Georgia: Hello, hello, producer Georgia here.
Georgia: In this month's archival episode,
Georgia: we're gonna bring back an especially fun segment
Georgia: made by me and guest producer, Luis Lopez.
Georgia: Luis is an audio producer, a very online person,
Georgia: and one of my close friends.
Georgia: And this episode was the product of weeks of conversations
Georgia: he and I had had in TikTok DMs about this one kind of really bad sounding audio we kept coming across.
Georgia: And I mean, the audio wasn't just bad. It was clipped completely,
Georgia: distorted beyond recovery, and so loud that you'd basically be completely screwed if you made the
Georgia: a foolish decision to scroll your feed while wearing headphones.
Georgia: Blowing out the microphone like this
Georgia: felt to us like this kind of mimetic language
Georgia: in and of itself, the sonic equivalent of a keyboard smash.
Georgia: Luis and I called this phenomenon "burnt toast audio."
Georgia: And in this episode, you'll hear us come to that term,
Georgia: define it, and explore why anyone would
Georgia: enjoy this kind of sonic affront in the first place.
Georgia: And I'm pleased to say that Burt Toast Audio
Georgia: is still very much out there.
Georgia: I hear it all the time.
Georgia: Honestly, I've been hearing a lot of new ways
Georgia: that people mess around with sound online.
Georgia: The latest thing I've noticed is that people will
Georgia: intentionally place themselves too far away
Georgia: from their microphone, like this,
Georgia: and start yelling to make up for that space.
Georgia: They're almost always doing this
Georgia: while talking about something that's a little scandalous
Georgia: or maybe ought to be whispered instead.
Georgia: And I usually interpret this as a way of underlining your point
Georgia: in like an exasperated way.
Georgia: I hear that distance in their voice
Georgia: and it feels like no matter what the person is saying,
Georgia: What they're really trying to tell me is,
Georgia: Jesus Christ, don't you get it already?
Georgia: And I can hear a clear line between that
Georgia: and burnt toast audio.
Georgia: This new trend plays with sound in, granted,
Georgia: a less sonically brutal way.
Georgia: But in the two years since Luis and I created
Georgia: the concept of burnt toast audio,
Georgia: The desire to break out of the system
Georgia: of perfectly normal sonic experiences hasn't changed.
Georgia: If anything, it's expanded
Georgia: because high quality sound remains something
Georgia: that is extremely reliably, even stubbornly available to us.
Georgia: If we wanted to, we could make perfectly acceptable
Georgia: sounding stuff with our iPhones.
Georgia: And many people do.
Georgia: But when so much of our visual experience online
Georgia: is digitally enhanced or smoothed or generated,
Georgia: sound still feels like the best way
Georgia: to add some grit and texture back in.
Georgia: To say, fuck your levels.
Georgia: And crucially, RIP to headphone users.
Luis: We've been thinking about crappy audio on the internet.
Luis: Crappy as in mediocre or amateur, audio that's been poorly recorded or poorly reproduced.
Luis: Being online, you get exposed to a lot of it.
Georgia: People record themselves way too close to the mic,
Georgia: or in a noisy place, or outside when it's windy.
Georgia: Maybe they want to record something
Georgia: that's happening right now
Georgia: so they don't set up their levels.
Georgia: There's a thousand reasons for audio to be bad,
Georgia: and there are countless examples of bad audio online.
Georgia: Give me a lot of snow in Iowa!
Clip: Charge your tablets, get your papers out of the bag,
Clip: get everything!
Clip: This is not your paper job.
Clip: Is Papa John a person or is he just like a character?
Clip: Oh my gosh!
Clip: Oh my God, it looks so much like this in the picture.
Clip: Not my books!
Clip: Apple is not a person!
Clip: You're not trouble to close right now!
Luis: You hear it so much that it's easy for crappy audio to just become background noise.
Luis: But as an audio producer, I'm thinking about audio all the time.
Luis: If I hear a mic that's clipping, if the voice starts to distort and create noise, I immediately
Luis: It's like a blurry picture.
Luis: In fact, there is a case to be made that it's better when it sounds bad.
