal fry, yeah, what you're gonna say?

Speaker 3 (21:00):
Yeah, So I was like, where did this like current
trend the way we talk now, because it's pretty pervasive,
like everyone across the nation of a certain age group
basically like forty in below, like millennials and gen Z.
We all kind of talk this way now. It's like,
what did this come from? So the theory is it
like stems from the valley girl accent that turned into

(21:20):
this vocal fry Californian accent. And since most of our
media is out of mostly Los Angeles, which is where
the calley girl accent comes from. When we're watching you know,
Laguna Beach and like all the girls and like on
the hills and like the Kardashians and like they're all
like native Californians and they're all talking like this, And
that was a lot of our media growing up. And

(21:40):
then of course you're gonna you know, take on the
affectation of the media you consume and the voices you
hear the most of Yes, And that's also part of
the theory of why sort of like accents are dying
in America, Like there's not as it's not as prevalent
of like those really intense accents like a Midwest accent
or like you know, like a Long Island accent or
like a super deep like so then accident like a

(22:03):
Savannah will unlock this, like those are kind of dying
because we all consume the same media coming out from
California exactly.

Speaker 1 (22:10):
Yeah, it's the globalization of also the Internet and like
trends spreading worldwide or countrywide very quickly and easily and
being more homogenous in some ways. I mean, there's a
lot more going on these days because of the Internet.
But it's also like relatable. You have more in common
with someone overseas than you used to because you're both
on TikTok, right, You're.

Speaker 3 (22:30):
Both watching the same movies, You're watching the same viral
videos like TikTok.

Speaker 1 (22:34):
See, I just did it on tiktoka and I was
indicating that I was done talking, right, because it's not.

Speaker 3 (22:40):
It's a normal way of speaking when you're like done
this sent as you trail off a little bit, so
you know that it's done. Yeah, at least we're not
doing it upward inflection at the end, which is you know,
definitely valley girl.

Speaker 1 (22:49):
But sometimes we do. I mean I've heard it before.
Oh yeah, definitely, I've heard it before. It's okay, all
of it's fine.

Speaker 3 (22:57):
I can't think about it too much because then I like,
I don't know how to talk anymore. I'm just like, Hello,
I'm going to use my customer service voice for the
rest of the day. And that's like takes a lot
of energy. Like I literally just stood up to like
my tops, like this is how I have to talk.

Speaker 1 (23:13):
Yes, customer service voice is a whole other thing.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
Yeah, And I feel like I go up like three
octive time.

Speaker 1 (23:17):
Like hi o flexus. Yeah. Yeah, one of my jobs.
As we close, people want to hang out longer and
I don't mind, but I tell them you can't talk
to me anymore, like pretend I'm not here while I'm
closing down and cleaning, because it's not the work part
that takes so much energy. It's doing the customer service
thing with you and putting this character on. Yes, and
I can't do my thing and do that. I don't

(23:39):
mind if you're here, but I'm a ghost. Yes, And
they don't understand because they've never worked that job. No,
that's how I'm at work.

Speaker 3 (23:47):
Like I try not to be rude, but if I
haven't clocked in yet, do not fucking talk to me.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
Yeah. No, I don't remember where we were, but there
was somewhere where we were trying to talk to an
employee and they were like, oh, I'm a break and
Alexis I just remember you were like, oh, don't talk
to me, like, don't worry about it, don't worry about queen.
I'm not here like you were. Just immediately like oh
no no, no, no like they were, I think even like
oh I could help fuck No, sit.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
Down, No, you're not getting paid to help me right now.

Speaker 1 (24:11):
Don't help me. No, that's how I am. I'm like, no,
I'm on break. Sorry, not my problem. Yeah, And there's
always nice ways to say that to people, too polite ways.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
I try to do the really obnoxious and it's not obnoxious,
but like I put my air pods in and they're
very obvious. My hairs up at work, you can see
them in my ears, and people will start to talk
to me, and I just make a very big grand
gesture of like taking them out, very dramatically, like popping.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
It out, like arms swing all the way, Like what
was that? Sorry, I didn't hear you.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
My air pods were in like I'm trying not to
talk to anybody, my head felt, did get the hint? Yeah,
well that's all I had.

Speaker 3 (24:46):
I mean, there's not, like I said, too much history,
because it was only identified really in.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
The sixties and before that they were like what's.

Speaker 1 (24:52):
Wrong with you? Yeah? Or I mean they might just
not have known. I was thinking too as I was
reading about this, that we have so many more examples
of voices in our ears, like radio is probably the
oldest form, or maybe like vinyl records, if you heard
someone talking on those, it is in the last fifty
ish years. That it's like you can hear millions of

(25:14):
people on your phone or your computer, on TV, or
even on like your VHS tapes or whatever. That's all
very recent. Yeah, they could have been doing this in
the twelve hundreds, and how would we know.

Speaker 3 (25:25):
Yeah, I mean, language and the way we speak changes
all the time. Like there's the theory that the British
accent came about because there was a royal that had
some sort of speech impediment that made him talk like that,
and then people heard it, and that we've always wanted
to emulate the rich and powerful, so someone heard him talking.
Then it like spread throughout the island because they theorize
that our like regular American accents are closer to what

(25:48):
the Brits actually sounded like pre this trend.

