Do You Hear ‘Laurel’ Or ‘Yanny’? This Internet Debate Is Hurting Our Heads

This whole thing is hurting my head. This morning during the morning show, Jeanne and I played an audio clip on the air that is going viral online. The debate is between people who hear differing things when listening to the same audio clip. Some people say they hear 'Laurel', and others say they hear 'Yanny'.

When Jeanne and I played it on the air, we both clearly heard 'Laurel', yet we had listeners call us and say they heard 'Yanny' when we played it. We took to Facebook Live this morning as well to have you weigh in on the debate, and the results are pretty scattered at the time of this post as well. A number of people say they've heard both. The weird thing is that I can say I have now too. I'm so confused.

After clearly hearing 'Laurel' when we played the clip on the air (as well as on my phone and during the live stream we did on Facebook), I hear 'Yanny' on my desktop computer at my desk. This tells me the theory I mentioned about hearing in the video is wrong, and it must have something to do with the speakers you're listening on. My headphones in the studio, the computer we used to stream this video, and my phone give me one result, and the speakers at my desk give me another. A prevailing theory online is that it has to do with the amount of bass your speakers generate. I really don't know if I totally buy that specifically. It does seem to have something to do with your speakers (or headphones), though. Try listening to the clip on different devices and see if you get different results too. Either way, it's some weird internet black magic that has people talking this week. What do you think? Here's the original clip. Let us know in the poll!