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How Auto-Tune Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
0:13
Speaker 1: Clark to Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Yep, there's Jerry and
0:18
Speaker 1: this is Stuff you Should Know. That was great, Thanks man.
0:24
Speaker 1: Do I sound like Share? Have you sound like T
0:27
Speaker 1: paying T Josh T Josh or Snoop Dogg? Does he
0:31
Speaker 1: do the auto to? He factors into this big time
0:34
Speaker 1: later on? Oh well, I don't even know about that,
0:37
Speaker 1: so I've got some of my lead. This is kind
0:42
Speaker 1: of fun. I don't know how much we're gonna do
0:44
Speaker 1: that because people are probably like, stop it right now. Oh, Chuck,
0:49
Speaker 1: I think we should do it a lot. Are you done? Yeah?
0:54
Speaker 1: I'm done. Um, we could have just auto tuned this
0:59
Speaker 1: whole thing. Yeah, you know, maybe we should. Maybe we
1:03
Speaker 1: should maybe from this moment, Flore, we should just started
1:05
Speaker 1: tune the rest of the episode starting now. Let's sabotage
1:09
Speaker 1: our careers. Uh, you've got an intro for this, fancy intro.
1:15
Speaker 1: I think we just did it, buddy. Okay, well, let's
1:18
Speaker 1: get in the way back machine then, my friend, Okay,
1:20
Speaker 1: we don't have to go back that far because I
1:22
Speaker 1: know where we're going, it's gonna be a short trip.
1:24
Speaker 1: Let's go back to Oh Summer Boom. I'm you and
1:36
Speaker 1: Iron the club. We're hanging out, we're drinking the rum
1:39
Speaker 1: and coke. You can find us in the club and
1:42
Speaker 1: uh we're we're dancing, We're getting down and grooving too.
1:45
Speaker 1: Uh to share his latest jam, Believe Believe. It's a
1:49
Speaker 1: hot jam, a hot, hot, hot jam that's released in
1:53
Speaker 1: the summer. It's summertime. As you can tell, it's hot
1:56
Speaker 1: in the club. Cheat, and I've got on my my
1:58
Speaker 1: my short pants. I'm us like I'm out for a
2:01
Speaker 1: night at the Rocks. I'm wearing a shirt. So I noticed, Actually,
2:07
Speaker 1: how did you not? Well? Yeah, the third nipple really
2:09
Speaker 1: stands out. So we're in the club where jamming and
2:15
Speaker 1: share song is on, and uh, something happens at about
2:19
Speaker 1: thirty five seconds into the song, and you and I
2:21
Speaker 1: are just like, whoa daddy? Did you just hear that?
2:25
Speaker 1: It changes everything. It changed the whole tone of the club,
2:28
Speaker 1: Like the club was like okay, and now it's banging
2:31
Speaker 1: yek Yeah, because of a little something called auto tune. Uh,
2:37
Speaker 1: what sounded like a little electronic glitch was very purposeful
2:43
Speaker 1: and it was the first time the auto tune had
2:46
Speaker 1: been used in this way. So what Josh is auto
2:50
Speaker 1: tune was quite a set up? Uh, can we do
2:55
Speaker 1: the rest of the episode in the club? Yeah? Why not? Okay,
2:58
Speaker 1: just keep those rumbings cokes coming. Okay, that's cool. Um,
3:02
Speaker 1: So let me let me stop you for a second. Right,
3:06
Speaker 1: because the way you described it, you made it sound
3:08
Speaker 1: like everybody was like, oh, Share just used auto tune. No, no,
3:13
Speaker 1: everybody said what was that? That was awesome? Although some
3:17
Speaker 1: people were like, what was that? Don't ever do that again,
3:20
Speaker 1: but most people were like, wow, Shared just released her
3:24
Speaker 1: biggest hit of her entire career, and it was a
3:25
Speaker 1: pretty long career. She just came back like that just
3:29
Speaker 1: established her comeback was this track, and it actually became
3:32
Speaker 1: one of the greatest best selling singles of all time. Yeah,
3:36
Speaker 1: and I think, I mean, it would have been a
3:38
Speaker 1: probably a big song anyway, but I think most definitely
3:42
Speaker 1: auto tune kicked it into the stratasy, gave it just
3:45
Speaker 1: the extra something. It became part of the talking but
3:48
Speaker 1: everyone was talking about it. So everybody went to her
3:51
Speaker 1: producer and said, dude, how did you do that? We
3:54
Speaker 1: want to know how to do that, and he was like, vocoder. Yeah,
3:58
Speaker 1: he lied, He lied, He lied big time. He lied
4:01
Speaker 1: in person to other producers, he lied in interviews, he lied, lied,
4:06
Speaker 1: lied about how he made that track because he wanted
4:10
Speaker 1: to keep it to himself because it was so huge,
4:13
Speaker 1: and it became so huge, Chuck that at first Auto
4:16
Speaker 1: Tune was called the Share Effect. Even the company that
4:19
Speaker 1: produced Auto Tune and Terry's, which we'll talk about in
4:23
Speaker 1: a minute, called it in their instructional book, the Share Effect.
4:27
Speaker 1: They probably still do, don't they. They don't mention it
4:29
Speaker 1: any longer. Yeah, um. But the so it was, it
4:34
Speaker 1: was a huge deal, and this guy lied and kept
4:36
Speaker 1: it under wraps, and for many years it was very mysterious. Yeah.
4:39
Speaker 1: Let's actually, if you live under a rock, let's go
4:42
Speaker 1: ahead and play that clip of the very first thirty
4:45
Speaker 1: five seconds into that song where Share says I can't
4:48
Speaker 1: break through. Yeah, right there, boom right there. Music changed
5:01
Speaker 1: from that point forward. So what what this guy, what
5:05
Speaker 1: her producer was saying was vocoder. Vocoder is something that's
5:10
Speaker 1: been around for a very long time. If you've ever
5:11
Speaker 1: listened to any Pete Frampton, Peter Frampton and he things,
5:15
Speaker 1: do you feel like we do that whole long guitar
5:19
Speaker 1: solo or whatever. He's breathing into a tube connected to
5:23
Speaker 1: his guitar, which is electrifying his voice. Vocoder had been
5:27
Speaker 1: around for a very long time, but there's different ways
5:31
Speaker 1: of doing it. That That was definitely the tube effect
5:34
Speaker 1: through the guitar, but you can also just use it to,
5:38
Speaker 1: you know, make your voice robotic like Beck to turn
5:41
Speaker 1: tables in a microphone or Mr Roboto with sticks, But
5:47
Speaker 1: all different ways to use it. This thing, this sounded different,
5:50
Speaker 1: the share effect. It was a little different, sure, And
5:53
Speaker 1: I wonder how this guy talked his way out of Yeah.
5:58
Speaker 1: I mean like if if if a producer like, okay,
6:00
Speaker 1: well show me how you did it on vocoder, if
6:03
Speaker 1: he was like over here and then just like ran
6:05
Speaker 1: out of the room, I don't. I don't think he
6:07
Speaker 1: talked out of it. I think he was just another
6:09
Speaker 1: line music producer and he was just like okay, well busted, okay.
6:13
Speaker 1: So um, Apparently along the way people figured out here
6:18
Speaker 1: there what this guy did believe and they started using
6:24
Speaker 1: it themselves, but very very sparsely. All right, So, Josh,
6:28
Speaker 1: what is auto tune? All right? I'll answer your question
6:32
Speaker 1: because I'm gonna keep asking it, all right. So auto
6:35
Speaker 1: tune is a plug in originally released for the audio
6:42
Speaker 1: editing software pro tools. Yeah, it's a software piece that
6:47
Speaker 1: allows you and the original UM intent and how it's
6:51
Speaker 1: still mostly used is to pitch correct UM singer's voice.