Speaker 1 (25:50):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (25:51):
Yeah, it's not exactly, but it's closer.

Speaker 1 (25:53):
Yeah. Yeah, I had no idea. I like, when we
can tear down things that are supposedly like hoity toity
and like ooh, but if you know where it came from,
maybe it's not so high and mighty. Right, Okay, well
I'm gonna jump into this creaking mic like a creaking voice.
I don't know. It's just so hard to look at
a screen and hold a microphone in front of your face.

(26:15):
Do you want to take each other break? I was
thinking about that, but it doesn't seem quite spaced out enough. Yeah.
I didn't have that much too. That's okay, set out
because there's not much to say, the articles that you
sent me were super helpful, and I pulled most of
this from the NYU article and then also just my
own passionate ranting because I'm going to talk more about
the social implications and the gender bias around it. I'm

(26:37):
going to start with a quote from an article, which
we don't want to just read quotes to you guys
all the time, but this one was so good. This
is written by a linguist, Amanda Montel, and she says
it's twenty thirteen and Bob Garfield is in a state
of exasperation, vulgar. He's bits into his microphone. But Paul
sev I'm listening to an episode of the NPR host
language themed podcast Lexicon Valley. The way, I cannot see you,

(27:00):
fifty eight year old Garfield with my own eyes. From
the disdain in his voice, I can picture him scornfully's
stroking his frosty white facial hair and crossing one cordurot
clad arm over the other, painting a beautiful picture. I
love this. The topic of discussion is a linguistic phenomenon,
the Garfield says, is so endlessly annoying that he wishes
he could wave a magic wand over a significant portion

(27:22):
of the American public and make it come to an end.
It is an oddity that occurs exclusively among young women,
he tells co host Mike Volo with conviction. I don't
have any data proving this, he said. There it is,
I simply know I'm right.

Speaker 3 (27:40):
Oh my god, the confidence of a mediocre white man.

Speaker 1 (27:45):
So true. Wow. But also like, I can't tell you
how many times I've had those thoughts. I don't have
any data proving this, but I do know I'm rite. However,
when I go into the world saying it, I find
the data to prove it. Otherwise you just sound like blowhard,
blowing hard, and not.

Speaker 2 (27:58):
Only that, like you're on fucking NPO. You better have
the fucking data to.

Speaker 1 (28:01):
Back that up. Yes, NBR did, did us right later
on in this research, as we'll see, Well, I've got
a few It popped up a few times. Yeah, yeah,
but this article is called on the Great old White
Guy vocal fry Panic of twenty thirteen. Yeah. I saw
that one.

Speaker 2 (28:17):
I was like, oh man, this is amazing.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
Yeah, I was gonna I have this in here.

Speaker 3 (28:21):
It's like it really there were so many articles from
like twenty eleven to like twenty sixteen about like this
disgusting phenomena of vocal friyme, Like, why were we did?

Speaker 1 (28:32):
We had nothing else?

Speaker 2 (28:33):
It was pre twenty sixteen, we had nothing else to
talk about.

Speaker 1 (28:35):
We were like, let's talk about how wait people talk? Yeah?
What a time. There was a meme that was like
I don't want a new year in twenty twenty five,
I want a nice, gently used year like twenty thirteen, yeah, fourteen,
like anything pre twenty sixteen, when we slipped into this
parallel dimension and never came back. That's I was the
therapist about that today.

Speaker 3 (28:52):
I was like, I know, we just like got off
the track and got on like the fucking clown timeline
around then, Like just nothing surprised me anymore.

Speaker 1 (28:58):
I'm like, yeah, that's that's right. Have you heard I
think it's called hypernormalization theory or something about normalization. I
just watched a video about it that was saying this
this theory of how some we're actually back in the
seventies things sort of went awry in like worldwide economics
and theorists and philosophers and professors kind of recognize that like, oh,

(29:21):
we're no longer on this path to like any kind
of potential utopia globally. But we're just gonna pretend like
we are so that the world keeps functioning and turning.
But she was saying, like, if you feel like the
vibes are off, it's not just you, it's that like
we're literally on a path to ultimate destruction and everyone
has just decided to cause play as if we're not.

Speaker 3 (29:42):
Wow, that's that puts it to words, like the thing
I always thought was true.

Speaker 1 (29:49):
Yeah, i'll send you their video. Also, I know normalization
was in there, but yeah, hyper normalization. There's a documentary
about it too. And yeah, events that seem inexplicable out
of contry, Donald Trump, Brexit, the war in Syria and
this migrant crisis, random bomb attacks, all of this is
a symptom of Yes, the par of the clown universe. Well,

(30:11):
it's horrible.

Speaker 3 (30:12):
I feel so desensitized, where like anytime there's another fucking
shooting or like a bombing or some terrible fucking war crime,
I'm just like, yeah, it's Tuesday.

