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Comment by leephillips | Hacker News Reader

I might be deaf to this. I watched the interview with some girl I never heard of and, although I found her very annoying for several reasons, I couldn't hear the "creaky voice" thing.

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Here's another article, and a good voice example:

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/12/vocal-fry-cree...

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/vocalfryshort.mp3

Thanks, I didn't know what the article was referring to either. Your link is a clear demonstration, and I think I get it.

I now feel like anyone who cares about this is unhealthily nitpicking.

I hear it in your example but I don't in the interview. Isn't that her normal voice?

Or is she singing a whole song with vocal fry? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ThRVUcmSa0 (Dream a Little Dream of Me)

When she first starts talking, it's in how she says "I did, yeah..."

What is the point in mentioning that you've never heard of Zooey Deschanel, a popular celebrity (who starred in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)? Does that add something to your comment, or are you just trying to show proud you are of being out of touch with popular culture?

So she's an actress? Is that what you're telling me?

It's odd that your own website has a movie section and a link to IMDB and several movie critics [1] and yet you're here on HN trying to show off pretending that you're so far removed that you have to go out of your way to explain to random people that you don't know who this person is when no one asked if you knew and knowing who she is isn't even relevant to the topic.

Do you walk down the street telling passers-by that you don't follow celebrities? Is it that important to you?

[1] http://lee-phillips.org/info/movies/movies.html

Apply cold water to burn area

No, but I was in the supermarket the other day and noticed that almost every magazine in the checkout area had the same woman on the cover, so I asked my wife, "Who is this Kim Kardashian?" She didn't know, either. Is she an actress, too?

And, I should really update that page. It's ancient! - doesn't even follow my current style.

Impressive. I usually can't remember the names of people I've never heard of before.

Neither can I. But I hear about her all the time. I just don't know why.

Recognition and recall are different things. You can recognize an actor in a film without knowing their name, and you can recognize a name without knowing who the person is.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-constantly-mention...

Is this important to you?

I'm not freeunter and it's not important to me but it is obnoxious; that being someone going out of their way to make themselves seem above something or someone else when no one asked nor cares.

---

[Ignore below. I misread the comments but I'm leaving for context. I think the above comment stands without the evidence below.]

Quoting from above:

  some girl I never heard of

... and below:

  I hear about her all the time

He may not know that she's an actress but it's clear he had previously "heard of" her and lying only makes it more obnoxious. It's the same behavior you can read about in The Onion link.

That's dishonest. You know quite well that, above, I was referring to the actress interviewed in the article under discussion, and, below, to Kardashian, who, you must know, is not the same person. To accuse me of lying by lying about what I said is pretty contemptible.

EDIT: And if they are the same person, you can hardly blame me. The lady on all the magazines looks totally different from the one in the interview. How could I know?

> That's dishonest. You know quite well that, above, I was referring to the actress interviewed in the article under discussion, and, below, to Kardashian

I'm sorry. I honestly missed that. That was meant as evidence to support that you were in fact doing what i was describing. I mistakenly accused you of lying but it still seems the behavior fits (EDIT: not lying rather the behavior in the first paragraph of my original comment).

You're piling more contemptible behavior on top of what you already did, while pretending to apologize. So you admit you were wrong, and have no evidence that I lied, but are tying to suggest that I'm a liar anyway with the ambiguous phrase "it still seems the behavior fits". Amazing.

You know other people can see your comments, right? Not just me?

> while pretending to apologize

No it was genuine. I don't think you lied at all and I apologized for it.

> but are tying to suggest that I'm a liar anyway with the ambiguous phrase "it still seems the behavior fits".

Re-read my original comment. The behavior I'm talking about is what is above the edit, not lying, but I can see how you would have that mistaken interpretation. I'm not having my best day with communication.

> You know other people can see your comments, right? Not just me?

Yes, I'm quite aware.

If you have never heard of someone, you wouldn't know what they usually sound like

EDIT: PS I haven't heard (of) her before either

You're in for it now.

You don't need to know who the person is to be able to hear what they sound like. When I first heard of this effect it was a sound clip of a blogger with whom I am not familiar with, but I got the gist of it without knowing her identity.

The point is the what, not the who. They could have put any affected female in her place without changing anything.

My impressions exactly. Does anyone have another example? I think I'm missing the main point of the article because I don't get the example.

> I found her very annoying for several reasons

Care to elaborate? I watched the clip and didn't find it off-putting except for the shallow personality traits that I associate with her vocal mannerisms, which was kind of the point of the article.

Maybe I'm more crotchety than you and find "shallow personality traits" and certain "vocal mannerisms" more annoying. These were not the point of the article, which was about one particular vocalization, which I could not detect. What was "very annoying" to me? The vocal tic of saying "like" every three words, the constant tossing of the head and hair, the speaking in a tumble of disconnected, cliched fragments rather than in sentences, the general vapidity, the garish makeup, etc.

I suppose this behaviour is designed, perhaps sub-consciously, to influence the opinions held by others of the speaker. To encourage them to 'like' the speaker.

We can all control how we talk, but some seem more conscious of it than others. As someone who (thinks he) can notice a switch in vocal register like any other obvious pattern change, the behaviour also screams out to me each time I see or hear it. But I don't dislike it; the speaker merely has a job to do and a social environment to fit into.

I hear something similar in some (particularly American) men. It's an over-emphasis of the depth of their voice. I think I've noticed a fair few others over the years but there are likely a million other traits in people of all ages that I've never noticed. All designed to influence the listener in some way. After all, people don't typically speak to grandparents the same way they speak to friends. Why not?

It's probably a primal, perhaps evolutionary behavioural trait, but my point is that it's not specific to vapid celebs. We probably all do it to some degree.

Interesting observations. It seems obvious to me that most celebrities under the interview lights are chiefly concerned with being liked. You might find this paper relevant: http://www.communicationcache.com/uploads/1/0/8/8/10887248/a...

I think they're talking about the way she sort of drags out words like "I di-id" or "It i-is". Unless I'm wrong.

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