6:57
Speaker 1: So when you, when you or I go into the
6:59
Speaker 1: studio to record those albums that will never release, but
7:02
Speaker 1: we just record for fun. Um we hit flat notes
7:05
Speaker 1: here there. Oh not me. I have perfect pitch. I
7:08
Speaker 1: hit flat notes here there, perfect um, and everybody does.
7:11
Speaker 1: It's a normal thing. Sure for most of eternity. UM
7:16
Speaker 1: music producers would say, blue Eyes chairman, I need another take.
7:22
Speaker 1: That was a great take, but you had a couple
7:23
Speaker 1: of flat notes. Give me another take just like that one.
7:26
Speaker 1: And Frank would finish his scotch, put out a cigarette
7:29
Speaker 1: and say you get one more shine hood. What was
7:36
Speaker 1: the Joe? Oh you didn't even see spinal tap, did you? Yeah,
7:39
Speaker 1: you finally saw it, finally, Okay, But I don't remember
7:42
Speaker 1: any Frank Sinatra t Yeah there was. When Bruno Kirby
7:44
Speaker 1: is the Limo Drivers, He's talks about Sammy Davis's book,
7:49
Speaker 1: Yes I can, and he says what they should have
7:51
Speaker 1: called it is. Yes, I can as long as Frank
7:53
Speaker 1: says it's okay, because Frank called the shots. For all
7:55
Speaker 1: those guys, I do remember that. Um So, Frank would
8:00
Speaker 1: one more take, and this could be like take twelve
8:03
Speaker 1: or fifteen or twenty, depending on like how how much
8:08
Speaker 1: how much the person was feeling at The singer was
8:11
Speaker 1: feeling it at the time and would be happy to
8:13
Speaker 1: hang around the studio whatever was keeping the singer there
8:15
Speaker 1: at the studio. As long as that was around the singer,
8:19
Speaker 1: the singer was happy to give it one more try,
8:22
Speaker 1: one more try, right, drugs maybe, um or if they
8:26
Speaker 1: had like a really good candy bowl, who knows, I
8:29
Speaker 1: gotta stay for the skittles. Um So. The editor then
8:32
Speaker 1: or the music producer would then take all of these
8:35
Speaker 1: different tracks and would go through and I can't imagine
8:38
Speaker 1: how awful this would be. Take the best part of
8:42
Speaker 1: this track and edit it together with the best part
8:44
Speaker 1: of that track, and like we're talking like pre digital air,
8:48
Speaker 1: so like they're spicing together tape from what I understand,
8:52
Speaker 1: right to get the best possible complete take piece together
8:56
Speaker 1: from many different takes. Right, So Okay, that's that's what
8:59
Speaker 1: they did. All of a sudden, there's this new software
9:04
Speaker 1: that just runs through a take and says, oh, well,
9:08
Speaker 1: I see what note or what key the singers singing in,
9:12
Speaker 1: But this this particular notes just a little out, so
9:15
Speaker 1: I'm going to nudge it into the key that the
9:18
Speaker 1: singer was going for. And now, all of a sudden,
9:21
Speaker 1: one take is all it takes. Yeah. I mean what
9:25
Speaker 1: it did was it cut down on studio time, which
9:28
Speaker 1: is super expensive, which was very appealing because now you
9:31
Speaker 1: could churn out songs that are more rapid rate and
9:34
Speaker 1: a cheaper rate. And uh, it was it was a
9:38
Speaker 1: little sort of a secret tool that they didn't intend
9:41
Speaker 1: to like get out to the public. I don't think
9:43
Speaker 1: they wanted everyone to know this stuff. No, it was
9:46
Speaker 1: meant for professionals. Yeah, And basically it was just it
9:49
Speaker 1: was the musical audio equivalent of cosmetics. Yeah. Doctor. It
9:56
Speaker 1: was invented by Dr Harold Andy Hilda Brand, and he
10:02
Speaker 1: likened it to make up and the New Yorker likened
10:05
Speaker 1: it to um, like getting rid of a red eye
10:07
Speaker 1: and a photograph. It was just you use it just
10:11
Speaker 1: enough so that you can't tell it's there, but it
10:13
Speaker 1: makes for a more pleasant um overall composition. Right, what
10:19
Speaker 1: Share had done, or what shares producers had done, is
10:22
Speaker 1: take this thing and used it to the nth degree. Yes,
10:25
Speaker 1: supposedly it was just a joke, and Share was like,
10:28
Speaker 1: I love that, but that's like I don't know if
10:31
Speaker 1: that's an urban legend, ear if that's fact. Well, from
10:33
Speaker 1: what I read that her producer, she was she wanted like, um,
10:36
Speaker 1: she had heard like some telephone effect that she was
10:39
Speaker 1: interested in using, like she wanted something and I guess
10:43
Speaker 1: the producer had stumbled upon that and UM played it
10:47
Speaker 1: for but it was like you're not gonna like this,
10:49
Speaker 1: but listen to this weirdness and she was like that
10:52
Speaker 1: I want that. Nice, that's what I read. Well, I
10:55
Speaker 1: think that it's due to her giving it the green light.
10:58
Speaker 1: Then that was truly like uh, foresight, like a masterful
11:03
Speaker 1: move by Share. You know, well, Share has a lot
11:06
Speaker 1: of ForSight. You know, they say, don't don't doubt Share
11:09
Speaker 1: and Share has a lot of foresight. Never bet against Share. Yeah, Um,
11:13
Speaker 1: so when you did make that decision, it changed, like
11:15
Speaker 1: you said, it changed everything. And well, well, I I
11:18
Speaker 1: we can't talk enough about this, but we're going to
11:21
Speaker 1: take a break and then come back and talk more
11:22
Speaker 1: about it right after this, all right, josh, Uh. What
11:42
Speaker 1: I found most interesting about this while researching what UM
11:47
Speaker 1: was what Andy Hildebrand did before he did this. He
11:51
Speaker 1: was a musician. He was played flute professionally since he
11:55
Speaker 1: was a young teenager. Even went to University of Illinois
12:00
Speaker 1: go Fighting a Line I on a music scholarship. Yet
12:04
Speaker 1: he chose to work for Exxon Mobile for seventeen years
12:09
Speaker 1: looking for oil. Yeah, the two weren't too terribly far apart, right, well,
12:16
Speaker 1: as we will find out. So he's a professional floutist,
12:20
Speaker 1: classically trained flout is a good one from what I understand,
12:22
Speaker 1: flouting his flute, yes, um. And he went to college
12:26
Speaker 1: to get an electrical engineering degree, I think. And basically
12:30
Speaker 1: when when he went to work for the oil companies,
12:32
Speaker 1: it was an oil exploration and he figured out a
12:37
Speaker 1: programmer he designed to software UM that when you set
12:42
Speaker 1: off an explosive charge underground, it measured the pitch of
12:48
Speaker 1: stuff of the sound waves that that were created. Right,
12:52
Speaker 1: So as they traveled through rock, different types of rock,
12:56
Speaker 1: just the pitch basically, and this software like analyzed the
12:59
Speaker 1: pitch that was coming through and could create a subsurface
13:03
Speaker 1: map of the rock below, and oil companies have long
13:07
Speaker 1: known that this type of rock is associated with oil,
13:09
Speaker 1: and this type of rock is not maybe a'll financial
13:12
Speaker 1: guess and this type of rock. So with this guy
13:14
Speaker 1: creating an audio visual map of the subsurface area, oil
13:20
Speaker 1: companies no longer had to just drill and drill and
13:23
Speaker 1: hope that they found um oil. He would say, this
13:26
Speaker 1: is a pretty pretty great place to drill because this
13:29
Speaker 1: kind of rock is there. That's right. It's called auto correlation.