Speaker 1 (30:22):
Yeah we yes, Yeah, there's a lot to stay about that.
But let's go back to vocal fry. We chose this
topic because they're like, we need something a little like
easier and lighter. And I realized, like it's heavy in
its implications, but it's not as heavy as like abortion stories. Yeah,
we could do that.

Speaker 3 (30:41):
I feel like the data is just it's it's smaller.
There's less of us to comb through for this.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
So I was looking at whether it really has become
more common in the twenty first century, which is what
I thought you were actually gonna get into, and I
was like, I don't know what you're gonna say. I
didn't I shouldn't always assume that because it says that
in Wikipedia it's become more common the twenty first century.
But he didn't find a say ta for that, and
I just found things kind of linking back to Wikipedia,
So I was like, I perceived that it has same.

Speaker 3 (31:06):
I was kind of looking at that too, where it
says that it's like, oh, like popped off in like
twenty ten.

Speaker 1 (31:10):
I'm like, did it or did we just name it?
And like think about it then?

Speaker 3 (31:14):
Did we just get annoyed by women talking in that
way around twenty ten?

Speaker 1 (31:18):
So Discover magazine actually points to that study that you
mentioned that's like with the thirty four people and in
this article they said that doesn't actually show the vocal
fry became more common among young women. It just showed
that it was common in these small group surveyed. Right,
it is what they said, and I was, and then
I looked at it. I was like, thirty four people like,
what are you talking.

Speaker 3 (31:37):
About as women and just that go to college age
women that just go to this one university.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
Yeah, and it is celebrities that are often scrutinized. I
found a list of people who use vocal fry, like
Kim Kardashians or Addihanel, Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. But
there are also all people who are under a microscope
and like their male counterparts.

Speaker 3 (31:57):
And these are women that I feel like mostly have
been very much villainies. Not Zoedationan also much, but like
definitely Britty's Beers, definitely Paris Hilton, Definitely the Kardashians.

Speaker 1 (32:05):
Yeah, and I mean, yeah, I could I understand vilifying
the Kardashians student.

Speaker 3 (32:09):
Extent, but I've just been like, there's things to critique
them for, but like them being women that speak is
not one of that.

Speaker 1 (32:17):
Correct. Yeah, I one hundred percent agree with that, and
that probably is where this idea of like oh it
really became more popular in the two thousands is we're
looking at these women who are very prominent in media
who are using it, and like you said, coming out
of California, coming out of this media hub, and they're
using it, and we have so much more access to

(32:37):
media now than ever before, ever before, than ever before.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
I'm going to talk like that the rest of the day.

Speaker 3 (32:44):
If anyone catches on, I'm about to hang out with
a bunch of boys, I'm gonna.

Speaker 2 (32:47):
Be like, Okay, guys, what's up.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
You guys want to play trivia. I don't think our
friend group will mind. Fortunately, it's going to be a
study to see if people who are usually nice to
me continue to be nice to me, or please document
it on your Instagram story, will The NYU article that
is laden our sources says that everybody uses vocal fry,
we just unfairly give women a hard time about it.

(33:11):
That article references a study of five hundred adults that
was conducted by Stanford linguist Penny at Cart. It's probably
fake news, you know, liberal college liberal wag. It found
that those over forty were bothered by vocal fry and
those under forty were not, and at Cart concluded that
cringing inwardly when someone talks is one thing, but making
pronouncements about how other people should talk is another. And

(33:34):
the age got points to a pretty undeniable fact that's
proven over and over again, which is that language changes,
and this includes inflections and stylizations. We do not speak
like Procter Mathers in the fifteen sixteen hundreds, and we
don't want to.

Speaker 3 (33:48):
Yeah, and we don't have that like mid Atlantic like
annunciation that they did like the thirties and forties where
everyone's like, oh, you better shy, you American. I don't know, no, right, Like,
we don't talk like that anymore. That was definitely a
fucking stylized way of talking. Was it?

Speaker 1 (34:01):
PreCure Mothers in The Witch? The sanand Witch Charles? I
know they had such funny names, like cod wasn't Cotton Mathers,
Cotton mother, Marshall Mathers. That's his grandfather, his great great
great grandfather. He was a real slum shady you know. No,
I like some shady more than Cotton mather He was

(34:22):
one of those assholes who just like bringing the Witch
or hanging them. Actually they weren't bringing them. Go back
to our sand Witch Trials episode for more on that.
I was just concluding as I was reading this that
you know that saying like anything only men like is bad,
which there's really no such thing, but like UFC and
Joe Rogan come to mind. Yes, I understand that Joe
Rogan has a mixed audience, but these things that are

(34:45):
like very boy things, I can poke a lot of
holes in them. You'll see they were streaming it somewhere
it was they were playing it and then Donald Trump
came in. Everyone's there's like Donald Trump, and I'm like,
you guys are not Trump supporters. You kind of see
what I mean about the intersection of these like this
like very homoerotic aggression and this kind of energy you

(35:09):
have here, and then Trump is there, like you do
you forget it? They don't. They didn't, but I tried.
But anything that men primarily are criticizing in women, like
wearing too much makeup or being too risky and social
media is a flawed and probably outright wrong element to criticize,
like vocal fry, a little pattern recognition. Yah, it was Empires,

(35:31):
Terry Gross who interviewed speech pathologist Susan Sankin. She said
that extended use of vocal fry may in fact cause
damage to the vocal folds, but she's saying this as
a theory initially, And there were a bunch of linguists
and speech pathologists who came forward and were like, there's
no evidence of that. The linguists who responded to that
were saying that we should actually embrace change and accept

(35:54):
the younger generations will always be trying to distinguish themselves
from older generations.

