Yanny or Laurel? Auditory illusion sparks meltdown, as internet argues until black and blue in the face
The furore over a two-syllable audio clip echoes the debate surrounding “The Dress” in 2015
An audio snippet with just two syllables has ignited an internet meltdown, dividing social media users into staunchly opposed camps: do you hear “Yanny” or “Laurel?”
The collective sensory experiment causing a Twitter tizzy mushroomed from a short audio clip originally published by a high school student on Reddit, The New York Times said Wednesday.
Roland Szabo, 18, said he recorded the seemingly innocuous audio from a vocabulary website while doing a project for his school in the US state of Georgia.
He played it for his peers, who disagreed over whether the syllables formed “Yanny” or “Laurel.”
Intrigued, Szabo sent it to a friend who posted the clip on Instagram and created a poll that quickly went viral, triggering a mass debate that has spread internationally.
Input from celebrities has inflamed the frenzy: “It’s Yanny,” horror writer Stephen King said in a deadpan tweet.
“It’s so clearly laurel,” quipped supermodel Chrissy Teigen. “I can’t figure out how one would hear yanny.”