13:33
Speaker 1: And it saved Exxon a lot of money and he
13:37
Speaker 1: somehow made a lot of money. I thought it was
13:39
Speaker 1: gonna be one of those things where like XN was
13:41
Speaker 1: just like thanks, you work for us, you wint here's
13:44
Speaker 1: yours a year. But apparently he UM earned enough money
13:49
Speaker 1: to retire by the age of forty thanks to this
13:52
Speaker 1: innovation and UM in the early he got out of
13:56
Speaker 1: the oil business and found it like it's just a
14:00
Speaker 1: popularity content. Yeah. Uh. He founded UH in Terrorists Audio
14:04
Speaker 1: Technologies and UH kind of near Silicon Valley in Scott's Valley, California.
14:09
Speaker 1: And I think still they only have about ten employees.
14:12
Speaker 1: I think it's a pretty small operation. It's all centered
14:15
Speaker 1: around him and his ideas, and he is the main
14:18
Speaker 1: inventor um. One of the first things he invented was
14:21
Speaker 1: something called Infinity, which is a program that where you
14:24
Speaker 1: could loop samples um over and over and over, like seamlessly.
14:29
Speaker 1: Apparently that was a necessary thing. I didn't know that.
14:32
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, think about it. We're talking like early nineties.
14:35
Speaker 1: That was like the oh eight acid house revolution. Yeah,
14:39
Speaker 1: but I just didn't realize. I guess he made it easier,
14:42
Speaker 1: probably is my guess. Yes, I think he enabled it.
14:45
Speaker 1: He enabled technos the impression I have, Oh yeah, interesting
14:51
Speaker 1: looping samples together seamlessly. Well, but you could already do that.
14:55
Speaker 1: What I'm saying is is he clearly found a way
14:56
Speaker 1: to do it better and more efficiently. He didn't invent looping, No,
15:01
Speaker 1: he made it better, Yeah, exactly. Another thing he did
15:06
Speaker 1: was invented the microphone modeler. Modeling is a big thing
15:10
Speaker 1: in music. You can get um guitar amplifiers that model,
15:15
Speaker 1: uh basically means imitate other amps. I have a modeling
15:19
Speaker 1: amp which I don't use anymore because it's uh not
15:22
Speaker 1: very good, but it models. There's like twelve different classic
15:25
Speaker 1: amps models supposedly, but he inventled the modeling microphone, which
15:30
Speaker 1: means you could mimic like classic microphones or like a
15:33
Speaker 1: harmonica mike and vintage mics like the Elvis Presley that
15:37
Speaker 1: cool looking mike. Sure that was on there? Oh? Is
15:41
Speaker 1: that the silver kind of rounded rectangular one. Noel's got
15:44
Speaker 1: one on his desk. Yeah, yeah, that's associated with Elvis Presley. Well,
15:48
Speaker 1: I mean just the music of that time. But I
15:51
Speaker 1: always picture Elvish. Yeah, you know what I mean, I
15:53
Speaker 1: can see that. Yeah, have you ever seen his grandson,
15:55
Speaker 1: by the way, quick sidebar? No, his name is quick sidebar,
16:00
Speaker 1: quick sidebar Pressley. It's weird name, but you know, Lisa
16:04
Speaker 1: Marie was his mom, So yeah, um, that was very funny.
16:09
Speaker 1: By the way, he uh, just look him up. I
16:13
Speaker 1: think what's his name. I can't remember his name. His
16:16
Speaker 1: last name is the father's name for Lisa Marie's first husband,
16:21
Speaker 1: is who she had him with. Uh yeah, just look
16:24
Speaker 1: at Elvis Presley's grandson. It is creepy. Dude looks exactly
16:29
Speaker 1: like Elvis at that age, like scary, scary, eerily similar
16:35
Speaker 1: that I don't know, doesne that I do know? If
16:38
Speaker 1: he sings, he probably use his auto tune probably because
16:42
Speaker 1: of singers. Apparently his auto tune its hem even higher
16:45
Speaker 1: than that. Really, how about that? Admit it? You know? Yeah,
16:50
Speaker 1: there's the thing about auto tune where, um, you deny
16:55
Speaker 1: that you use it even though you're totally aware that
16:58
Speaker 1: everyone uses it. Um. I read an article where apparently
17:03
Speaker 1: this one producer said that he's worked with two artists
17:08
Speaker 1: that have haven't used it everyone else has, and it
17:11
Speaker 1: was Nico Case and Nellie for Tato. And then apparently
17:14
Speaker 1: later after that, Nelly for Tato released a single that
17:17
Speaker 1: had tons of auto tune on it. She may be
17:21
Speaker 1: the only artist in the world who hasn't used auto tune,
17:25
Speaker 1: either subtly or um to the nth degree. Well, that's
17:30
Speaker 1: certainly not true. I think there are plenty of indie artists.
17:33
Speaker 1: But if you're talking, you should read this Verge article.
17:36
Speaker 1: It basically lays it out like, no, everyone uses this
17:40
Speaker 1: even if so. Apparently producers don't even necessarily tell the
17:44
Speaker 1: band that it's being used right then, because there's a
17:47
Speaker 1: live function, so that the monitors or the headphones that um,
17:51
Speaker 1: the band is hearing is being run through auto tune,
17:55
Speaker 1: so what they're hearing is already corrected, so they think
17:59
Speaker 1: they just did a perfect take. Yeah, I'm just wary
18:02
Speaker 1: of anytime someone says out of twenty million singers, one
18:06
Speaker 1: person doesn't that's just very dubious claim. I don't know,
18:09
Speaker 1: we're talking music industry here, especially when a lot of
18:13
Speaker 1: people are making their own music in their own homes. Well,
18:16
Speaker 1: that's another thing. They're not a part of the pop machine.
18:19
Speaker 1: They don't have stats on that, you know. Yeah, I'm
18:23
Speaker 1: just I'm just saying that's that sounds like a load
18:25
Speaker 1: of garbage to me. I'm sure more than one person
18:27
Speaker 1: doesn't just one. Um. So auto tune came about, apparently
18:33
Speaker 1: this is the tail because of a dinner that Hilda
18:39
Speaker 1: Brand was at. He was having lunch with a sales
18:41
Speaker 1: rep and the wife said something funny like, hey, Andy,
18:44
Speaker 1: can you once you invent something to make me sing
18:46
Speaker 1: in tune? And he went, no, great idea that we
18:53
Speaker 1: should have auto tuned, that maybe we could maybe maybe
18:56
Speaker 1: it was maybe it just happened. Uh. And so he said,
19:00
Speaker 1: you know what, Uh, if I can tell Jed Clampitt
19:03
Speaker 1: where the oil is, then I can make you sing
19:06
Speaker 1: in tune. And he did, and he did. He created
19:09
Speaker 1: auto tune and um we've kind of mentioned how it works. Basically,
19:15
Speaker 1: it takes a it takes that take of a singer's song.
19:20
Speaker 1: It takes the vocals of the song, and you select
19:25
Speaker 1: what key you're singing in, and then auto tune goes
19:28
Speaker 1: through and makes this map of this of that audio
19:31
Speaker 1: of the vocal track, and it goes through and says
19:34
Speaker 1: that this one's a little flat, this one's a little low,
19:37
Speaker 1: or whatever, um and it just nudges these things into
19:42
Speaker 1: tune into into the key that it's supposed to be in.
