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Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

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Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

#311

Post by code_biologist »

rileyphone wrote: post #146
perrygeo wrote: post #45

The fact that there's a claimed generational gap here speaks more to the values of the generations re: passive vs active entertainment. I could also ask: "Why do all these 60-Somethings have the TV on as background noise while doing other tasks?" To me it seems closed-caption usage is correlated with actually paying attention to television consumption. People who have their TV on at all hours, as background entertain…

This aligns pretty well with McLuhan's concept of cool and hot media [0]. The younger generations prefer it cool - perhaps their hotness is found in newer forms like video games. [0] https://mediawiki.middlebury.edu/MIDDMedia/Hot_versus_cool_m...

For context, I'm in my mid-30s and grew up playing video games. When doing chores I listen to podcasts or audio books.

I really like to think of media consumption in terms of attentional pressure. How long can you not pay attention without "missing something". For movies and TV shows it seems like 15 seconds, plus or minus depending on the content itself. Chatty podcasts give you 30 seconds or a minute.

I enjoy the fast video games I play (shoutout to Deep Rock Galactic, killer PVE FPS with a non-toxic player base!) because they modulate their attentional pressure and ratchet it up intensely at moments. It feels great to handle a situation where even a subsecond lapse in attention would result in failure.

From wikipedia: Cool media are those that require high participation from users, due to their low definition (the receiver/user must fill in missing information). Since many senses may be used, they foster involvement. Conversely, hot media are low in audience participation due to their high resolution or definition.

Seems like it's hard to place fast video games? You don't have to fill in much of anything (hot) but they require full participation (cool).

Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

#312

Post by sph »

nicolas_t wrote: post #179
pedalpete wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, but also find it surprising that younger generations are more focused on what they are watching. I'm a background watcher for sure, and this trend with CC suggests to me that the whole "2nd screen" thing isn't playing with the younger generation. Any insights as to why that may be? To give more context, I was always a "background media" person. Even as a kid I'd draw while in front of the TV, I was never a f…

I use CC even in my native language especially when I background watch. It's easy to work while watching a tv show (only works with relatively boring work) if I know I can quickly glance at the subtitles if I missed anything.

What kind of work can you do while watching? You're just doing two things badly. Unless you mean physical work that doesn't engage the mind like cleaning or doing the dishes?

Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

#313

Post by eyelidlessness »

I have auditory processing difficulties. Among many other sensory challenges. Sitting at a table in a restaurant, I struggle to understand what my friends are saying to me over the din of background chatter, a bartender shaking a drink, back of the house clinking a pan.

I similarly struggle to understand what actors are saying when they’re backed by theme music or other physical things going on as part of (or behind) the story. Captions help me actually consume video rather than feel lost in it. Without text I pretty much would stop consuming video entirely.

Granted, I’m 40 so I can’t speak for the youngs. And I hear just fine in that the sounds are all present in my ears and my brain. They just get jumbled and being able to catch up with text helps immensely.

Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

#314

Post by lisper »

ryandrake wrote: post #136

One more vote for terrible audio mixes and one for actors who mumble their dialog. Whenever I watch movies with my wife, we constantly have to fiddle with the remote control. The loud parts (including explosions and music) are too loud for her, so we have to turn the volume down during those parts, but the dialog is too quiet and mumbly for me to hear, so we turn the volume up during those parts. We now just keep the…

I love how you wrote “enunciate”. :-)

Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

#315

Post by deltasevennine »

ryandrake wrote: post #136

One more vote for terrible audio mixes and one for actors who mumble their dialog. Whenever I watch movies with my wife, we constantly have to fiddle with the remote control. The loud parts (including explosions and music) are too loud for her, so we have to turn the volume down during those parts, but the dialog is too quiet and mumbly for me to hear, so we turn the volume up during those parts. We now just keep the…

>Actors need to go do some stage acting and learn how to e n u n c i a t e and project their voices.

Hard disagree. I want realism. The sophistication of modern audiences is now so high that the level of enunciation and clarity in older movies now sounds comical to modern audiences. Believe it or not this old style speak you see in Older movies was Literally artificial and made for acting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gpv_IkO_ZBU

Modern Audiences want realism. They want a certain level of believably that matches with reality. And a dialect artificially designed for "clarity" on radio just doesn't work.

Clarity takes a hit in the name of realism... but who cares? I have closed captions for that. Literally I don't see what's wrong with it.

Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

#316

Post by jarboot »

19h wrote: post #144

1) The reason TikTok etc. have closed captions on is that audio is off by default. If you want people to listen to your words but audio is off, put it into closed captions. 2) With closed captions you can watch a movie on low volume without disturbing others and still understand every word even of the girl in the corner of the room barely utters a word. Source: I'm a "20-something".

tiktok audio is not off by default. But it's right in the idea that some people will have the audio off, and cc means you can consume the content in either case.

Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

#317

Post by knaik94 »

stubish wrote: post #188
AlbertCory wrote: post #115

Not being 20-something, I can't speak for them, but for me: A lot of dialog is mixed way down in relation to the music and background noise, actors tend to speed up and drop the volume at the ends of their sentences, and of course there are those pesky accents. I'm seeing a lot of other good reasons in this thread, too.

One cause of this is sending 5.1 audio through two speakers, where the center channel just gets dropped along with a lot of dialog. Another cause is of course crappy mixing.

I have never seen software or receivers that drops the center channel instead of doing a proper downmix. The exception is when the user has incorrectly set up the speakers to identify as 5.1 when they have only a 2.0 or 2.1 setup.

Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

#318

Post by dotancohen »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #243
ryandrake wrote: post #136

One more vote for terrible audio mixes and one for actors who mumble their dialog. Whenever I watch movies with my wife, we constantly have to fiddle with the remote control. The loud parts (including explosions and music) are too loud for her, so we have to turn the volume down during those parts, but the dialog is too quiet and mumbly for me to hear, so we turn the volume up during those parts. We now just keep the…

While we are teaching actors to enunciate can we do the same with musicians? When I listen to music in German, I can almost completely understand it despite speaking German at a kindergarten level. When I listen to music in English, despite being fluent, it is almost impossible to discern the lyrics they are mumbling.

I suspect that a large part of this problem is Autotune. Singers need no training to hit the right pitches anymore, so they receive no training at all for any of the other skills as well.

Re: Why do all these 20-somethings have closed captions turned on?

#320

Post by tsimionescu »

derefr wrote: post #279
hedora wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah; playing 5.1 mixes on stereo equipment make the side and back channels too loud and the center channel too quiet. Also, it is now fashionable for actors to mumble. I'm reasonably sure I am not going deaf, since I have no problem following audio fiction podcasts with the windows down in my car during my commute.

> Also, it is now fashionable for actors to mumble. Why does it matter that actors are mumbling, though? Don't most lines in Hollywood movies (that aren't already recorded on a soundstage with a boom mic inches from the actor's face) get ADRed these days?

If the actor's intention is to mumble instead of enunciatiting clearly (presumably because of some notion of authenticity), then they will also mumble the studio takes. It's not a problem of sound volume/background noise, which ADR can fix, it's a problem of style over ease of understanding the dialogue. This mirrors the problem of TV series sometimes becoming too dark to easily follow the action on a TV screen in usual conditions (infamously so in the Long Night episode of Game of Thrones).
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