Speaker 3 (35:59):
Yeah, that's like the normal circle of life, it is.
I mean, I'm sure if you know, like are not
that we're having kids like our grandchildren esque era, They're
gonna be talking completely differently.

Speaker 1 (36:10):
I don't always love change myself, like I get it.
I do not like to.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
Change a scary which is very scary.

Speaker 1 (36:16):
I don't watch YouTube shorts or YouTube reaction videos. I
don't like iPods and phones more than a laptop. And
when I see what my nieces are into, not so
much the way they talk, like I don't. They're not
that much younger that I really see, but like the
trends in their generation do not appeal to me. However, Yeah,
just like.

Speaker 3 (36:36):
God, what my nieces and nephews watch on YouTube, like
their kids shows, like the cartoons like this is fine,
this is lovely whatever, but like the YouTube shit like
they put on like what.

Speaker 1 (36:45):
I know, Like instead of celebrities, they're idolizing YouTubers and
they're going to like live shows with YouTubers, which I mean,
maybe someday we can be a podcast live show. That's
my plan, but I don't. I do not get it.
I watch streamers sometimes. I like with certain streamers who
do things and play video games and whatever, but it's

(37:06):
definitely not like a you're my hero kind of a relationship.

Speaker 3 (37:10):
And it's not like constant watching. I think that's like
all they want to watch.

Speaker 1 (37:13):
Yes, and they don't look at memes and picture form.
They like have clips like YouTube shorts or tiktoks that
to them are a meme. Because I thought we would
be able to bond over memes, we did not. And
that's why when people are like, oh, you meme page whatever,
like what are you twelve, I'm like, dude, twelve year
olds do not do this. This is like twenty two
and up depressed adults who are mentally ill yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:35):
If there's no sound with it, it's that's the meme
for the adults.

Speaker 1 (37:40):
The adults. Yes, and I recommend, I recommend turning off
your sound on Instagram. If you don't try that, it's
so peaceful. You put on your podcast and then you're
not hearing all those songs and voices and things, and
it's just nice. I don't even I don't, I don't know.
No sound. If it were my way, there would be
no sound allowed on Instagram.

Speaker 3 (37:59):
I have to like cut out a special time of
the day because I feel like people send me reels
and like sometimes are okay, and if it's super short,
I'll watch it, but it's like I pick out a
chunk of the day to be like, Okay, this is
what I'm gonna watch all the reels, and like this
can be it for the entire day, like.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
No more sound from my phone. You can send us memes,
it don't want reels. And I've even told people who
send us to a lot of memes and I will
just say like, hey, like appreciate it. I'm not going
to watch the reels you send me unless it's a
cat video, and then sometimes I'll get locked into reels
and I'll send Alexus like twelve in a row, and
I'm like, I got stuck. I got stuck in the hole.
I got to dig out.

Speaker 2 (38:31):
Now, Yeah I've I definitely did that.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
I accidentally got on TikTok a couple of months ago
and it was like four hours later.

Speaker 1 (38:38):
I was like, oh my god, yeah, brain rotting.

Speaker 3 (38:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:41):
I couldn't even tell you what most of the videos.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
No, I don't stick, No, tell you you might have
learned so much and now it's gone. It was like
Harry Potter stuff. What the fuck?

Speaker 3 (38:52):
Like why why.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
Don't we take our second break now? Yes, and then
come back. Okay, we're gonna talk more about kids these days. Yeah.

(39:20):
Where I was getting with that, like I don't like
a lot of the things younger generations are into is
to say that if you don't keep up, you just
get left behind. Like using a computer for school or
for work. That used to be magic. It used to
be cheating. And can you imagine now if you're like, well,
I just don't like using computers or phones, like you're

(39:41):
gonna be so outpaced by everyone else in every way.
And I do know at least one person who's like, oh,
like he just got a smartphone in the last year.
And this is an adult man because he hates technology
and he hates I get it, like phones are very
bad for us, and the intentional addictive nature of these
apps are not good. But it's like he can't send

(40:02):
a work email on the road. He's going to be suffering.
Even if changes are not always what you like or
may even maybe very good for you, they're inevitable.

Speaker 3 (40:12):
Yeah, not having a smartphone, it's like all my tickets
everything exactly.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
Why don't we gonna do carry paper tickets around?

