Why we all need subtitles now

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Why we all need subtitles now

It’s not you — TV dialogue has gotten harder to hear.

www.vox.com

It’s not you — TV dialogue has gotten harder to hear.

By Edward Vega Jan 20, 2023, 5:16pm EST



Have you ever been watching a show or movie, and then a character delivers a line so unintelligible you have to scramble to find the remote and rewind? For me, this moment came during the climax of the Pete Davidson film The King of Staten Island, where his most important line was impossible to understand.

I had to rewind three times — and eventually put subtitles on — to finally pick up what he was saying.

This experience isn’t unique. Gather enough people together and you can generally separate them into two categories: People who use subtitles, and people who don’t. And according to a not-so-scientific YouTube poll we ran on our Community tab, the latter category is an endangered species — of respondents who are not deaf or hard of hearing, 57 percent said they use subtitles, while just 12 percent said they generally don’t.

But why do so many of us feel that we need subtitles to understand the dialogue in the things we watch?

The answer to that question is complex — and we get straight to the bottom of it in this explainer, with the help of dialogue editor Austin Olivia Kendrick.

You can find this video and all of Vox’s videos on YouTube.

 

[Human Torch]

Started using subs when my daughter was a baby and have never gone back. shyt is impossible now.

 

[Marlow Stanfield]

Been watching with subtitles for years. Never going back.

 

[Boujee Bonita Braxton]

I always have the subtitles on. It’s nice to know that it’s not just me out here struggling.

 

[Evil genius Jay]

Subtitle on everything beside sport

 

[Paper Boi]

I started using them for foreign shows/movies years ago and just kept using them for English


I do use alternative streams on a lot of shyt where it isn't really an option tho, so it's not like I NEED it, but it is preferred.

 

[Kiyoshi-Dono]

 

[skyrunner1]

Started using subs when my daughter was a baby and have never gone back. shyt is impossible now.

Never used subs before, what did your baby do for you to start?

 

[Paper Boi]

Never used subs before, what did your baby do for you to start?

sounds like he was keeping the volume lower to not scare the baby


altho now that I think about it, it sounds like a good way to help a kid learn how to read too

put them subtitles on so they subliminally seeing the words

 

[ThrobbingHood]

Yeah. It’s like people can’t enunciate their words anymore. Compare now to movies in the 50s/60s when they spoke with clarity.

 

[Paper Boi]

Yeah. It’s like people can’t enunciate their words anymore. Compare now to movies in the 50s/60s when they spoke with clarity.

yeah and a lot of them come off as campy and hot garbage now tho

i'll take the realistic dialects over some dikk Van Dyke over enunciated trans atlantic accent bullshyt

 

[NoMorePie]

I can't watch a Netflix show without subtitles now lol

 

[skyrunner1]

sounds like he was keeping the volume lower to not scare the baby


altho now that I think about it, it sounds like a good way to help a kid learn how to read too

put them subtitles on so they subliminally seeing the words

Yea I initially thought it was for educational purposes..

 

[Harry Sax]

Yea I done get addicted to the subtitles I thought it was just me

 

[jerzboy]

Started using subs when my daughter was a baby and have never gone back. shyt is impossible now.

Lol, legit me. Same thing happened when I had my daughter. I can’t watch tv without it. I always change the settings on other tvs when I’m out.