Read ’em and weep

Subtitles are taking over the world. It’s increasingly rare these days for a video clip to be free of those irritating little bars along the bottom, rendering before your eyes what your ears are coping with quite easily, thank you very much.

That interview you clicked on from Twitter? There are the speaker’s words subtitled below. That report on a news website? There are the subtitles again, spelling out everything from the presenter’s narration to the sound effects in the background. Even pop songs have their lyrics displayed. It’s driving me mad.

‘Don’t look at the subtitles,’ comes the reply. But that’s the really annoying thing: you have to look at them. There’s something about a subtitle that grabs your attention, won’t let you look away, even though you know what it’s going to say. I’ve tried watching videos from the knees up, as it were, and it simply isn’t possible. You might hold out for a minute or so, but eventually your attention drifts downwards like a stone in a pond.

The subtitles are there because so many people these days will be watching the clip on a train or in an office or at some other location where they can’t have the sound up. But surely technology is better than that now? Surely, in an era when our phones and tablets can read our minds when it comes to showing us adverts, the bloody things can tell whether or not there’s an earphone inserted into their own jack? Or whether their sound is on or off? Or whether we are deaf or not?

It’s very simple — if the sound’s down, show the subtitles, if it isn’t, don’t. No doubt some geek will respond that the subtitles are embedded in the clips and can’t be turned off.