Speaker 1 (40:18):
No, I'm gonna lose that shit. A lot of places
don't even accept things like except cash, or accept a
physical item of some kind. There has to be digital.
So this is somewhat tentential to the focal fire element,
but the root of it is the geriatric millennials like us,
the gen X, the boomers. We are not going to
inherit the earth. And I mean I think the kids

(40:40):
are cool, like I want the world to be better
for them. Yeah, And as I said in the last episode,
we're out of time and probably before the year like
twenty one or twenty two hundred, cataclysmic horrific changes will occur.
But in the meanwhile, you know, there's memes. Yeah, and
at least, yeah, let people talk the way they want
and there's memes. One explanation of the negativity toward vocal

(41:01):
fry is that linguistic discrimination is actually one of the
last acceptable forms of discrimination. And as we herpe on constantly,
a lot of men hate women, or the very least
judge them as inferior, and a lot of women have
been trained and conditioned to feel the same.

Speaker 3 (41:18):
Yeah, and it's a lot of I feel what I
was looking at a lot of this the study that
comes up where it's like men perceive women talking more
than they actually are and perceive women to be more
Like if there's a room full of fifty to fifty,
they think it's way more women than that it is men.
It's like our presence is so annoying to them.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
Yep, just existing. Yeah, we're just assessing us differently too,
Like in under a Microscope. Yeah, was that in the
our Women More Emotional episode where we wanted to do
women talk more? I think so, and the answer was no,
they're not more emotional, and no, they don't talk more.
Maybe you talked about yes, like Southern dialects changing and

(41:58):
globalization changing the distinctness of these different dialects. But I
was thinking about how people associate a Southern accent with
being stupid. Yes, and there's a stuff who's no article
called Southerners aren't lazy and dumb, they just had hookworm. Yes,
that is so interesting. Oh my gosh. I linked to

(42:18):
it in our sources. And if you don't listen to stuff,
you should know. They're they're my kooky uncles and I
love them before the kookie ants. They're the kookie uncles.
They're the ogs. Oh yeah, they're a little bit older.
They've been around for like twenty years or something ridiculous.

Speaker 3 (42:30):
They've they started the podcast like oh seven, yeah, almost
twenty years.

Speaker 1 (42:34):
This is several thousand episodes. I love them. I love
you guys, be my friend. We're basically peers now, notice
the Sunpie. We're not. But the summation of that episode
was that there was a time when the lower classes
of the American South were considered lazy and dim witted,
which is a stereotype. It still survives today, but the

(42:56):
stereotype was rooted in fact, which is a hookworms were
sapping Southerner's life force. I think it was like working outside, not.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
Having like the soil and not having good shoes.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
Yes, and so they actually had like a parasite and
that's so obviously not true today, but the reputation carries
on unjustly.

Speaker 2 (43:15):
I mean, George W. Bush was terrible.

Speaker 3 (43:17):
I'm not defending him at all, but he got unjustly
called stupid just because his accent was so thick. And
it's like, look, he's stupid for other reasons, but it's
not the way he talks.

Speaker 1 (43:27):
Yeah. And then black vernacular English or I saw called
black English or black language. Actually I saw that referenced
and Reddit, which is not a real source. But that's
one of those things where we should label it correctly
based on what people of that community label it. But
you know what I'm talking about, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (43:42):
Okay, because last I heard and I always want to
know what the updated thing is. Yeah, I've always heard
it references like African American vernacular English, so aave.

Speaker 1 (43:51):
I think African American and I want to know this too,
And if anyone knows right in, it's it's like outdated.
Now it used to be it is a more respectful term.
But it's like they're not from Africa, you're talking about
black Americans.

Speaker 3 (44:05):
Yeah, No, every black person I know wants to be
called black. Yeah that's when I refer like some people
still say African American.

Speaker 1 (44:12):
I'm like, it's just like in my personal experience, like
the black people I know what to be called black.
I was doing that until at least I remember four
years ago when we had the Black Lives Matter movement
really in full surge around COVID times. I remember writing
things about that and calling people African American, thinking I
was doing the right thing. But then yeah, just seeing
online that black but also capitalized like you would capitalize

(44:33):
like American or something like that as a sign of
respect as a proper noun exactly is is way to go.
But you know, you know what I mean about this
dialect and the implication there is that someone is they're ghetto,
or they're in a gang, or they're poor or something,
which is just straight up racist. Yep. So am I
understanding is that black people they'll often have to like
mask their voice and their language. Yeah, code switch if

(44:56):
they're trying to do like a job over the phone
or be super professional. But I like to so influenced
by your environment, like one hundred percent. Yeah, I talked
just like my mom. When I listen to her, I'm like,
oh yeah. And even like my uncle and my grandparents,
they all use flowery fucking language that makes us sound
smart and pretentious but backfires because people really want you

(45:18):
to sound relatable, not like a pretentious cunt. But even
my mom goes mm mm hmm when she's listening to
someone and affirming them, and I catch myself doing that too,
and my sister does it too. So it's just an
example of how your ray is what you're listening to,
and that's changing as we have the media influences. But
there's no point in judging someone's anything, quality, intellect, professionalism