Luis: It's doing something.
Luis: Something that it wouldn't do if the recording was clean.
Luis: There is a desire for audio to clump, distort, degrade, totally against the rules.
Luis: But this rule-breaking communicates an essential aspect of internet culture.
Luis: Bad is good.
Luis: or at least certain flavors of bad are good.
Luis: ♪ Put your head on my shoulder ♪
Georgia: So, listen along with me.
Georgia: You're sitting on the couch and scrolling TikTok,
Georgia: sort of half paying attention.
Georgia: The sound is just playing out of your iPhone speakers
Georgia: into the room, so the quality is already okay-ish.
Georgia: And this video pops up by a woman named Tiara Skye.
Clip: Hello, hello, it's the beach with the massive camel toe.
Georgia: Tiara's whole thing is running up to people on the street
Georgia: at night with a microphone
Georgia: and asking them unexpected questions
Georgia: to catch them off guard.
Clip: Are you gonna be at least being tonight?
Clip: I might be.
Clip: (laughing)
Georgia: You watch a few and then you get
Georgia: to this one particular video.
Clip: Do you know who's the red black devil?
Clip: Oh, sorry.
Georgia: Tiara is in a long red dress with a white fur coat.
Georgia: It's night and she's just approached a woman on the street.
Georgia: The sound is already bad.
Georgia: Tiara is using this handheld corded microphone
Georgia: that seems to only pick up distorted rough sounding audio.
Clip: Can you say that to black people?
Clip: Oh, sorry.
Georgia: After being asked the question,
Georgia: the girl hesitates and laughs.
Georgia: She's definitely been put on the spot.
Clip: Sorry.
Georgia: But then, Tiara decides to change the subject.
Georgia: How are you doing today?
Georgia: And that's when something really fabulous happens.
Clip: I'm feeling good because today is my birthday.
Clip: Birthday!
Clip: Wow.
Georgia: Tiara's voice just totally overpowers the technology.
Georgia: It's like the mic just can't capture her full body exaltation about the fact that it's
Georgia: this girl's birthday.
Luis: The mic doesn't just fail.
Luis: It gives up.
Luis: And the video abandons its original premise completely and becomes a masterful failure
Luis: in audio recording.
Luis: Individual syllables struggle to burst through the saturation.
Luis: And if you close your eyes and focus only on the video's sound, it's like time stops.
Luis: We get freeze frames of an outburst that never could have happened if the recording had gone
Luis: well.
Clip: Birthday!
Clip: Happy birthday to you!
Georgia: The clipping is what makes this video something.
Georgia: Just in case you need the numbers to prove it, this TikTok has been viewed 7.6 million
Georgia: times and has been liked 1.8 million times.
Georgia: And even the comments can't find the right way to express how that clipping makes them
Georgia: feel.
Georgia: So many of the comments on this video, and we're talking tens of thousands of comments,
Georgia: so many of them use emoji more than text.
Georgia: It's like the clipping has broken not only audio recording but also written speech, as
Georgia: if even that isn't sufficient to capture what's going on here.
Georgia: This video is an especially good display of overloaded audio, but pretty much all of Tiara's
Georgia: videos sound distorted.
Georgia: I don't know what kind of microphone she's using, but it's very good at recording bad
Georgia: audio.
Georgia: Even if she's just talking, her voice is raggedy at the edges,
Georgia: like the microphone could give up at any second.
Georgia: But when other people speak, it sounds fine.
Georgia: And that tells us that she's not doing this by accident.
Georgia: It's not the microphone, it's how she's using it.
Georgia: Tiara is holding the mic so close to herself
Georgia: that it has no other option but to blow out.
Georgia: She wants it to sound bad.
Georgia: We can assume that. So why?
Georgia: Well, because it means something to do that.
Georgia: And she's not the only person who intentionally distorts what could be
Georgia: quote unquote normal sounding audio to make it worse.
Georgia: It's a sound that's familiar to a lot of us on the internet.
Clip: >> Bruh.
Clip: >> And his name is John Cena.
Luis: When we do get the decency of a warning before listening to anything like this, it'll usually
Luis: go something like RIP headphone users.
