Don’t Show Me, Tell Me
Katie Cunningham, a journalist for The Guardian, reported that, “last year, Netflix revealed 40% of its global users have subtitles on all the time, while 80% switch them on at least once a month—stats that far exceed the number of viewers who need captioning because of hearing impairment.” Apparently, there’s a whole myriad of reasons that audiences are putting subtitles on. For starters, many viewers—especially the youths, according to Cunningham—just don’t have the attention span to catch the nuances of long-winded shows. An interview with Cunningham’s Gen Z coworker, Bradley Johnson, demystified the subtitle confusion for us older folks. “[Johnson] doesn’t know whether it’s a hearing issue or an attention span issue… [His] attention span requires him to actually read the screen to make sure he can get through a long TV show or movie.” It would appear that younger generations prefer to be spoon-fed their entertainment, enjoying the subtitles unironically as a part of the cinematic experience itself. Johnson also pointed out that complex plots and stories can be too much to comprehend without subs, saying, “there is so much going on in shows… I know there’s something being shown to me that I need to pick up on, so just tell me what it is.”
Gen Z disproportionately puts on the subtitles over any other generation, accounting for 80% of subtitled viewership, Netflix reports. However, editor Wilson Chapman from Indiewire believes that the reasoning is hardwired. “[Gen Z] grew up watching videos on social media, where subtitles are the algorithmically encouraged default.” Additionally, Gen Z is most likely to watch a show from their mobile devices and Chapman continues, “even if you’re using headphones while in public, it’s likely you’re getting poor audio quality and hearing background noise if you’re watching on public transit.” So without the subs, you have no clue what’s going on.
Via u/Pai
Passive viewers, like someone who throws on a movie at a party, enjoys an HBO drama from their mobile device, or scrolls on their phone for the entire run-time, may need the extra training wheels that subtitles provide in order to understand the plot. Subtitles share clues of what’s happening on screen, occasionally dictating details that might not otherwise be clear to a passive watcher. For example, if there’s an indistinct murmur emerging from the depths of a dark and scary scene, the subtitles will probably come right out and say it. Going viral for their weirdly descriptive subtitle explanations, Stranger Things became a viral meme sensation when their subtitles described the bad guy’s tentacles, saying they were “squelching wetly.” Apparently, according to Netflix, the audiences needed subtitles that grotesquely overexplained the gross, squishy nature of this obviously slimy villain.
Via u/Tara Bitran
But for cinephiles like myself, the bluntness of closed captions actually ruins these little subtleties and distracts from the overall atmosphere. Obviously, the post-production sound designer wanted those sounds to be subtle to create suspense, but with closed captions creating a not-so-discrete billboard of explanatory text on screen, delicate audio nuances get steamrolled.
However, attention spans aren’t the only thing affecting the cinematic experience—new technological advances, particularly in the audio recording industry, have posed a new problem for casual viewers.
Suffering From Success
Technology has come so far in the last half-century, but who knew that this triumphant growth in the audio industry would lead to the rise of subtitles? “The problem is the design of modern televisions… the majority of which place internal speakers at the bottom of the set instead of facing towards the audience, causing significantly worse audio quality.” Wilson Chapman says, “other issues are caused by sound designs optimized for theatrical experiences, which can result in compressed audio when translated to home.” In short, cinematic audio recordings, sound effects, and five-point audio systems have gotten exponentially more advanced, while TV technology has gotten shoddier.
So without a state-of-the-art sound system, viewers aren’t hearing the show in the quality that it was meant to be heard. They’re consuming their entertainment with a watered down, compressed, muffled, mumbling, unbalanced version that can be understandably tough to comprehend. Because of this, audiences without an updated home entertainment system are struggling to make out dialogue in their favorite shows, thus, leaning on their subtitles to follow along anyway. Paradoxically, these leaps and improvements in technology on the production side have kneecapped the viewer experience at home—which is where most audiences are watching their media.
Subtitles are becoming more necessary because viewership is becoming more passive, and thus less of a priority. Audiences rarely sit down for a full two (or more) hours to watch anything without breaks, distractions, or the noisiness of life blurring your focus. So while it still irks cinephiles to be force-fed the idiosyncrasies of a movie or show, most viewers don’t care that much. They’re happy watching masterpieces like White Lotus, The Substance, or Nosferatu either from a four-inch phone screen or on a TV with a sound system jankier than the clip-on Bluetooth speakers you win at a Dave and Busters.
Snobbery Unfolds
Cinephiles get distracted by the high-contrast text on their fancy, mega-sized screens, and they struggle to turn their focus away from the subs. However, they don’t realize that subtitles are essential for the common viewer. Up in their high towers, movie buffs are enjoying their over-priced and overly snooty surround sound systems in their home theater, so it’s hard for them to imagine the audacity of turning on subtitles that would ruin the movie. But this is a luxury that most audiences don’t have or feel they even need. In a multiscreen society, not everyone relishes the opportunity to unplug from their socials, throw their phone in a drawer, or carve out hours of their day to watch—and I mean really watch—a movie.
The majority of audiences and passive viewers are perfectly content with the subtitles on screen to clarify their movie-watching experience and delineate the nuances. While some viewers desperately crave the discovery of these little details on their own terms. Subtitled semi-engagement might be enough for some, but for many, the subtitles distract from the visual aspects of TV and movies, while fostering a “lazy listening” habit that detracts even more attention away from the artistry.
Regardless, I’m a proud subtitle snob, and I’m well-aware of my passion for cinema. So if you’re just throwing on the subtitles for the sake of subtitles, kindly uninvite me from your movie night. My inner snob can’t deal with side-socializing, second-screens, or the bad audio quality that make the subtitles necessary. Either turn the volume up or turn it off because a movie or TV show deserves your undivided attention. A real cinephile uses their entertainment time as an excuse to turn the other distractions off.