(45:44):
based on these uses of their voice, including vocal fry,
when it's just a product of environment percent. Like, there's
these implications of southern equal stupid. There's the idea that
valley girl and vocal fry is ditsy and dumb. Yeah. So,
just to bust some bits that were listed in this
NYU article, Oh yeah, this is good. Yeah. The first

(46:05):
one was does it damage your voice long term? It
referenced that, yes, other languages use vocal fry all the time.
As part of their communication. And there is this idea
that there's vocal full damage from vocal fry, but in fact,
having the damage already will lead to vocal fry. It's
the correlation causation thing. Yes, that's what I'm going to

(46:27):
name my first two children, correlation and causation. I mean,
they're kind of beautiful sounding or lavender menace. So it's
either going to be a first name lavedom, middle named menace,
or two different Like the first child is lavender in
the second one is menace. I should I'm not gonna
have children, don't worry, it's just gonna be our next
cat's names. That would be cool. What that is saying

(46:47):
is that if your voice is damaged from something else,
you will exhibit vocal fry. Right, it's not the thing
causing the damaged, right, Miss two is that only women
exhibit vocal frive. Ha Ira Glass on This American Life
out that he often uses vocal fry extremely esteemed beloved, Right,
we like him? Wait? Yeah, Ira Glass is great, okay?
And then Ann Hepperman of slat's Culture gap Fest made

(47:11):
a supercut of men demonstrating vocal fry, which we should
find that sounds fun. Men do tend to have naturally
lower voices than women do, so the lowering of their
voice is less noticeable. And I would believe if they
if the data pointed to women doing it more, which
it doesn't. Well, I'll reference to study Alexisenti in just

(47:32):
a moment. It doesn't mean that any of the judgment
is fair in either direction. Mith three is that young
women need to change this if they want to succeed professionally.
But like we saw on the survey I mentioned earlier,
it's young people who don't fucking care. And that's who
you're going to be working with more and more as
older people retire.

Speaker 3 (47:51):
Yeah, as the older people who get bothered by this
die out and aren't hiring you anymore, it doesn't fucking matter.

Speaker 1 (47:56):
Yes, And and this reminds me of another Stuff You
Should Know podcast episode that they did on the use
of the word like and the negativity towards that and
the association that it's girls who do it. I over
edit likes out. I used to do it way more,
And now that I listen back sometimes to older things,

(48:18):
I'm like, Wow, that really killed the cadence of a sentence,
Because if you pull out one word, the inflections don't
make as much sense. But I do it because it's
really important to me that our content sounds very logical
and factual, because it's so easy for men to try
to cut things down. Yeah, and I just don't want
to give them another excuse to do it, because anytime

(48:39):
a man comes to me with like, oh, so it's
okay to be sexist against men, yes, I'm like, oh, honey,
you think you're smarter than me. That's so cute. Do
you think you're more educated or logical and you're obviously not.
That's so sweet. You think that adorable. And it's easier
to do that if you're presenting facts in a very

(49:02):
you know, mail coded way. You might say, unfortunately, that's
just what we're working with. But the Journal of Acoustical
Society of America. Acoustical will be my third child. It's
such a pretty word, acoustical. They're probably going to be
non binary acoustical. Yeah, like it sounds to a testical

(49:23):
to me. Oh now that you said that, you sorry it.
Here's the memes about like your Portland roommate named Sock
saying that washing the dishes is triggering or something like that.
I love.

Speaker 3 (49:32):
There's another one that's it's like fighting with my non
binary roommates.

Speaker 1 (49:36):
I'm fighting too the nail over here. Okay, that's a
good second. We love our and be friends. So it's
it's or momentous, a very friendly job here. But that
article said in a journal, so it's a real data
hear that. Oh, it's called if you want to check
it out, it's called vocal fry and realistic speech Acoustic

(49:59):
characteristics and perceptions of vocal fry and spontaneously produced and
read speech. And Alexis send it to me, and it
says and I quote. Surprisingly, we've had more vocal fry
in both proportion of words and words slasturation for men
than women. Men differed in the amount of fry across
task types, interactions of speaker, sex test type, and they

(50:21):
examined the vocal fry in many different measures. But vocal
fry and spontaneously produced speech differs from fry and speech
produced during reading in quantity acoustics listener perceptions. So it
looks like, taking this from a more global perception of it,
you're really seeing more in men. But I did see

(50:42):
I don't think I could see the full article, just
the abstract, but then there's a Time article that talked
about it.

Speaker 3 (50:47):
Yeah, that's what was interesting is most of the studies
that they had prior to this was giving people like
an example sentence or like certain words that have certain
vowel sounds to try to catch them, but like kind
of catch them in vocal frying. So when women to reading,
we vocal fried more and the men didn't. But in
normal casual conversations, just overhearing, they found that men.

