Why do girls have creaky voices?

Linguists have noticed a creaky-voiced trend among young women like Zooey Deschanel and Kim Kardashian. Cristen looks into why so-called "vocal fry" has taken hold of female voices.

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[ellierose]

Croaking describes it better than creaky.

[yoashka]

Gay men in nyc have been talking like that since I first started hearing them everywhere ( arrived in nyc ) 1999

[drbernstein]

I think the fry is indicative of social anxiety, attempts to present self as more powerful/masculine

[ChronicTonic]

this doesn't bother me. There is a female voice I hear sometimes in public, that makes me just want to go home. its hard to describe but I hate that voice.

[theJellyjoker]

Much like the "20's era drawl", vocal fry will be that voice people put on to evoke a particular time period.

[PlainsPup]

Vocal fry is so annoying. It sounds snobby, like the speaker is trying to be cool and detached.

[bullucsterteth]

The commentator has vocal fry. It´s Californian.

[patrickchubey]

I call it the croaky voice, but yeah, you hear it all the time way too often, it's like they're too lazy to put any effort into talking. Any less effort and conversation would cease to exist except in text form.

[VKingMD]

In one of my Psych classes at uni we were taught that women are more likely to fry when the women they look up to fry, a correlation that isn't seen in men.

[indigothecat]

I'm not sure about what will happen with Vocal Fry, but I know that speech patterns tend to be very cultural, right down to the overall pitch.  In Germany, women are known to speak, on average, in a noticeably lower pitch than the average pitch for women world-wide, and in Japan, it's noticeably higher.

[GeorgeTsiros]

they don't.
it's the same deal with guys, it's more observable in women because men have more bassy voices and vocal fry is less jarring in those cases
they have little control of their voice
they literally do not know how to _speak_

[Jean-Castor]

As a European guy, you can't imagine how it's annoying to hear English and American people talk 🤣

[ChrisHolbrook-yzbp]

I hate when women end each sentence sounding like a question.

[mirandansa]

I don't hear these voices as a noticeable trait among speakers of languages other than English.

[PaigeLavoie]

That's really interesting! I definitely sometimes have the "vocal fry" thing going on. I actually just thought it was because my vocal chords were sleepy or something. :p 

[marcpadilla]

Another way to express passive aggression. It morphs into static.

[RikoLime]

To be quite honest, it just sounds like the speaker is being lazy in the act of speaking. I mean, when youre bored, tired, and dont want to do anything, you talk all croaky like that cus youre not putting much energy into it. Sounds pretty similar. Also explains why the examples in the video about the young women saying 'right, right, yeah, omg, right/ right, omg" fit with that "vocal fry" is a "realistic" view of whats happening now.. 

In other words, to me it just seems like people who talk like that are being lazy, or having lapses of either lazy-ness, or brain-to-mouth lapses where they need a pause and the noise squeaks out - but mostly I notice "lazy speaking" people do it. 

[harrynikken]

I started noticing vocal fry in young American women around 2005. It really stands out to me. I am quite sure it wasn't very common 30-40y ago.

[onionpiepandarune]

I've aaaalways noticed the "vocal fry" in americans' speech, although I'd never really noticed it in brits (but I was too young when I lived there, I guess) -- I actually first noticed it in singers. A lot of male rock and pop singers use it, actually, as well as female pop singers.

[norberthm.]

I can’t stand it and the tone at the ending drives me crazy