19:45
Speaker 1: So all all of the notes that the singer hits
19:49
Speaker 1: and that take are within the correct key, meaning that
19:52
Speaker 1: they all sound great. It's a perfect take, right well, yeah,
19:55
Speaker 1: and the the key there is it's in the original
19:57
Speaker 1: tone and inflection of the artist, so you can't tell
20:01
Speaker 1: it's happening. No. And there's actually if you look, if
20:03
Speaker 1: you look at the um uh Auto Tune product demo videos,
20:09
Speaker 1: it's amazing. So there's a there's an um an automatic
20:14
Speaker 1: version where like it just you select the key and
20:17
Speaker 1: like auto tune do its thing, and it does a
20:19
Speaker 1: pretty great job. One of the one of the ways
20:21
Speaker 1: that it does this is um it adds like millisecond
20:26
Speaker 1: pauses in between notes. There's little spaces between notes, which
20:30
Speaker 1: gives it a natural feel. Um. There's other selections that
20:35
Speaker 1: you can make, like throat length. You can select grow
20:39
Speaker 1: how long the singer's throat is uh, and you can
20:42
Speaker 1: do that note by note um, so you can make
20:45
Speaker 1: the whole thing even more natural. Until basically, what you've
20:48
Speaker 1: done is taught auto tune how to simulate a particular
20:54
Speaker 1: singers singing style and voice so that when it when
20:59
Speaker 1: a us that no, it doesn't within the same exact
21:03
Speaker 1: range that the singer would have done had they hit
21:05
Speaker 1: it correctly. It's pretty amazing and advanced stuff totally. What
21:09
Speaker 1: when when normal people think of auto tune, like you
21:12
Speaker 1: and me who are not in the music biz um,
21:15
Speaker 1: we we think of this thing that's called the zero function. Yes,
21:20
Speaker 1: and you know what, let's take a break and we
21:21
Speaker 1: will explain what the zero function is right after this.
21:34
Speaker 1: Stop all right, the suspense is kidling me. You're gonna
21:44
Speaker 1: kid let's kid alright. Zero function. That was essentially what
21:51
Speaker 1: the share effect was, Okay, right, yes, go ahead no
21:56
Speaker 1: no, no no go ahead, no, no go ahead. You just
21:58
Speaker 1: sat up in your chair like you were about to
21:59
Speaker 1: arm kind I've been Do you go ahead? Do you
22:02
Speaker 1: talk about it? Well, what auto tune does in the
22:05
Speaker 1: in terms of the zero function is it gets rid
22:09
Speaker 1: of all of that space and when shares voice changes,
22:15
Speaker 1: it's immediate. Yeah, all of those notes go right up
22:18
Speaker 1: against each other, and it creates this robotic sounding voice. Yeah,
22:22
Speaker 1: there's no like rise, it's there's it's not like a
22:27
Speaker 1: what's the word I'm looking for? It's uh. It's not
22:30
Speaker 1: like a normal vibrato that you would get because in
22:33
Speaker 1: the normal vibrato there's there's pauses, there's space in between
22:37
Speaker 1: the notes. With this, it's note note all pressed up
22:41
Speaker 1: against each other, compressed way, and that zero function, um
22:45
Speaker 1: is what what It takes any spaces out between the
22:49
Speaker 1: notes and creates that robot sound. Yeah, because I think
22:51
Speaker 1: auto tune has has a range of numbers to make
22:54
Speaker 1: it flow more seamlessly. And when they took it all
22:56
Speaker 1: the way down to zero, which means there's nothing there,
22:59
Speaker 1: it created that weird I act that they were like,
23:01
Speaker 1: share your listen to this, it's weird. Yeah, and she's like,
23:04
Speaker 1: I like weird. It's great, baby, I hear number one
23:08
Speaker 1: hit in my future. No, you gotta wrot. It's great, baby, No,
23:16
Speaker 1: that was that was Jack from Will and Grace. Oh
23:22
Speaker 1: do you remember when he thought he was talking to
23:24
Speaker 1: a share impersonator. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, And he's like, no,
23:29
Speaker 1: if I could turn back to turn. He was teaching
23:34
Speaker 1: her how to say it, sing it correctly. I thoroughly
23:37
Speaker 1: enjoyed Will and Grace. It was great. Agreed, All right,
23:42
Speaker 1: where are we? Well? You were talking about the share effect, right,
23:46
Speaker 1: and that's what it was called again and Tari has
23:48
Speaker 1: called this zero function the share effect for many years
23:51
Speaker 1: and um and over time, remember her producer just kept
23:55
Speaker 1: lying and lying and lying. Over time, other producers independently
23:59
Speaker 1: figured out why he had done that. He had used
24:01
Speaker 1: the zero function, which is a really obscure tool on
24:07
Speaker 1: a software suite that not everybody knew about. Right, So
24:13
Speaker 1: it took some some brainpower and some experimentation, but little
24:16
Speaker 1: by little some producers figured it out. This one producer
24:19
Speaker 1: um did a remix of a j Lo song and
24:23
Speaker 1: used it, and he I think was the second person
24:25
Speaker 1: to use it, um publicly and uh for a brief time,
24:30
Speaker 1: it became known as the Jal effect. Of course, anybody
24:33
Speaker 1: who used this without fessing up to it. At first
24:36
Speaker 1: in the early two thousands, it was called the whatever effect.
24:39
Speaker 1: And there's this producer rapper down in Florida named T Paine,
24:44
Speaker 1: and T Paine heard this JL effect. He went on
24:48
Speaker 1: a mission to figure out what this was, and he
24:52
Speaker 1: finally apparently took him years to figure it out. He
24:55
Speaker 1: finally figured out that it was the zero effect on
24:58
Speaker 1: this pro tools plug in UM and he started using
25:02
Speaker 1: it and just went crazy with it. Like up to
25:06
Speaker 1: this point it was used to like tweak or it
25:08
Speaker 1: would maybe make UM a track of just a little
25:11
Speaker 1: weird over here, something like that. He used it as
25:15
Speaker 1: often as he possibly could. Yeah. He basically said the
25:17
Speaker 1: zero function and tee pain are one and the same. Yeah,
25:20
Speaker 1: And it became known as the tea pain effect. Really
25:25
Speaker 1: because when people asked him how he did it, guess
25:27
Speaker 1: what he said folder did he really? Yes, Yes he did.
25:32
Speaker 1: And for years he managed to make a mint because
25:35
Speaker 1: the whole thing was in hip hop or in pop.
25:38
Speaker 1: If you wanted this tea pain effect, te pain needed
25:41
Speaker 1: to console at least if not produce your record. That
25:44
Speaker 1: was like ten years after the Share effect. People not
25:47
Speaker 1: know that I I he managed to pull it off
25:50
Speaker 1: for years and years and years. Good for tea Pain
25:52
Speaker 1: is what I say? Yes, you know, yeah, I mean
25:55
Speaker 1: he apparently was like, um, I guess on a plane ride.
25:59
Speaker 1: Usher was the same plane and asked to speak to him,
26:02
Speaker 1: and she was like, I've got to get something off
26:04
Speaker 1: my chest. You really screwed up music like big time
26:09
Speaker 1: well S. Pain was like, I've made a bunch of
26:11
Speaker 1: money doing this and people seem to like it, so
26:14
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna stop. Hildebrand has been vilified by many,
26:17
Speaker 1: and he said, you know what, I just make the car.
26:19
Speaker 1: I don't drive it down the wrong side of the road. Yeah.
26:22
Speaker 1: It's a great quote because a lot of people hate
26:26
Speaker 1: auto tune and things. That's the worst thing that happened
26:28
Speaker 1: to music. A lot of people like it and say,
26:31
Speaker 1: when you use it for what it's supposed to be
26:32
Speaker 1: used for, it can really help out. Because you know,
26:35
Speaker 1: it's not like everyone uses it all the time. I'm
26:38
Speaker 1: sure some people need it way more than others. Well,
26:40
Speaker 1: even if you're using it as a like cosmetic touch,
26:43
Speaker 1: like kill the brand originally designed it for a lot
26:46
Speaker 1: of people say no, we shouldn't even be doing that,
26:48
Speaker 1: because if you go back and listen to things like
26:51
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan or The Beach Boards or um, just a
26:55
Speaker 1: lot of these original artists that didn't use these kind
26:58
Speaker 1: of effects on their voice. Um, when they sang and
27:01
Speaker 1: their recordings made it through the studio, there were still
27:04
Speaker 1: flat notes here there, but it was their music, it
27:08
Speaker 1: was their voice, it was their vocals in these tracks,
27:11
Speaker 1: and everyone came to know and love them. But now,
27:14
Speaker 1: because everything is auto tuned perfectly, even the stuff that
27:18
Speaker 1: you don't you can't hear it's auto tune because they're
27:21
Speaker 1: not using zero function, but just the fact that it's
27:23
Speaker 1: been running through the auto tune, this stuff sounds really
27:26
Speaker 1: rough by comparison. So a lot of people are like
27:29
Speaker 1: auto tune has ruined music. It ruined music that people
27:33
Speaker 1: love for decades because now by comparison it seems rough. Well.