Speaker 1 (51:07):
Actually vocal fry more. And it was a younger group
and the time they were college age, right, yeah, eighteen
to twenty two year old Centenary College of Louisiana. They
found that not only did young men fry, but they
do so more than young women. Our data showed that
men spent about twenty five percent of their time speaking
using fry, while women use it about ten percent of

(51:28):
the time. But remember, if men have naturally lower voices,
it's not gonna be as noticeable unless you're a fucking
scientist looking for it, right, But if they're young, then
they're more affected by the media and growing up around that.
So doesn't it make perfect sense that if we're all
being influenced by that environment and influences our dialect, our

(51:50):
word choices. What reason do we have to think that
boys would be except from that. Yeah, exactly, it's not
just women who do it. It's just women that we're being
called out and are being judged for it. But everyone
is doing it these days, and the kids don't really mind, no,
which is fine. This study says acoustic measures suggest that

(52:13):
vocal fry may be intimately tied to decreased vocal effort
across task types and speaker sex. So it sounds like
some of the men who look down on our bimbo queens,
who are in so many ways unfairly condemned, they just
start trying as hard decrease vocal effort. M I'm tired,
and I'm just gonna relax my voice. I'm just not
gonna try as hard. Maybe women are trying more all

(52:36):
the time because we have to fight so hard just
to be heard. Exactly.

Speaker 3 (52:40):
And I think a lot of what I was saying
about this too, it's like theorizing why we started talking
this way. It's like, maybe because we want to be
taken more seriously and are like higher pitched voices aren't
taken this seriously because they're feminized. So if we try
to have like a lower caden's voice, it's like, maybe
we'll be taken more seriously. Maybe it shows that we're serious.

Speaker 1 (52:57):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (52:58):
But because it's perceived as more like outside of a
gender norm and is perceived as like, quote unquote a
lazier way of.

Speaker 2 (53:04):
Talking, men don't like that from us.

Speaker 1 (53:07):
They want us to stay in our little boxes and
not step on their toes. I do speak in a
deeper voice when I want people to take me seriously. Yeah,
for sure, my customer service voice, which is actually hard
to pull out of my hat in this taste. Yes,
in this situation, I realized, like I don't have perfect
access to it, but it's something like, Hi, they're welcome.
Can I help you find anything? It lives up there
and it's very very nice in my like I need

(53:29):
you to turn that down right now, lives down there. Yes,
So obviously, yes, we're changing based on the way people
treat us and unintentionally based on what we're listening to. Yeah,
but delete your TikTok app and turn your Instagram volume
off kind of for separate reasons, or don't. I mean,
if that's your thing. Who medioc anyone's yum TikTok It's back. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (53:53):
That was such a fucking syop of Trump fighting forever
to ban TikTok. It gets banned, and then it comes
out he's like I saved TikTok. It's like, this is
the most obvious fucking plan I've ever seen.

Speaker 1 (54:05):
Yes, yes, I loved the people pointing out this is
also how narcissist abuse people, right where they're like, I'm
gonna take this thing away from you, and then I'm
gonna withhold it and then I'm going to give it
back because I'm so good to you, and it's like
you took it away the first place, right, It's like,
but wait, hold on. Uh yeah. For TikTok to even

(54:25):
have the pop up message of like, don't worry.

Speaker 3 (54:27):
We're working with President Trump, I was like, oh my god,
I thought it was fake when I saw it on
like my Instagram.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
God, I would think that too if I hadn't seen
it irl, you know.

Speaker 3 (54:35):
And then I opened my TikTok yeah, and I was like,
oh my god, actually fucking says that that's insane.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
Clown timeline, maybe we call it timeline clown. I think
that has a nice ring to it.

Speaker 3 (54:45):
Timeline clown the timeline, Well, it makes more sense, is
clown time.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
Like what I mean is like what we think is
going to be a meme is real. Yeah. Oh no,
I was talking about therapists.

Speaker 3 (54:56):
Yeah, I was talking my therapists today about Elon Musk
doing the not salute at the inauguration and she was like,
oh no, I thought that was Ai And I was like, no, ma'am.
She's like, no, there's no way that's right. She's like
literally like typing and trying.

Speaker 1 (55:08):
She's like, I believe, I believe. I just need I
need to see this. I was like, no, fact check
my ass.

Speaker 3 (55:12):
I've just been saying this on fucking Instagram and read
it like yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:15):
She's like, oh my god, it's real.

Speaker 3 (55:16):
I'm like, clown, Timeline, I told you this, it's real.

Speaker 1 (55:21):
Yeah. And maybe it even started before twenty sixteen, but
it's certainly caught ten worse. Indiocracy is such a flawed movie.
I have to remember that. Have you seen it? I've
seen it multiple times. Yeah. I mean I love my
judge though, so sorry. Yeah, it's and I like offensive
humor too. I mean, I really do people are like, oh,

(55:41):
you just can't take a joke. It's like, no, I can.
It's just we got to punch up, not down, and
you gotta like your hurt has to be in the
right place. Like when I was teasing non binary people
with funny names. It's like, I want the non binary
community to thrive, and like, if you are, like, I
totally support you and and we should be able to
poke fund it ourselves as well. But idiocracy is I

(56:01):
think it's because they showed the like example of a
couple that won't reproduce given the state of the world
as an educated white couple. Yes that I like that
felt a little icky because then it feels eugenicxy of
like who should or shouldn't, But.

