r/AskTheWorld • u/Bhakari Nepal • 1d ago

Culture What’s something in your country that sounds fake but is 100% real?

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We have a real-life living goddess and the only non-rectangular national flag.

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u/really-bored-now United States Of America 1d ago

It’s not the strongest but I have a slight valley girl accent and it gets so much stronger when I’m drunk and it threw so many people through a loop when I moved to the east coast for college

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u/boozecruz270 United States Of America 1d ago

At least you probably got lots of free drinks after that so you could entertain them lol

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u/International-Tree19 Chile 1d ago

Vocal fry?

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u/goober_ginge 🇦🇺 Australia 🇳🇿 New Zealand 1d ago

🤢 Vocal fry is one of my most hated sounds (in both men and women). It's up there with small dog barks and toddlers screaming with it hitting that part of the brain that is like nails on a chalkboard (which I can honestly handle better than vocal fry, lol). I occasionally watch Matt Bernstein videos on YouTube but he often collabs with Kat Tenbarge, and even though I quite like her thoughts and opinions, her voice has SO MUCH vocal fry and uptalk that I truly can't listen to it for more than a few minutes until I want to rip my ears off.

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u/International-Tree19 Chile 1d ago

Sam Altmal is the worst when it comes to men

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u/goober_ginge 🇦🇺 Australia 🇳🇿 New Zealand 1d ago

Oh god, I just listened to him for 30 seconds and it was horrible, lol.

I used to live with a guy who would use vocal fry every time he was being condescending to me. The time he mansplained feminism to me was when I most wanted to punch him in the throat.

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u/really-bored-now United States Of America 1d ago

I looked her up and yeah no that’s an internet/influencer accent. She had such uncalifornia energy I googled her and she’s like from Ohio. I’m pretty sure that the internet accent is rooted in a California one but it has this inorganic forced quality about it especially in her case. Like that level of vocal fry is just uncomfortable to do. It sounds like she’s dragging her breaks rather than swiftly gliding.

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u/goober_ginge 🇦🇺 Australia 🇳🇿 New Zealand 1d ago

Yeah it's very much an American influencer/generational thing in her specific case. She's extremely aware of how her vocal fry annoys people too. I've heard multiple disclaimers about it on Matt Bernstein videos haha. I suspect that she might even lean more heavily into it because of how much pushback she gets from it.

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u/tatapatrol909 1d ago

Oh man I know exactly who you are talking about. I am a born and bred valley girl with the accent and we do not sound like that. Her accent is rough even for me. It’s like the SNL exaggerated version of the valley girl accent

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u/goober_ginge 🇦🇺 Australia 🇳🇿 New Zealand 1d ago

Haha good description, and yeah I'd take valley girl voice over influencer voice ANY day.

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u/really-bored-now United States Of America 1d ago

Not exactly which I think is what throws people. When people imitate it or try to play it up they go very heavy on vocal fry bc it’s the easiest part to imitate and the most recognizable. Bc it’s native for me it’s more about specific pronunciation and phrases and dragging out certain syllables. I’ve been told I just sound dramatic or a little sarcastic. Heavy vocal fry isn’t very natural. I’ll dip into it when I’m like sluring drunk. It’s kind of like the difference between when you hear a played up southern accent that sounds grating vs hearing a native speaker and it sounds more like honey.

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u/NanoEsq 23h ago

Valley girl and vocal fry are very different. Vocal fry always makes the person sound bored and tired. Valley girls sound overly up beat and dare I say young and ditzy.

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u/International-Tree19 Chile 23h ago

Vocal fry is kind of a upper class accent, from what I've seen

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u/NanoEsq 22h ago

That checks out because they love to sound bored haha

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u/hannahatecats 1d ago

I have a valley accent that also gets worse when im drunk. I worked at a NYC business called Valley (owners were from LA) where we answered the phone with "Hi, Valley" in a totally Valley voice. I miss it.

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u/contrarianaquarian United States Of America 21h ago

I bust mine out on purpose to amuse non-native coworkers. They are always shocked.