No end to debates on Intra-Web

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 14/01/2019 (2750 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Today’s topic for inquiring minds is: exactly why did they create the (bad word) internet in the first place anyway?

Without doing any actual research, I would have to say there are three main reasons for the creation of what I used to call the “Intra-Web” until my kids started making fun of me, namely:

• Sharing pictures of Pamela Anderson from the old Baywatch TV series;
• Sharing LOL pictures of cats wearing hats and/or climbing in and out of cardboard boxes;
• Resolving bar bets over who won the Stanley Cup in 1942 (for the record, it was the Toronto Maple Leafs);

But I am starting to have second thoughts. Lately, I have begun to think the real reason for the birth of the internet was to spark idiotic, time-wasting debates over trivial items to ensure our national productivity levels fall below those of most developing countries.

For starters, let’s think about that unforgettable “blue dress versus gold dress” debate that melted the internet three years ago.

For those of you with short attention spans — “Hello? Hello? OK, yes, that dog has a fluffy tail, but I’m trying to make a point here” — I am talking about a photograph that became a viral sensation in February 2015 because social-media users could not agree on whether the dress in the picture was black and blue or white and gold.

In the first week after this photo surfaced, more than 10 million tweets mentioned the dress — at its peak, the photo was getting 14,000 views every second — proving people who live their lives on the internet will argue about anything.

The other night, my wife and I stared at this iconic photo and we both agreed the dress was white and gold, which, in fact, is absolutely WRONG, because it turns out the dress is, in fact, black and blue.

Neuroscientists, who apparently had nothing better to do, told the media that people saw the dress differently because of the way the human brain perceives colour, and chromatic adaptation and a tendency “to discount the chromatic bias of the daylight axis” and blah blah blah, if you catch our scientific drift.

As if that wasn’t divisive enough, the internet was fractured again early last year when no one could agree on whether a voice on a viral audio clip was saying the word “Yanny” or “Laurel.”

Seriously, you could not hop on social media last year without joining Team Yanny or Team Laurel, depending on which word you thought you heard the voice saying.

Naturally, scientists, who have apparently finished curing most major diseases, couldn’t wait to study this phenomenon, and they found 53 per cent of people (especially those with older ears, such as myself) heard the word “Laurel” whereas 47 per cent (this would include my wife) only heard the name “Yanny.”

From the parts of the debate I vaguely understood, it seems some listeners focus on the higher-frequency sounds in “Yanny” and can’t hear the lower sounds of the world “Laurel” and an analysis of the frequencies confirmed both sets of sounds are present in the recording, which explains why blah blah blah.

The point is almost no one was capable of doing any meaningful work for large parts of last year because they were too busy arguing over which word they heard on a cheesy audio clip on the internet.

If you thought we were safe from such trivial, time-wasting activities in 2019, allow me to say, and this comes from the bottom of my heart, you are an idiot.

Here we are, two weeks into a bright and shiny new year, and once again we are all caught in the vise-like grip of yet another internet debate, this time over something the iconic blue monster Grover might or might not have said on an episode of Sesame Street.

Unless you have been in a coma for the past two weeks — or hiding in your drainpipe — you will already know that a video clip is causing the internet to experience heart palpitations because some people believe it shows the beloved furry monster dropping the F-bomb while chatting with a fellow Muppet.

Just like the debate over “The Dress” and “Yanny or Laurel,” the fuss over whether Grover uttered an expletive is causing a great many social-media fans to clutch their pearls and wonder just what kinds of words kids are learning to pronounce on Sesame Street.

In this six-second clip from the Nov. 24 episode of the iconic show, the Muppet Rosita tells Grover: “Ooh, they have to follow you.”

What Grover responds with is questionable, and depends on your ears and, most likely, your brain.

“Yes, yes, that sounds like an excellent idea!” is what most people will hear Grover proclaim, largely because that’s what the cute little guy is saying.

And that’s what I heard the first few times I listened to the clip until — YIKES! — suddenly, like a bunch of other people, I could hear the words: “Yes, yes, that’s a f—-ng excellent idea!”

My wife and I watched this (bad word) clip over and over and sometimes we heard the PG version, and other times the naughty word jumped out plain as day.

It is driving social-media users to distraction. “Just saw this on Reddit and it blew my mind… I can hear both depending on which one I’m thinking in my head!” tweeted one person, whose experience mirrored my own.

I’m not a scientist, but apparently the uncertainty has something to do with our brains hearing some manner of ambiguous stimuli and then rooting around to determine what it actually heard, or something like that.

I strongly suggest you don’t take my word for it, and check it out for yourselves. That sounds like an excellent idea to me… no, wait, what you heard wasn’t what I was trying to say! Hello? Hello…

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca