Viral "Sesame Street" Clip Has the Internet in Full Debate
The internet loves a good debate, and the latest “wait did you hear what I heard?!” moment involves Sesame Street… and a possible F-bomb. Yep, you read that correctly.
In what social media is calling the new “Yanny vs. Laurel,” it seems as though people cannot agree whether or not it sounds like Grover lets the F-word slip. The clip in question has been making the rounds on both YouTube and Twitter, and you’ll have to listen to it a few times in order to hear both sides of the debate — that is, if you can physically hear both of them.
Here's the deal: Some folks swear they hear the furry blue monster say “Yes, yes, that sounds like an excellent idea,” while others are convinced Grover is exclaiming: “Yes, yes, that’s a f*cking excellent idea.” For what it's worth, I hear both of them, and once you hear the NSFW version...let's just say that you cannot un-hear it.
Of course, we can probably assume that Grover very likely didn’t say the F-word on a children’s program, but the idea is certainly hilarious on its own. Hey, even fluffy monsters have those days, am I right?
As was true with the “Yanny vs. Laurel” argument, there’s likely a scientific reason why you might hear an R-rated piece of dialogue from the puppet. In May, Lars Riecke, an assistant professor of audition and cognitive neuroscience at Maastricht University, explained to The Verge that the variance in frequencies can affect what people hear — and what their ears expect to hear. Another explanation involves the brain locking onto a “perceptual interpretation” of an ambiguous sound, as Professor David Alais from the University of Sydney told The Guardian. “The brain is an active interpreter of sensory input, and thus that the external world is less objective than we like to believe,” Alais explained.
All of this is to say: it’s totally fair if your ears and brain are certain they heard Grover drop an F-bomb. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to make all my friends listen to this clip for the rest of the day.
Teen Vogue has reached out to Sesame Workshop for comment.
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