About
Descriptive Noise refers to a line of text used to describe various noises heard in the background of a movie or television show in closed captioning mode. Screenshots of such scenes are often shared on Tumblr to point out the absurd nature of these descriptions when taken out of context, similar to YouTube Automatic Caption Fails
Origin
On June 13th, 2011, the single topic blog Descriptive Noise[1] launched with a still shot from the History Channel’s show Larry the Cable Guy (shown below). In the image, Larry and five teenagers are shown holding up frogs and smiling while the caption reads [indistinct mumbling].
Precursor
The closed captioning feature has been subject to numerous parodies prior to the emergence of the single topic blog, beginning with a photoshopping thread submitted to FARK[2] on November 7th, 2006. Fuck Yeah Subtitles[8], a Tumblr blog dedicated to humorous subtitles but not limited to those of sounds, was launched in September 2009. Additional instances of comically closed captioned photos, which may have occurred as a result of errors during real-time captioning or mistranslation from another language, have appeared on humor sites including Smosh[3], Uproxx[4], World Wide Interweb[5] and the Chive[6] between December 2011 and September 2012.
Spread
In September 2012, Buzzfeed[7] posted a series of images with descriptive sound subtitles. Within a month, the post was viewed more than 140,000 times. Additional instances appear on Tumblr with the tag “subtitles”[9], although they are mixed in with other subtitled images.
Notable Examples
Muffled Rap Music
On October 20th, 2012, a single topic blog titled “[Muffled Rap Music Playing in the Distance]”[10] was launched, pairing a descriptive noise caption from a scene in the first episode of Breaking Bad to a still image from the animated series Dan Vs. (shown below, left) [11] in its first post. Other Tumblr users began to place this caption on to other still images, collected on the tags “muffled rap music”[12] and “muffled rap music playing in the distance.”[13]
Search Interest
External References
[1] Tumblr – Descriptive Noise
[2] Fark – Photoshop theme: Inapproriate or funny closed captioning. Link goes to inspiration
[3] Smosh – 17 Closed Caption Fails
[4] Uproxx – Chinese Bootleg’s Subtitles For ‘The Avengers’ May Be Better Than The Movie Itself
[5] World Wide Interweb – THE FUNNIEST CLOSED CAPTIONS IN SPORTS HISTORY
[6] The Chive – Perfectly excecuted closed captions (21 Photos)
[7] Buzzfeed – 19 Perfect Moments In Subtitles History
[8] Tumblr – Fuck Yeah Subtitles
[9] Tumblr – Posts tagged “subtitles”
[10] Tumblr – [MUFFLED RAP MUSIC PLAYING IN THE DISTANCE]
[12] Tumblr – Posts tagged “muffled rap music”
[13] Tumblr – Posts tagged “muffled rap music playing in the distance”