27:37
Speaker 1: But it also, like a good ear can tell if
27:41
Speaker 1: something's auto tune, it has this weird tin equality that, um,
27:44
Speaker 1: it doesn't sound natural. So I think it they will
27:47
Speaker 1: be blowback and a and a reversion back to older methods. Okay,
27:52
Speaker 1: I bet you. Jack White has an auto tune that's
27:54
Speaker 1: the most purest of pure guys. No, he uses all
27:58
Speaker 1: sorts of weird vocal effects on his stuff. No, but
28:01
Speaker 1: as far as like I bet he has ask him,
28:06
Speaker 1: he wouldn't admit it. Apparently that's part for the course. Um,
28:09
Speaker 1: so te Pain. If we can get back to the
28:14
Speaker 1: history of this drink, so te Pain. Right, he's huge,
28:18
Speaker 1: like he's just everything he drops is just blowing up
28:22
Speaker 1: all over the place. He's getting invited to consult and
28:25
Speaker 1: produce on uh Kanye's album, which ultimately had every track
28:31
Speaker 1: had auto tune on it by the time Tea Pain
28:33
Speaker 1: got done with that, right. Um, have you heard his
28:37
Speaker 1: Queen Bohemian raapsody live? No? Is it good? Oh? No,
28:42
Speaker 1: oh no, it's there's a video that someone spliced of
28:46
Speaker 1: him and he and Freddie Mercury. It's one of the
28:48
Speaker 1: worst things I've ever heard on the stage. I've got
28:51
Speaker 1: to check it out. It's terrible. Okay, Um, I gotta
28:56
Speaker 1: see that. It's good. So um the tea Pain effect. Yeah,
29:00
Speaker 1: and if you wanted this effect, you had to have
29:01
Speaker 1: t pain. Well Snoop Dogg says that's enough of that finally,
29:06
Speaker 1: and he releases something called Sensual Seduction, and it's one
29:11
Speaker 1: of the better rap videos you've ever seen. It's pretty good.
29:14
Speaker 1: There's a star wipe in it, so you know I
29:16
Speaker 1: love it. Um. So Snoop releases this using the te
29:21
Speaker 1: Pain effect to great degree, but he didn't consult with
29:24
Speaker 1: T Pain. T Paint had nothing to do with this record.
29:27
Speaker 1: So Snoop kind of opened the floodgates saying, if you
29:30
Speaker 1: guys want to use this, go use it. But what's
29:33
Speaker 1: interesting if you watch that video when Snoop is doing
29:36
Speaker 1: like the the t pain effect of the auto tune stuff,
29:40
Speaker 1: he's actually got a tube going to a synthesizer to
29:43
Speaker 1: make it look like he's using a vocoder. Interesting that
29:46
Speaker 1: weird like in his video. But anyway, he sure that
29:50
Speaker 1: wasn't a marijuana smoking divide. It may have been, it
29:54
Speaker 1: may have been the other thing about it, um, but
29:56
Speaker 1: Snoop changed everything in in that he took tea Pain
30:00
Speaker 1: now to the equation and really open the floodgates for
30:02
Speaker 1: anybody and everybody to use this stuff. Simultaneously, jay Z
30:07
Speaker 1: was trying to close those floodgates and push all of
30:10
Speaker 1: it back in. Yeah, I think jay Z um uh
30:13
Speaker 1: it clearly jumped the shark. At a certain point. You
30:15
Speaker 1: know when major ad brands are making ads using the
30:20
Speaker 1: latest and greatest. That it's years late, first of all,
30:24
Speaker 1: and that means that has definitely jumped the shark. And
30:26
Speaker 1: in two thousand nine, uh Windy's had a Frosty Posse
30:30
Speaker 1: commercial where a gang of office workers built it out
30:34
Speaker 1: auto tuned rhymes while searching for Frosty's. I don't remember
30:38
Speaker 1: that add do you? I know? But I went and
30:39
Speaker 1: watched it. Of course. How is it pretty great? It's
30:42
Speaker 1: what you think it is pretty great. It's awesome. Okay, no,
30:45
Speaker 1: it's terrible. And jay Z apparently saw this and was enraged,
30:49
Speaker 1: and so he wrote a song called d O a
30:51
Speaker 1: Death of auto Tune. I know we're facing a recession,
30:55
Speaker 1: but the music y'all making gonna make it the great depression.
30:58
Speaker 1: Get back to wrap ut painting too much, that's calling
31:02
Speaker 1: that's calling someone out ye hard. Yeah, but other auto tune,
31:08
Speaker 1: um auto tune. The news was a big YouTube pit.
31:11
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, man, that um the bed intruder song. Yeah,
31:15
Speaker 1: let's um. Let's play a clip from that From two
31:17
Speaker 1: thousand and ten. It was a local news footage from Huntsville, Alabama,
31:21
Speaker 1: of Antoine Dodson delivering human being. Yeah, about a neighborhood
31:26
Speaker 1: intruder and someone auto tune that the Gregory Brothers did.
31:30
Speaker 1: That's right, let's hear that real quick start. You are
31:36
Speaker 1: really go for the man got away, leaving behind the evidence.
31:41
Speaker 1: I was okay by some sold don't sold, don't so
31:46
Speaker 1: don't song be climbing a windows? He snatching up people
31:50
Speaker 1: up trying to write? Have you listened recently? Now? It's
31:58
Speaker 1: pretty great? Yeah? Yeah, but again that was in two
32:02
Speaker 1: thousand ten, and I think that even kind of had
32:03
Speaker 1: a pretty short shelf life. Unless they're still doing it,
32:07
Speaker 1: I don't know, Well, what do you say, The Gregory Brothers,
32:09
Speaker 1: the Brooklyn Soul band. Yeah, they started out doing auto
32:12
Speaker 1: tune the news and they would take the news and
32:14
Speaker 1: just auto tune it and turn it and like just
32:16
Speaker 1: produce it overproduce it um. And they did that with
32:19
Speaker 1: the Bed and Shooter song, and that actually became the
32:22
Speaker 1: number one video on YouTube of all of two thousand ten.
32:26
Speaker 1: I look the original the original video has a hundred
32:28
Speaker 1: and twenty eight million views right now. Yeah, yeah, it's
32:32
Speaker 1: pretty impressive stuff. At at the same point, like now,
32:37
Speaker 1: auto tune has become a parody of itself. It's it's
32:41
Speaker 1: being used in ads, here's this progression. Something starts out,
32:45
Speaker 1: someone uses it artistically, someone comes along and overuses it,
32:50
Speaker 1: then everybody starts to overuse it. Then Wendy's makes a
32:53
Speaker 1: commercial using it. Newsweek finally gets around to writing an
32:57
Speaker 1: article about it, and then years after we record a
33:01
Speaker 1: podcast on it, and then the thing finally dies. Yeah,
33:04
Speaker 1: and then fifteen or twenty years after that it becomes
33:06
Speaker 1: hip again. Yes, you know, that's the progression. So the
33:11
Speaker 1: point that we're at though, now, Chuck, it's not so
33:13
Speaker 1: cut and dry, man. It's not as cut and dry
33:15
Speaker 1: as jay Z would like to have you think. Because
33:18
Speaker 1: he came out with this death of auto tune track
33:20
Speaker 1: in like two thousand nine. Auto tune is still around
33:24
Speaker 1: very much. And now it's getting the point where if
33:28
Speaker 1: like um the Verge and I can't remember the other
33:31
Speaker 1: article I read, they're both on this podcast page. If
33:34
Speaker 1: they're to be believed, they're credible sources, and they certainly
33:37
Speaker 1: seemed like it from these articles. There's a there's this
33:41
Speaker 1: growing question of um, is auto tune here to stay?