Luis: Audio like this is shocking and discomforting at best, and dangerous and potentially harmful
Luis: to our hearing in the worst cases, if we listen to it too loudly of course.
Luis: And yet people make it and share it, and people listen to it for fun.
Georgia: And the joy comes, at least in part, because this is so far beyond the scope of what could
Georgia: be considered regular or acceptable audio.
Georgia: The entire point is to overwhelm you in the way that the audio equipment itself is being
Georgia: overwhelmed.
Georgia: It's too loud.
Georgia: It's too distorted.
Georgia: It's too much.
Luis: intentional over-cooking. We could compare it to deep-fried memes, these washed-out,
Luis: grainy, and strangely colored images run through many filters and often accompanied by equally
Luis: weird text, and they do have a lot in common. But we'd like to propose a different culinary term.
Luis: Burnt Toast Audio. But why burnt toast? And why would anyone find that appealing?
Luis: Well, when you burn your last piece of toast and you have no other choice, that's breakfast,
Luis: I guess.
Luis: It'll be wrong, and with every bite you'll be tasting how wrong it is, and no amount
Luis: of butter or jam can remove that lingering char from your mouth.
Luis: Now, imagine you're served burnt toast every day for breakfast.
Luis: Eventually, you'd get used to it.
Luis: You'd have to.
Luis: the burnt taste will never leave. It's there to stay, like the burn marks on the sound waves
Luis: that redlined for too long. And after getting a taste of it again and again in your daily
Luis: doom scroll, you realize that it's not so bad. And you're starting to like it.
Georgia: Then you start to seek it out. Burnt toast audio has a layer of intention to it. It's
Georgia: either made to sound bad on purpose, or it's shared, with purpose, because it sounds bad.
Georgia: The poor quality is what makes these clips funny, and it's what makes them meaningful.
Luis: That relationship to intention is the key to all of this, because there is an inherent
Luis: contradiction between the internet and those of us who use it.
Luis: The internet offers immediacy, quantity in addition to and often in place of quality.
Luis: And people value authenticity, something that statistically few things on the internet will
Luis: have.
Luis: Although, of course, what counts as authentic is ultimately in the eyes of the beholder.
Luis: In any case, here you are with the tools at hand to record a piece of content and you're
Luis: able to share it right away.
Luis: And what's going to happen?
Luis: Will you create content that follows professional standards or content that defies them?
Georgia: For example, it's difficult to imagine something more immediate than live streaming.
Georgia: And gamers who stream on Twitch have their own relationship to this burnt toast type
Georgia: of audio.
Georgia: Sure, they have a headset mic or whatever, but when they totally freak out when they
Georgia: die in the game...
Luis: it is again. A pristine high quality recording of this scream might be funny, but it wouldn't
Luis: have this burnt toast flavor to it. It wouldn't be of the internet. And we know audio distortion
Luis: is nothing new. Whole music genres exist because of how much we love distorting guitars. Voices
Luis: on the phone have gone from a nostalgic "leave your message" band pass filter to an uncanny
Luis: warrable while the person on the other end finds better Wi-Fi.
Luis: But that's not burnt toast audio.
Luis: Because burnt toast audio is audio that is bad not only because the person who creates
Luis: it knows it's bad or doesn't care, but because they expect the listener to understand the
Luis: badness as a choice.
Luis: ♪ Pineapple upside down ya ♪
Luis: ♪ In the toilet I make a brown ya ♪
Clip: ♪ At my wedding I won't wear a gown ya ♪
Clip: ♪ I would rather wear a lady gaga mattress ♪
Clip: ♪ Let's go ♪
Georgia: The point of a live stream is to grant access,
Georgia: to record yourself gaming for other people
Georgia: to watch you in real time.
Georgia: And as a viewer, it feels like that level of access
Georgia: should come with a lack of artifice.
Georgia: (screaming)
Georgia: Even if someone streams professionally as their real job,
Georgia: it's still possible that they'll blow out their mic
Georgia: in a moment of game-induced fury.
Georgia: And when that happens, it's a tell,
Georgia: like a reminder that this is a real person, a real emotion.
