In case you’re unaware, the next trend which divided netizens across the world has appeared.

The previous one was the indigo vs blue dress.

And we hoped that something like that never appears again.

Unfortunately, this is the internet. It never gives you what you want.

Like the disappearance of those pictures you took and sent to your ex-boyfriend when you were sexy AF five years ago.

This time, another challenge has appeared again, this time, of the audio format.

Here are 8 facts about the Yanny vs Laurel clip you need to know.

So you won’t look too suaku when your friends ask for your answer. And also the right answer lah.

1. What exactly is the Yanny VS Laurel thingy?

Okay, just to get things out of the way, here’s what the entire Yanny vs Laurel thing is all about.

This all started when an audio clip was shared by Reddit user, RolandCamry, on Reddit (yay, finally something that went viral from Reddit instead of Facebook!).

He asked users if they heard the word Yanny or Laurel.

And the entire thing blew up.

Different people heard different things, and just like the indigo vs blue dress, everyone insisted that they and their pet dogs are right.

2. Yanny vs Laurel: Statistics

So who do you think will win?

Team Laurel or Team Yanny?

According to statistics provided by AsapSCIENCE, it was a pretty close fight.

47% of the people said they heard Yanny while 53% heard the word, Laurel.

Here’s a clip for you to try it out for yourself.

What do you hear?

3. So why the entire debate?

I mean, if you read Laurel and Yanny out to yourself, it sounds so different, right?

Nope.

Dr Brad Story, a professor of Speech, Language and Hearing, showed that the two words are more similar than you’d think.

Both words have similar waveforms, although Yanny is a tad bit subdued compared to Laurel.

Other than that, the audio recording on Reddit was also of lower quality, which could lead to confusion in our brains and ears.

4. The simple question was a big deal

While I couldn’t care less about this, people do give a damn.

So big a damn, indeed, that Google had to jump on the bandwagon.

People started calling each other names.

And friendships were almost broken.

5. The Most Logical Theory: The higher frequency of a word was combined with the lower frequency of another word

So, with such a big hoo-ha created over this question, you can bet your ass that experts are going to start coming out of the woodwork.

Like this guy who had a pretty plausible theory.

If you listen to the recording at low volume (with virtually no bass), you’d hear Yanny.

Put the recording on a speaker with bass and played louder, and you’ll get Laurel.

His theory? The higher frequencies of Yanny and lower frequency of Laurel were combined into one word.

And because our brains cannot handle the load, we’ll just hear one word.

You can read more about the science behind this in an article we published in our app (an app-exclusive article):

Download our app here.

6. The Clip Wasn’t Tampered With

So one question that everyone is bursting to ask is, did some bugger messed up with the recording intentionally?

There’s no way that something like this would happen naturally, right?

According to Tyler Perrachione, a neuroscientist at Boston University studying Speech, he did not seem to think that the clip was tampered with.

Instead, he said that it sounded more like a recording of a recording of a recording.

In his opinion, the likeliest scenario is that somebody recorded the recording with his phone, resulting in a loss of low-frequency information.

7. The winners are #TeamLaurel

If you happen to be fighting with your girlfriend over who’s right, and you’re #TeamLaurel, you can finally win at something in the relationship.

The man behind the recording was found.

Meet Jay Aubrey Jones, a 64-year-old Broadway actor.

He is the man behind the viral recording.

He said that back in 2007, he recorded 36,000 words for Vocabulary.com, among which, one of the words recorded was Laurel.

8. Fun Fact: This can be used to test your ears’ age though

Okay, so the answer is out.

The word is Laurel.

Clap clap and all that stuff.

But here’s the thing.

Why is it that some people still hear the word, Yanny?

It’s because of the quality of the recording.

But it’s useful for something else, though.

Telling the age of your ears.

If you can hear the word Yanny, congratulations, your ears’ age are pretty young.

As you grow older, your ears will start to lose the ability to hear things at high frequency, which is why you old farts out there are hearing Laurel.

But hey, Laurel’s the right word. So it seems the older you get, the smarter you become.

Okay, the show’s over. Let’s move on to the next biggest thing happening on the internet right now.

Read Next: Buzzfeed Did a Great Singapore Chicken Rice Recipe But Repeated PappaRich Australia’s Mistake Again

Interested to know what Buzzfeed did this time? Check out the app-exclusive article we’ve written on this. Trust me, you wouldn’t want to miss this.

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