Speaker 3 (56:16):
I do I agree, and I always felticky about that.
But the only reason I feel like I can kind
of stomach it is because the like gross like trash
family is also white, like very rarely like the dumb
the dumb people that are having like twelve kids that
they show them like the next scene is also just
like a white family.

Speaker 1 (56:32):
So I'm like, at least we're not being like yeah, yeah, yeah, right,
you know, to aggressive in that point, Yes, idiocracy. Is
it's eugenicxy. Yeah, it is. But unfortunately, I do see
a lot of very smart people, definitely not just white people,
but people who are saying, like I don't want to
bring a child into this world, and other people who

(56:53):
maybe are just not even using effective birth control bringing
children into the world. So when I'm in charge birth
control in the water, you gotta get a license to
have a kid. It's gonna be permeating the water. Maybe
it'll boost men's estrogen and then they'll sneeze.

Speaker 2 (57:05):
Quieter and then that'll be better for everyone.

Speaker 1 (57:08):
Yes, And my decision of if you can have a
kid isn't based on race. It's not based on socioeconomic status.
It's just based on if I think you're like you
have good vibes, will be good to your kidd vibes,
sterilize them, well, not sterilized, just keeps them on the pill. Sorry, Yes, yeah,
that's different if we're not anything basic and it can change.

(57:29):
I'm not saying like you get one shot at your license.

Speaker 3 (57:31):
You just like go up for renewal like every two years.
It's like a car registration. You have to like pay
to like get registered again. This is so dystopian.

Speaker 1 (57:40):
I'm like picturing the sci fi movie where you get
like prescribed like what you have to do to be
able to have a kid, where it's like, in your case,
you don't need to work on your financial stability, but
you need to go to therapy and once you've shown
that you have improved your emotional intelligence, then you might
be able to have the license.

Speaker 2 (57:55):
But see, the problem is too it's like, Okay, so
that's one person.

Speaker 3 (57:58):
What if the other person totally sucks, one person's totally awesome,
are they.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
Not allowed to have kids together? Well, the person who
sucks has to work on themselves. Okay, Yeah, but you're right,
there has to be some sort of like overall assessment, right,
like as a couple of team. Yeah, there's a lot
of problems with this plan, and it will not come
to be if I can't even like release a podcast
on the same day every week. We're not becoming president
of New York.

Speaker 3 (58:21):
We're not spiking the water supply with birth control anytime.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
Soon until the podcast comes out on the same day.
Then then be afraid. The memes that are like if
I could get out of bed at the same time
and take a shower and put on clean underwear and
feed myself and put oil in my car. Then it's
over for you bitches.

Speaker 3 (58:40):
Yes exactly. I waso like the one where it's like,
oh fuck, what's the wording? It's like God gave you
mental illness because its too powerful.

Speaker 1 (58:49):
It's like huh yeah, literally.

Speaker 3 (58:52):
I was just gonna ask if you've seen it's like
kind of a famous viral scene about vocal fry.

Speaker 1 (58:57):
So it's from have you seen louder Milk.

Speaker 3 (58:59):
No, it's on Netflix, but it's with Ron Livingston, who
was like the main guy who was in Office Space.

Speaker 1 (59:06):
You know that actor I'm talking about too.

Speaker 3 (59:07):
He plays like this sober, like sober pal, like an
alcoholics anonymous sponsor guy who's just like a big curmudgeons,
like kind of an asshole. But he goes to this
coffee shop and this girl's like, okay, what can I
get for you?

Speaker 1 (59:19):
Like totally vocal fighting.

Speaker 2 (59:20):
He's like, why do you talk like that? She's like
that's my voice and he's like, no, it's not.

Speaker 1 (59:25):
And he's like totally fucking with her. Yeah, and he's
being a total asshole.

Speaker 3 (59:28):
And then he does I forgot what he does something
assholy and then she's like, hey, man, fuck.

Speaker 2 (59:33):
You and he goes there it is, there's your voice.

Speaker 3 (59:36):
Yeah, it's a funny scene, but also like, come on, yeah,
you like provoked her into doing something different that you prefer. Right,
we all have the capacity to do different things, but
you get to make that choice of yourself, right, And like,
who cares that she talks like that. She's a fucking
barista at a coffee shop down the street.

Speaker 1 (59:53):
Like let her fucking talk like that. Yeah. Let people
do whatever they want as long as it's not hurting
anyone exactly. I am misanders memes on Instagram and I
am t x Scotchieff and we are sad Gap dot podcast.
You can email us at Sadgap dot podcast at gmail
dot com. Visit our website sadgapdash podcast dot com. Follow

(01:00:13):
us on Patreon for ad free episodes. Patreon dot com,
slash sad Gap. There's a discord, there's a reddit. Many things.
They should be in the link tree on our Instagram.

Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
Yeah, and go on over to your podcast platform of
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and share with a friend.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
Please. We really enjoyed sharing this information for you.

Speaker 3 (01:00:35):
We hope you enjoyed listening and we're stronger together.

Speaker 1 (01:00:40):
We'll see you next time. Bye.