Georgia: It's letting you as the viewer in.
Georgia: As the audience, we want that bad audio
Georgia: because, in a way, it feels more real
Georgia: than other kinds of media.
Clip: Please, Ed.
Clip: No!
Clip: I can't, I hate this.
Clip: You see the day, see the day,
Clip: why are you walking back, you have to roll with steel!
Clip: (laughing)
Clip: You're finally too slow.
Clip: (mumbling)
Georgia: But what's desirable online
Georgia: would be seen as an absolute failure
Georgia: in other more traditional kinds of media.
Georgia: Like, if a microphone blew out during the news broadcast,
Georgia: That would be unprofessional.
Georgia: It would be a mistake.
Luis: And in this internet code, we crave mistakes.
Luis: We don't care that clipping may sound unprofessional
Luis: because what we're looking at is not professional,
Luis: at least not in the same way.
Luis: A gamer on Twitch could be a millionaire,
Luis: but they're using the tools of the internet to do their job.
Luis: It's of the internet in a way that a news broadcast is not,
Luis: which means that in a certain way,
Luis: this media prioritizes accessibility
Luis: over this more standard sheen of professionalism.
Luis: It's not hyper-produced,
Luis: and moreover, it can't seem to be hyper-produced.
Luis: Even if streamers have the best, most expensive equipment,
Luis: They can still give that DIY feel to their content.
Luis: They make it look and sound
Luis: like any of their followers could do the same thing
Luis: with whatever tools they have at hand.
Luis: Not only does it contradict the rulebook,
Luis: it exists for that very contradiction.
Georgia: And that rejection isn't just a bratty response
Georgia: to pre-approved audio standards.
Georgia: It comes with a very interesting weight to it.
Georgia: In the essay "Rough Music, Futurism,
Georgia: and Post-Punk Industrial Noise Bands"
Georgia: by Mary Russo and Daniel Warner,
Georgia: they talk about this idea of challenging
Georgia: the dominant code with something harsher.
Georgia: In that context, it was replacing sound,
Georgia: something people want to hear, with noise,
Georgia: something people don't want to hear.
Georgia: (crickets chirping)
Georgia: It might be a bit much to say
Georgia: that blowing out a microphone by screaming,
Georgia: "Oh my God, happy birthday!"
Georgia: is some deliberate punk act of rejection of the status quo.
Georgia: But it is intentionally refusing the option
Georgia: of better sounding audio.
Georgia: And there is joy to be found
Georgia: in basically saying, "Fuck your levels."
Georgia: There's a desire to hear what we don't want to hear.
Georgia: There's this paradox.
Georgia: But in the essay, Russo and Warner
Georgia: mention a really interesting idea
Georgia: of aestheticizing the tumultuous activities of modern life.
Georgia: In other words, interpreting the chaotic nature
Georgia: of living in the world through a look, a vibe,
Georgia: or in this case, a sound.
Georgia: Brutto's audio is its own aestheticization
Georgia: of this very online internet forward feeling.
Georgia: A lot of the sounds we've used here serve
Georgia: as these emotional shortcuts.
Georgia: ♪ Birthday ♪
Georgia: These short form bite-sized memes
Georgia: that can be used in place of writing out,
Georgia: this is how I feel when I see this.
Clip: ♪ Happy birthday ♪
Luis: There's a sort of real ones no situation here.
Luis: Not everyone will get it.
Luis: It's a kind of lexicon, an internet slang, so to speak.
Luis: And beyond that, it takes the communication
Luis: in our everyday online lives-
Luis: the voice notes, the TikToks, the threads-
Luis: and throws them into the fire, scorching them to a crisp.
Luis: It's exaggeration to the point of destruction.
Luis: It's beyond aesthetics.
Luis: Like the comments on Tiara's video,
Luis: It's something that's hard to put into words.
Luis: It's almost anti-aesthetics.
Luis: It's fucked your aesthetics, aesthetics.
Mike: That is the show we have for you this week.
Mike: We're gonna be back here in the main feed
Mike: on or around Thursday, June 18th.
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