It’s universal: writing on cars in snow.

So I’m listening to the latest This American Life podcast and they start talking about hate emails they’ve received about the female reporters’ voices. This whole episode is about people posting mean comments online in one form or another.

But I’m shocked that this subject comes up because…I, too, am starting to get annoyed by (all of) their voices!

Since I’ve been listening to podcasts nonstop for the last few weeks, I’ve noticed all the women sound the same. And it annoys me. However, the use of “kind of” as an adjective annoys me even more.

I’ve also noticed I’ve started hearing these women in my head throughout the day as if they were doing a podcast of my life.

The tone of these womens’ voices is called vocal fry. I feel like I’d heard of it before, but it’s been a while. Anyway, apparently it’s an epidemic among young women that will ruin all our chances of succeeding in life. Who knows, I might even have vocal fry myself.

I just find it so bizarre that there’s an actual name for this little thing that irks me. It’s like my irritation has been validated somehow.

But I feel bad for these women because they’ve gotten a ton of hate mail about it. So for now, now that I know it’s an epidemic, I’m going to try to listen past the vocal fry. I still don’t know if I’ll be able to get over the “kind ofs” though.