Yanny or Laurel?
Source: Yanny or Laurel? Audio clip spurs social media debate | The Star
Every once in a while, a new internet craze manages to capture the interest of otherwise uninterested observers. We’re not talking about the Tide pod challenge here; that involves a subset of stupid people. The phenomenon I refer to concerns people’s perceptions of what should be a common observation. A while ago, there was the viral sensation of whether a depicted image showed a woman wearing a white and gold dress or a blue and gold dress. Further back, we had the one with a woman pirouetting either left or right on the screen. The most recent craze is a voice expressing either the word “Laurel” or the word “Yanni”.
That there should be a debate over which word is being expressed is truly quizzical. People have fallen into both camps as to which word they hear. How can this be possible? The words are not even close to being similar. They may as well be watermelon and constipation. And yet, the internet is abuzz with people insisting that they hear one word over the other.
This is a moment of epiphany. Eventually, some brilliant neuropsychologist will attribute the variance to some kind of internal wiring specific to individuals. But it also gives a clue as to the perceptions of events viewed through a political or cultural lens. To people on either side of the political aisle, they cannot understand the positions taken by those on the opposite….no matter how “obvious” it may seem. Certainly some of this is simply partisan intransigence and biases can be attributed to tribal loyalties. The most recent example of this relates to the characterization of MS-13 gang members in the U.S; Trump says “animals”, Pelosi says “god’s children”. Obviously, not a perception problem.
When a constituency roots for Bernie Sanders, they must see “compassionate socialist” whereas the reality is “rich white guy pushing communism”. Those that support Al Gore see ” selfless oracle saving the earth” when in reality, it’s ” know nothing charlatan getting rich off mass naivete”. And of course, when you say, “savior of the people” people will insist either Hilary or Trump.
But for people with no political stake, this Yanni/Laurel pop culture experience may reveal that there truly are differences in the way that things and events are perceived. Maybe there is no way to convince people to see things in a logical light. This could explain lots of absurdities in pop culture: Rap music, the Kardashians, Justin Bieber, the Royals, CNN. It explains girls dating musicians, fat men wearing skinny jeans and affirmative action.
It means that there is no way to persuade people to accept that their perceptions aren’t valid if that’s what they clearly see with their own lyin’ eyes. It explains the audience for media networks that push narratives that are laughably obtuse. To their credit, they have created quite the business exploiting this human trait. Narratives are pushed that have no relation to verifiable fact but a ready audience exists for the product. It explains people willing to endorse government policies that are obviously not in their own self interests and in fact, likely to be suicidal. Some people have figured out that there will always be an appetite for their brand of nonsense. After all, if you know there are monkeys out there, get in the banana business.