Masha
There’s a new Yanni/Laurel debate in town, and it’s both inappropriate and Sesame Street themed!
The soundbite/video appeared on the front page of Reddit last night, where it was posted by u/schrodert under the title, “May have just found next ‘Yanni or Laurel’ soundbite thanks to my daughter’s obsession with Elmo.”
“Listen once thinking Grover says “Yes, yes, that’s a f**king excellent idea” then again KNOWING he actually says “Yes, yes, that sounds like an excellent idea.” I hear either based on what I’m thinking,” wrote schrodert.
The video crossed over to Twitter in no time at all, as these things do:
Just saw this on reddit and it blew my mind. Is Grover saying "yes, yes, that's a f**king excellent idea" or "yes, yes that sounds like an excellent idea."
I can hear both depending on which one I'm thinking in my head! pic.twitter.com/TAYR6U94Ti
— Evan Edinger (@EvanEdinger) December 27, 2018
On both platform, the consensus seemed to be that (unlike Yanni/Laurel), most of us can hear both versions depending on which one we happen to be listening for.
TANUULOR wrote:
I couldn’t hear the non-swearing version until I was looking at the sentence in the title, and now I can’t hear the swearing until I read THAT as I’m listening! Stupid confused brain…bah!
CarpeMofo wrote:
Yeah, at first I thought, ‘He’s clearly saying f***ing.’ but then I saw your comment and read along on the ‘clean’ version and it completely disappeared. Brains are weird.
NeverFresh wrote:
I can hear both, depending on what I choose to hear. Awesome!
TheOnlyFi wrote:
I love it! Heard the f bomb first, had to really listen for “sounds like”. Awesome find!
…though others couldn’t hear the naughty version no matter how hard they tried.
Xlimz502 wrote:
Even reading the phrase on the title I couldn’t hear the “Fucking”. It always sounds like “YES, YES, THAT SOUNDS LIKE AN EXCELLENT IDEA”
hppiefrk wrote:
I have the worst mouth of anyone I know and I never heard f***ing either. Sigh. And believe me, I tried.
…or vice versa.
Whereas others still made ye olde Yanni/Laurel joke—which I feel responsible to remind you happened this year.
Now, clearly, Sesame Street is not sneaking cuss words into their show. This is just an interesting instance of auditory confirmation bias, in which we hear what we expect or want to hear. Another super wild instance of this is a Rihanna line in T.I.’s Live Your Life, wherein you can hear both “I’m a paper chaser” and “I’m a big f***in slut” depending on which you’re looking for.
