Linda Yu: I was noticing on TikTok more than I ever had in my life, how quickly a sound can get an emotional response out of me. Charlotte Shane: Maybe think why are we so affected by sounds on TikTok when those sounds aren't inherently musical or don't have a lot of verbal information? Linda Yu: Throughout the series, I will speak to industry experts and leading CEOs seeking to address today's triple imperative of delivering secure, affordable and lower carbon energy.
“Nobody’s gonna know. They’re gonna know.”
If you’ve been on TikTok in the past year, you’re most likely familiar with these two sentences, first drolly uttered in a post by TikTok creator Chris Gleason in 2020. The post has become a hit and has been viewed more than 14 million times.
But the sound is more famous than the video.
When uploading a video to TikTok, the creator has the option to make that video’s audio a “sound” that other users can easily use in their own videos — lip-syncing to it, adding more noise on top of it or treating it like a soundtrack. Gleason’s sound has been used in at least 336,000 other videos, to humorous, dramatic and sometimes eerie effect.
The journalist Charlotte Shane delves into the world of repurposed sounds, exploring how TikTok and other apps have enabled, as she writes in her recent article for The Times, “cross-user riffing and engagement, like quote-tweeting for audio.” She also considers “what makes a sound compelling beyond musical qualities or linguistic meaning.”
While “brainfeel” may be an apt buzzword for the sensation audio memes elicit, Ms. Shane writes, it is more than a mere trend: We have entered the “era of the audio meme.”
This story was written by Charlotte Shane and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.