3/11/2024 0 Comments Text to speech sultry voiceThis all had to start somewhere, right? Enter TikTok’s boomer uncle, YouTube. “I’ve done this for so long I don't think I remember how to talk normally to a camera anymore.” “I talk a certain way in my videos I don’t talk like in real life,” he says. Meanwhile, revealed to his followers in December that he uses a TikTok voice in his videos. In 2021, Jade Brandt shared a video asking, “Who decided this is how we’re going to talk on TikTok?” while doing her impression of an over-enunciated drawl. “This is normal in conversation, it’s just that content creators are really incentivised to keep the floor, so they’re doing that in an extreme way.”Ī growing number of influencers are aware of TikTok voice – or “TikTalk”, as some call it. “It’s not because they’re worried about being interrupted, it’s because they don’t want you to think they’re done,” says Holliday. To achieve this, influencers use floor holding strategies, such as lengthening the end of a phrase, and filled pauses – those “aaands”, “soooos”, “uuums” and “likeeees” that have become common parlance on the app. Nicole Holliday, an assistant professor of linguistics at Pomona College, explains that all content creators have the same goal, broadly speaking – to keep people on their page. The TikTok voice is also synonymous with the quest to be a successful content creator. “I don’t think I experience that issue because of the voice I have.” “A lot of Black content creators talk about feeling like they're only getting marketed to Black creators as soon as they start talking, or appearing in their videos, because of the algorithm,” she says. Nkadi thinks her voice may make it easier for her to get “more traction with all types” of followers. Nkadi has noticed a lot of TikTok cleaning and organisation content (yes, this also exists) has this type of voiceover, describing it as “palatable”, “easy on the ear” and “able to resonate with everyone”. newsreaders are often asked to aim for a Midwestern accent because it feels familiar and relatable – no matter where you’re based. “I’m from the Midwest, where a lot of people sound like this – almost nasally and higher toned,” she says, adding that U.S. Ashley Nkadi ( a 28-year-old lawyer-in-training, believes her TikTok voice is “pretty much” her natural voice. “It wasn’t a casual voice you’d use in conversation, but more of a choppy voice meant to get your attention – even if it sounded unnatural.” For Claybourne, each TikTok video felt like a performance.įor other content creators, the TikTok voice comes naturally. “It was this kind of nasally, presenter voice where everything was enunciated and annoying,” says the 29-year-old. When Joceyln Claybourne (AKA first started posting on TikTok in lockdown, she intentionally put on a different voice and finds it “cringey” to look back on. “It’s just that people are noticing a style becoming associated with influencers or micro celebrities.” That style is probably quite reminiscent of someone explaining something to you IRL, “it might be overly informative or really colloquial”. “We talk differently depending on who we’re speaking to, and the context – regardless of whether we’re on TikTok or not,” explains Ilbury. Christian Ilbury, a sociolinguist at the University of Edinburgh, compares it to people’s phone voice for picking up important calls. A video of a skunk doing a handstand (yes, this exists) is going to be narrated differently to a video of overnight oats. The first thing to clarify: TikTok voices are heavily linked to the content of the video. A third moans it reflects “the homogenous monotony of the content consumed” – before admitting that in the first ten minutes after a TikTok binge, he finds it impossible to read anything without the automated text-to-speech voice whirring in his head (more on that later).īut who started this mysterious trend? Is it some kind of magic spell for attracting new followers? And why is it so addictive to listen to? Another friend agrees, likening it to a “type of ASMR” – the term that exploded on the internet in the 2010s, meaning the relaxing, tingling sensation evoked by seemingly-mundane sounds. Don’t know what I’m talking about? My Big On TikTok pal, Pia Valentiner, calls it “lavender voice” and reckons it engages viewers because “people like listening to the soft tones”.
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