Laurel vs Yanny: dividing the internet more than “the dress”

One Reddit user wrote: “If you turn the volume very low, there will be practically no bass and you will hear Yanny“.

It’s science and CNN can tell you why here.

So what name is being said: Yanny, or Laurel? Here you’ve got poor quality audio so your brain’s doing the best it can to interpret.

Some people who listen to this audio file hear one thing; others hear something completely different.

If you go to the vocabulary.com listing for “Laurel“, you’ll hear something you’ve probably heard hundreds of times already this week.

“So if your sound card – or your ears – emphasize both the higher and the lower frequencies, you can toggle between the two sounds”, according to The Verge. So if you’re listening on your phone, laptop speakers or through cheap headphones, you might hear something different than with a high-quality sound system, CNET reports. Some are hearing it as “Yanny” and others are hearing “Laurel“.

The debate has sparked so much frenzy that the Philadelphia Police Department even tweeted: “Please don’t call 911 to ask if we’re hearing “Laurel” or “Yanny“. (And Laurel. We’re definitely hearing Laurel)”.

“I hear #Yanny so clearly…”

So yes, it appears that the “laurel” folk (the right ones) swear they hear “laurel“, whereas the “yanny” people think the exact opposite.

“Most likely, the original recording was Laurel“, Story added.

Redditor RolandCamry, who first uploaded the recording, says it comes from the vocabulary.com listing for “laurel“.

Believe it or not, as of this writing the world is divided over what they hear and it’s even causing some people to halt their everyday lives to argue their point.

But when we played the Yanny/Laurel audio for her, she wasn’t so sure.