33:47
Speaker 1: People are starting to compare it to the initial reaction
33:50
Speaker 1: that people had to the electric guitar. It was a
33:53
Speaker 1: lot different from the original guitar, and people it took
33:56
Speaker 1: a lot of getting used to, or like when Bob
33:58
Speaker 1: Dylan went electric, a lot of people didn't like that,
34:02
Speaker 1: but then look at what happened now with the electric guitar.
34:04
Speaker 1: A lot of people tried different stuff with it and
34:07
Speaker 1: it became a standard. Some people are wondering if auto
34:10
Speaker 1: tune is going to fulfill the same destiny. I think
34:13
Speaker 1: most people are hoping that it does not. Yeah, well,
34:16
Speaker 1: I mean sweetening vocals is nothing new, Like reverb is
34:19
Speaker 1: a tried and true thing for years and embraced. H
34:22
Speaker 1: does that sweetened vocals? I thought that was always used
34:25
Speaker 1: to like make it weird. Now it's it's sort of
34:27
Speaker 1: like it gives it an echo, a like you're singing
34:29
Speaker 1: in a big empty church hall or something. But it
34:32
Speaker 1: makes it sweetens it. It doesn't like correct anything, but
34:36
Speaker 1: when I say sweetens it, it just makes it sound
34:38
Speaker 1: a little better. Reverbs a great tool, right. The point
34:42
Speaker 1: is as artificial. Yeah, it's not natural. Yeah, they it's
34:47
Speaker 1: they tried to replicate like singing in a big empty
34:49
Speaker 1: echo e hallway, uh, with an effect and it worked, right.
34:53
Speaker 1: And another argument in favor of auto tune that I've
34:56
Speaker 1: seen is simply taking a human voice and recording it
35:01
Speaker 1: automatically makes it artificial, like if they're not there in
35:04
Speaker 1: the room with you singing to you at that moment.
35:08
Speaker 1: Anything else is artificial, So what's the problem. So just
35:13
Speaker 1: to let people know, I put out to text during
35:15
Speaker 1: the episode to musician friends Jack White, No. I texted
35:19
Speaker 1: Lucy Wayne Wright our buddy Jerry from our TV show.
35:24
Speaker 1: She's not answered, which means she's used auto tune. Kidding
35:30
Speaker 1: and our buddy Joey c Are from the Henry Clay People,
35:33
Speaker 1: formerly of Henry Clay People, now with fakers, And he said,
35:36
Speaker 1: I think there were a few harmonized us and as
35:39
Speaker 1: on one of our old records where we did some
35:42
Speaker 1: pitch correcting, but that's it, I think, maybe so definitely
35:49
Speaker 1: he's probably be mad that I said that. Thank you
35:51
Speaker 1: for being forth right, Joey. Yeah, good guy. Are you
35:54
Speaker 1: got anything else about autit Yeah? Just a really quick um.
35:58
Speaker 1: This is from a great website. Tin artists that are
36:01
Speaker 1: essentially computer programs. They just have the most auto tuned people.
36:06
Speaker 1: They have t Pain, Kesha, Chris Brown, Maroon Five, Black
36:10
Speaker 1: Eyed Peas, Deaft Punk, Paris Hilton, who I forgot actually
36:14
Speaker 1: had a song the cast of Glee Katy Perry, and
36:17
Speaker 1: number one was owl City who. I don't even know
36:19
Speaker 1: what that is. There's a huge outcry apparently among Glee
36:23
Speaker 1: fans for Glee to stop using so much auto tune.
36:26
Speaker 1: I think the deal is. They're like, well, these are actors,
36:28
Speaker 1: like yeah, And there's another there's a big scandal with
36:32
Speaker 1: u K's got talent or something weird like that, um
36:37
Speaker 1: where they were using a lot of auto tune for
36:40
Speaker 1: the auditions. It was like comeme on. Well anyway, man,
36:47
Speaker 1: that's not a very surprising list. So this has been
36:50
Speaker 1: grumpy old men. I don't feel like we've been grumpy yet.
36:53
Speaker 1: We haven't like, condemned it out right. No, Nico Casey,
36:59
Speaker 1: she condemns it out right. Yeah, Emily, I have an
37:01
Speaker 1: agreement about Nico case but we could both marry her, okay,
37:05
Speaker 1: if she was ever available to us. She's right behind you.
37:09
Speaker 1: Oh my god. Uh so we have a very well
37:14
Speaker 1: done finish up your a deal. Sorry, I just jumped
37:16
Speaker 1: the gonka. Thank you, Ah, you don't have anything else
37:20
Speaker 1: about No, I was just teasing. We have a special
37:23
Speaker 1: listener mail with guests. Well, hold on let me finish first. Okay, okay, Well,
37:28
Speaker 1: since Chuck doesn't have anything, it's the end. And if
37:31
Speaker 1: you want to know more about auto tune, you can
37:33
Speaker 1: type those words into the search bar at how stuff
37:35
Speaker 1: works dot com. And this article, I have to say,
37:38
Speaker 1: by the way, was the most definitive article about auto
37:42
Speaker 1: tune on the internet. How about that. It's a good one.
37:45
Speaker 1: Uh So you can go look that up. And since
37:48
Speaker 1: I said definitive, it's time for listener mail, and it's
37:51
Speaker 1: a special one. Like Chuck said, that's right. Today we
37:54
Speaker 1: um got a joint listener mail to ourselves into Holly
37:59
Speaker 1: and Tracy from stuff you missed in history class. Yep,
38:01
Speaker 1: So we're gonna bring them in right, Yeah, we're gonna
38:03
Speaker 1: read the email and we're going to talk about its implications.
38:07
Speaker 1: Let's start now. So, without further ado, we actually have
38:13
Speaker 1: Holly and Tracy of stuff you missed in history class
38:17
Speaker 1: with us. Hi and Tracy, we have actually not with us,
38:22
Speaker 1: she's with us in spirit and voice from Boston. I
38:26
Speaker 1: know it's pretty it's pretty interesting when it comes in
38:29
Speaker 1: through your headphones, but the other person somewhere else, it's
38:32
Speaker 1: kind of awesome. And this is how you guys do
38:34
Speaker 1: the show now, right? Yes, we also have like an
38:38
Speaker 1: online you know, we have a Google hangout where we
38:41
Speaker 1: both are so we can see each other as well.
38:45
Speaker 1: We should have done that Tracy in here with her
38:48
Speaker 1: little video image or like um hologram of or they'd
38:52
Speaker 1: be pretty cool too. That's true, all right. So I
38:54
Speaker 1: think the first thing I should do. You have a
38:55
Speaker 1: picture of me like our old boss. Oh well, I
38:58
Speaker 1: do have a picture of you. I have the all
39:00
Speaker 1: its side that he gave out. So, um, I think
39:04
Speaker 1: the first thing we should do is just read. I'll
39:05
Speaker 1: read the email here and then we will discuss like adults.
39:08
Speaker 1: How about that? Uh So, like I said, already set
39:11
Speaker 1: it up that we both got an email from a
39:13
Speaker 1: listener and she says the following, and this is from
39:16
Speaker 1: Amanda Lions. Hey, guys and gals. She didn't say that,
39:21
Speaker 1: of course, I just did. Well, you should read it, okay, Josh, Chuckers,
39:26
Speaker 1: Holly and Tracy, and of course a hello to Jerry
39:29
Speaker 1: and Nol. Yeah. I'm a social worker from Portland, Oregon
39:32
Speaker 1: with a passion for human equity and respect. One of
39:35
Speaker 1: the original members of the s Y s K Army
39:38
Speaker 1: and a more recent listener to missed in History. I
39:42
Speaker 1: binged for about five months before I got all caught up.
39:45
Speaker 1: So how about that. I'm concerned about something I've heard
39:48
Speaker 1: a few times on the History podcast, and I was
39:50
Speaker 1: wondering if you guys would be willing to get together
39:53
Speaker 1: we are and look into something to fulfill my curiosity.
39:56
Speaker 1: When Josh and Chuck received corrections, they thank people for
39:59
Speaker 1: being nice and frequently ask people not to be jerks
40:03
Speaker 1: when correcting them. When Holly and Tracy talk about corrections
40:06
Speaker 1: they receive, they ask people to be nice and have
40:10
Speaker 1: referred to corrections on several occasions as hate mail. My
40:14
Speaker 1: concern is that listeners may be more disrespectful Holly and
40:17
Speaker 1: Tracy because they are women, and even if listeners are
40:20
Speaker 1: rude to Josh and Chuck, they may rein it in
40:22
Speaker 1: when making corrections because there are men. Could be completely
40:25
Speaker 1: off base. But if I'm right, I feel like the
40:27
Speaker 1: discrepancy should be addressed on the podcast to raise awareness
40:31
Speaker 1: about how people treat men and women differently, and even
40:33
Speaker 1: to address people's tendency to feel protected by the anonymity
40:37
Speaker 1: of the Internet and say things online they wouldn't say
40:38
Speaker 1: to someone's face and Uh so, Manda, we did talk
40:42
Speaker 1: about it via email, and now we're going to talk
40:44
Speaker 1: about it like regular human folks. And Tracy really has
40:48
Speaker 1: the wealth of information because of her job and what
40:52
Speaker 1: you know she's been responsible for in the past. Oh yeah,
40:55
Speaker 1: that sounds serious. Yeah. I was part of the management
41:00
Speaker 1: with a website for several years before I started actually
41:02
Speaker 1: being on a podcast, and for a chunk of that time,
41:06
Speaker 1: most of the podcasters reported to me. So even though
41:09
Speaker 1: I wasn't managing the podcast program, I was sort of
41:12
Speaker 1: keeping tabs on the iTunes reviews for everybody. And there
41:15
Speaker 1: was a definite, definite trend in that the podcast that
41:19
Speaker 1: had women on them got disproportionately more vicious comments about
41:25
Speaker 1: what their voices sounded like versus the podcast with men
41:30
Speaker 1: on them, which got less of that. So this is
41:33
Speaker 1: news to me. Misogyny on the internet. I had not
41:36
Speaker 1: I wasn't aware that that was the thing that was
41:40
Speaker 1: a beautiful blind spot of all time. No, I can imagine,
41:46
Speaker 1: And I know Tracy, you've like pointed some of these
41:49
Speaker 1: out before. Um, for us, it's it's like, yeah, we'll
41:52
Speaker 1: get hate mail every once in a while. Um, but
41:56
Speaker 1: it's kind of easy to dismiss because even if it
41:59
Speaker 1: is to erect it at us, it's not necessarily directed
42:02
Speaker 1: at our gender or whatever it's or even if it
42:05
Speaker 1: is personal, it's it's dumb. It's just it's just dumb stuff.
42:09
Speaker 1: It's easy to not take personally, even when it's meant
42:12
Speaker 1: to be personal. But um, that's me speaking. Is like
42:16
Speaker 1: a white male age eighteen to forty nine, you know,
42:20
Speaker 1: so I can imagine that like when someone attacks you
42:23
Speaker 1: just just based on your gender, or even worse, if
42:26
Speaker 1: they're coming after you and they don't even realize that
42:29
Speaker 1: they're being driven by this, um, this disdain for your gender,
42:33
Speaker 1: that has to make it a lot harder to just
42:35
Speaker 1: just dismiss. Yeah, well, yeah, how you can go. I
42:41
Speaker 1: was gonna say, for me, I mean I am lucky
42:43
Speaker 1: and that I really give very few damns about what
42:46
Speaker 1: most people think, like unless you're sitting in my lap
42:48
Speaker 1: or paying my paycheck, Like it's great if you like me,
42:51
Speaker 1: but if you don't, that's cool too. Like everybody do
42:53
Speaker 1: your thing. But eventually, like the landslide builds up and
42:56
Speaker 1: it's not it's not so much that I'm heartbroken or traumatized,
43:02
Speaker 1: but it just wears you down after a while where
43:05
Speaker 1: you're like, why am I doing this just to get
43:07
Speaker 1: more of this crap? Yeah? Well, and we definitely have,
43:12
Speaker 1: like we have been called slurs based on our gender before,
43:15
Speaker 1: We have been called the C word over the pipe une. Yeah. Well,
43:21
Speaker 1: and then the I told you about that when we
43:23
Speaker 1: were discussing the email in our email conversation, I told
43:26
Speaker 1: you about the person who wrote to us and said
43:28
Speaker 1: they didn't understand how I could be in the same
43:30
Speaker 1: room with Holly without strangling her. Like, that's the kind
43:33
Speaker 1: of stuff that people will write to us and be
43:34
Speaker 1: really awful, But we do get a whole lot of
43:37
Speaker 1: them that I don't think people are consciously being misogynistic,
43:40
Speaker 1: but they're talking to us and about us in a
43:43
Speaker 1: very gendered way. So people tell us that we sound
43:45
Speaker 1: shrill or that we sound bossy, and those aren't words
43:48
Speaker 1: that people would use to describe men most of the time.
43:52
Speaker 1: Most of their um and all of the articles that
43:58
Speaker 1: had come out lately of out, especially vocal fry and
44:02
Speaker 1: other things that people criticize about women's voices that they
44:05
Speaker 1: don't generally criticize about men's voices. Every single time I
44:09
Speaker 1: read it, and I'm like, I could have written that
44:11
Speaker 1: about my job and my experience being a woman talking
44:14
Speaker 1: on the internet. So which one, Um, which one hits
44:18
Speaker 1: home the most? Like one that's a just a direct
44:22
Speaker 1: personal attack are the ones that or the person is
44:25
Speaker 1: just being unconsciously misogynistic, which to me would seem more entrenched. Yeah,
44:33
Speaker 1: to me, the second one is worse. And it's especially
44:35
Speaker 1: worse because a lot of the implicitly gendered criticism that
44:38
Speaker 1: we get is also from women. The hardest part, Yeah,
44:43
Speaker 1: that's the hardest part for me to deal with. Yeah,
44:46
Speaker 1: when they're real specific, for example, like the person who
44:50
Speaker 1: wants me to be strangled. Um, at the end of
44:54
Speaker 1: the day, I'm like, he's working through his own stuff,
44:56
Speaker 1: Like I have really have very little to do with this.
44:58
Speaker 1: So I may have been the trigger the you know,
45:00
Speaker 1: cause this little outrage bomb, but really it has very
45:03
Speaker 1: little to do with me that I think almost of
45:06
Speaker 1: the time that is the case. These are people who
45:08
Speaker 1: have their own gripes in life and are probably angry,
45:12
Speaker 1: unhappy people. Yes, But then, as Tracy said, when you
45:15
Speaker 1: get those ones that are like they they're not even
45:17
Speaker 1: conscious of how it's playing out, you realize how much
45:23
Speaker 1: it is a bigger, sort of systemic social problem because
45:29
Speaker 1: most of those people are not evil, they don't intend
45:32
Speaker 1: to be misogynistic. They're not conscious that they're separating the
45:36
Speaker 1: two genders and judging them differently on different criteria. So yeah,
45:42
Speaker 1: those are, as Tracy said, a little more disturbing because
45:44
Speaker 1: you realize that it's kind of like the silent creep
45:46
Speaker 1: that underlays everything. Well, we do get a lot of
45:50
Speaker 1: emails that are great from people who are great, and
45:52
Speaker 1: the majority of the email that we get is great,
45:54
Speaker 1: so we like, I don't want to make it sound
45:56
Speaker 1: like every person who writes to us is awful. Um,
45:59
Speaker 1: And we talked about corrections on the episode a lot
46:01
Speaker 1: of times from people who write it in and everything
46:03
Speaker 1: is fine and everything is very respectful. So to me,
46:06
Speaker 1: a correction is you said this person died in nineteen
46:09
Speaker 1: and eighteen, but really it was nineteen seven. That's a correction,
46:13
Speaker 1: and that's fine. But then we'll also get ones that
46:15
Speaker 1: are like, I can't believe you didn't even bother to
46:17
Speaker 1: look this up. You completely butchered it. I don't know
46:20
Speaker 1: why you don't even put more thought into what you're doing,
46:22
Speaker 1: because it's really important that you represent yourselves as well,
46:25
Speaker 1: And that's when I'm like, that's hate mail. Yeah, we
46:28
Speaker 1: get those. Yeah, we get a lot of those, but
46:29
Speaker 1: I never feel like those are like, uh, have anything
46:33
Speaker 1: to do with my gender? Yeah, in those cases absolutely,
46:36
Speaker 1: I mean we get the same exact emails where it's
46:38
Speaker 1: just like you, you guys are total idiots, like how
46:41
Speaker 1: how could you drop the ball this badly? And it's
46:43
Speaker 1: like we basically said exactly what you're saying, We just
46:47
Speaker 1: said it slightly differently. It definitely doesn't warrant this kind
46:51
Speaker 1: of reaction, you know, Um yeah, I I why do
46:56
Speaker 1: you think there is a gender or bias or a gender?
