Why we all need subtitles now

It’s not you — the dialogue in TV and movies has gotten harder to hear. Subscribe and turn on notifications 🔔 so you don’t miss any videos: Have you ever been watching a show or movie, and then a character delivers a line so unintelligible you have to scramble to find the remote and rewind? For me, this moment came during the climax of the Pete Davidson film “The King of Staten Island,” where his most important line was impossible to understand. I had to rewind three times — and eventually put subtitles on — to finally pick up what he was saying. This experience isn’t unique — gather enough people together and you can generally separate them into two categories: People who use subtitles, and people who don’t. And according to a not-so-scientific YouTube poll we ran on our Community tab, the latter category is an endangered species — 57% of you said you always use subtitles, while just 12% of you said you generally don’t. But why do so many of us feel that we need subtitles to understand the dialogue in the things we watch? The answer to that question is complex – and we get straight to the bottom of it in this explainer, with the help of dialogue editor Austin Olivia Kendrick. Make sure you never miss behind-the-scenes content in the Vox Video newsletter, sign up here: is a news website that helps you cut through the noise and understand what’s really driving the events in the headlines. Check out Support Vox’s reporting with a one-time or recurring contribution: Shop the Vox merch store: Watch our full video catalog: Follow Vox on Facebook: Follow Vox on Twitter: Follow Vox on TikTok: @voxdotcom