47:03
Speaker 1: Why is it worse for you guys being women? Do
47:05
Speaker 1: you think not just in common history of the world,
47:09
Speaker 1: but I know, like how how long do you have?
47:12
Speaker 1: But I mean, like even even beyond comments like why
47:15
Speaker 1: is the internet so geared towards hating women? I mean,
47:19
Speaker 1: what's what's the deal with that? Do you guys? Is
47:20
Speaker 1: there is there a general understanding or idea behind it
47:25
Speaker 1: lonely angry men? Is my guess? Well? I think it's
47:28
Speaker 1: it's super complex, right, There's no one simple answer. Like
47:32
Speaker 1: some of it is that we have reached an age
47:34
Speaker 1: where the disparity in terms of UH gender equality has
47:41
Speaker 1: shrunk at the same time that a lot of people
47:44
Speaker 1: have this outlet readily available to them. So there's progress
47:48
Speaker 1: being made, but there are also the people who are
47:50
Speaker 1: still kicking and screaming as they get dragged into a
47:53
Speaker 1: future they're not comfortable with. But then there's also just
47:57
Speaker 1: the thing that again I don't think people are even
47:58
Speaker 1: conscious of it where it is new for many people,
48:01
Speaker 1: and even people that are younger and have maybe grown
48:05
Speaker 1: up in a more kind of old school traditional environment,
48:09
Speaker 1: be at household or community, where they're not even conscious
48:13
Speaker 1: of why they're more upset at women. There's just something
48:16
Speaker 1: about women, you know, sharing knowledge or being assertive or
48:21
Speaker 1: being confident that just rankles them. And they don't even
48:24
Speaker 1: register that it's because it's a woman. They just know
48:27
Speaker 1: there's something about that person I hate and it's something
48:29
Speaker 1: they're just not used to and they haven't kind of
48:33
Speaker 1: made the the mental accustomization to. Oh. Sometimes people that
48:38
Speaker 1: aren't dudes have stuff to say as well. Do you
48:41
Speaker 1: think the same experiences extrapolatable under race as well as gender,
48:46
Speaker 1: and well, I mean I know it is, but I
48:49
Speaker 1: mean is it almost like a step for step do
48:52
Speaker 1: you think I think it's probably pretty similar models. Yeah, well,
48:58
Speaker 1: speaking like as the ass a white person in a
49:01
Speaker 1: room of white people who are on the phone right now.
49:03
Speaker 1: The worst days I have ever had managing our Facebook page,
49:07
Speaker 1: our days when we talk about something that has to
49:10
Speaker 1: do with systemic racism and we'll we'll get a flood
49:15
Speaker 1: of similarly implicitly racist comments from people who really don't
49:20
Speaker 1: know that the view that they just put out there
49:23
Speaker 1: is racist. Like, that's sort of the same thing. Like
49:26
Speaker 1: a lot of people do things that are misogynists, not
49:28
Speaker 1: really consciously being misogynist. That just it comes out and
49:31
Speaker 1: they're not consciously aware of it, and it's we see
49:33
Speaker 1: the same thing on our Facebook posts in subjects that
49:37
Speaker 1: are related to race really pretty often. So at the
49:41
Speaker 1: end of the day, when you guys get a bunch
49:43
Speaker 1: of these, say, on just a particularly bad day, what
49:47
Speaker 1: what do you do? I mean, do you battle this?
49:49
Speaker 1: Do you just brush it off and be like, these
49:51
Speaker 1: guys are idiots and whether they like it or not,
49:53
Speaker 1: they are going to be dragged into the future against
49:56
Speaker 1: their will. Uh, you know, what do you do a
49:59
Speaker 1: combination of both? Or do you look at your status
50:02
Speaker 1: is a perennial top twenty podcast and say, clearly, who
50:08
Speaker 1: cares what they say? Because we're really good at what
50:10
Speaker 1: we do, because we're very successful. I do a combination
50:14
Speaker 1: of things. I have kind of a library of links
50:17
Speaker 1: about vocal fry and whatever. Anyone writes directly to us
50:20
Speaker 1: to complain about vocal fry, I kind of send them, hey,
50:24
Speaker 1: why don't you listen to this? Uh this American Life
50:28
Speaker 1: segment all about vocal fry in which Ira Glass has
50:32
Speaker 1: vocal fry the entire segment, but nobody complains at him
50:35
Speaker 1: about it. Um. So I like I specifically will address that.
50:40
Speaker 1: I will specifically address things that people say on our
50:42
Speaker 1: Facebook page in public, because I feel like our role
50:46
Speaker 1: as a podcast about history does not include allowing people
50:50
Speaker 1: free rein to be racist in public and have that
50:54
Speaker 1: not be challenge. Um. But when it comes to the
50:57
Speaker 1: like the email that Holly and I got that was
50:59
Speaker 1: that was so bad pretty recently, that was the person
51:02
Speaker 1: who was basically advocating me murdering Holly. Um, I was
51:09
Speaker 1: actually traveling. I went down to the hotel bar and
51:11
Speaker 1: how to drink there? You got a book and tried
51:15
Speaker 1: to chill Yeah, I tried and chill out about it,
51:19
Speaker 1: booze everything. Well, um, thank you both for addressing this.
51:26
Speaker 1: I'm sorry we didn't solve this problem here in this this.
51:30
Speaker 1: Thank you for having us on the show. Of course. Um,
51:32
Speaker 1: if anyone out there and stuff you should know Land
51:34
Speaker 1: has not checked out stuff you missed in history class,
51:37
Speaker 1: you definitely should because it is super awesome and as
51:40
Speaker 1: are both of you. And I don't want to strangle you,
51:43
Speaker 1: but I want to hug your necks. Nope, you've got
51:51
Speaker 1: to have it. And now she don't move no more. Nope.
51:56
Speaker 1: But thanks for coming in. And uh, we should do
51:59
Speaker 1: this more often, you know, we should. We should have
52:01
Speaker 1: a whole show where we just get together and do
52:03
Speaker 1: roundtable stuff. We can have yappy pow wow party time.
52:06
Speaker 1: That would be fun. Yeah. Well, if you have something
52:10
Speaker 1: to say about all this, and we're sure you will,
52:12
Speaker 1: we want to hear from you. You can tweet to
52:14
Speaker 1: us at s Y s K podcast. You can tweet
52:17
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52:20
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52:25
Speaker 1: missed in History class at missed in History, Facebook dot com,
52:30
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52:32
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52:35
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52:41
Speaker 1: home on the Web, Stuff you Should Know dot com
52:43
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52:52
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52:54
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