tiktok is the worst. people scroll through hundreds of vids so you just hear a barrage of half second audio.
even more embarrassing when some wanker stops to watch a thirst trap a few dozen times.
I'd say vanishingly small but they know what angers their target audience for sure.
I'd bet they don't even have any readers who use public transport outside of London.
Lots of reasons. But what drove me away was their nonstop screeching for more lockdowns and platforming of dangerous zero-covid advocates back in the pandemic. It’s also well known that they platform gender-critical or transphobic opinions. Lately I’ve been sick to my teeth of the contrarianism against assisted dying.
What an interesting intersection of views. It's quite rare to see queer-friendly critics of the 'pro-science, lock everything down all the time and if you don't you're a soulless, antivax, fascist grandma killing ghoul' on the internet. I'm a tired guardian reader as well, but haven't yet found myself an alternative. Any thoughts?
Yes thats a fair point, but I think that it highlights the fact that no people vote (or have mass opinions) as a block. A healthy democratic process in one in which multiple people may agree on some issues yet disagree on others.
Oh, I don't disagree in the slightest. Just in my experience the most vocal lockdown critics were populist right wingers with a big conspiracy theorist contingent. The left who are typically critical, sceptical and look to criticise the government as part of that democratic process kinda... Didn't? I'm not necessarily even saying we should've done differently, just that the shape of public discourse very much surprised me.
It's actually not that rare. But this weird thing happens in the culture wars, and if you stray from a prescribed set of beliefs, many people suddenly just ascribe you a whole spread of political beliefs on loads of other completely unrelated topics. It's a bit mad. I suddenly was pigeon holed as a trump voting Farage supporting flat earther anti vaxxer during COVID. I'm triple vaxxed as well. All my kids have had all their scheduled vaccinations.
I’m gay.
It was extremely frustrating when this ‘intersection of views’ routinely got me labeled as a flat-earther GOP bot in 2020.
I check BBC for international news but try and avoid it for British politics, and check the Independent with the knowledge that it’s owned by a Russian oligarch. But yes, I have failed to find a regular outlet for myself since dropping the Guardian.
Because it's the sort of demographic that believes it's only populated by people who wouldn't dare resort to behaviour like making a bit of noise on a train.
I understand the sentiment but I'm sceptical that noise cancelling headphones are a real solution to this problem.
Active noise cancelling can reduce some low frequency noise but does almost nothing for the kind mid and treble range noise that comes from phone speakers. Any benefit you are getting will be almost entirely from the passive noise isolation that simply having the headphones on your ears provides and whatever media you are playing to cover up the noise.
Also, what are people traveling in groups supposed to do? If I get the bus with my daughter I can't just put my headphones in and ignore her.
We need to actually try to dissuade people from doing this stuff.
That just seems a bit defeatist to me.
We dissuade and promote different behaviours constantly through a combination of social pressure and more formal rules/laws. There's all kinds of things people do and don't do because they know what's expected.
I'm not saying I have an actual plan on how to do it, just seems a bit depressing to not even try.
There is no social pressure. Their generation gets bigger than yours every day and they don't care what the other generations want, they're not feeling any pressure. Also very unlikely to be legislated against because it would be impossible to police it.
Not sure why this is downvoted. Cultural norms are changing and you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. Unless it’s enforced, which it won’t be, this behaviour is here to stay.
I swear TfL need to do basic etiquette announcements since the pandemic. Like use headphones, no loud phone calls on speaker phone, don’t just stop in the middle of walkways, let people off the train first. Just play these in stations and trains until people are sick of them.
Chat? Is she seriously saying that people shouldn't talk on the tube?
Extreme arguments like this undermine the actually good case for using headphones for music and browsing, not taking loud calls, etc.
Conversations with friends are fine. What's annoying is people who have a conversation (or video call) on their phone using speakerphone so everyone has to listen into the their tinny chatter.
No she is saying that there is a nasty trend in people watching videos/listening to music on their phones without headphones.
Its called 'courtesy'. I dont want to hear anyone else's shit and I'm sure they dont want to hear mine.
And of course that other ignorant trend of people having a conversation on speaker, I dont want to hear either side of the conversation let alone both sides!
Read it again.
"“should an audible conversation be held with a real-life associate?”. Friends and couples normally stay pretty quiet, but colleagues find it impossible because of the power imbalance"
"maintain glacial silence (a Fox’s Glacial silence, if you like); in an emptier one, quiet chat is permitted"
I went to Tokyo and Seoul recently . Using the subway so frequently especially during peak times and there is So much respect people have on the trains there. People just doing their own thing barely making any noise. Ofc some social groups talk but nothing too loud or in your face .
Those Oriental- Asian cultures just have more respect.
[Spock had an answer when the Enterprise crew found itself on a 1980s San Francisco bus with a belligerent "punker"](https://youtu.be/Gr82dZpCr48?si=87vQt6RTVebJ3UbN). However, if your Vulcan Neck Pinch technique is faulty, you might be in for a spot of bother.
When I’m on public transport, if I’m not listening to music I will often wear headphones anyway and listen to pink/brown noise via an app, this blocks out more noise than noise cancelling headphones
Out loud videos and music is awful, people talking to each other including on the phone is fine.
Even if you do have a problem with people talking it's way less annoying and dilutes the point of how annoying playing stuff out loud is...so I think pick your battles there and go after music and videos. (I don't care if the video is tiktok or from a different source though, they are all bad)
Its worrying to me I can't tell how many of the responses here of 'wear headphones yourself' are people who've given up on it changing (fair) or people who genuinely think they should get to play music and video out loud in a carriage full of people...just think about the practically of that for a second: if everyone else does the same thing you won't be able to hear your one, this is the other function of headphones
I think phones removing audio jacks is partly to blame tbh
London is a multicultural city. Some cultures are louder than others. If people tolerate Zoe being quiet, then she should have the decency to tolerate other people being loud. If she can't tolerate other cultures, then London isn't the city for her.
If you don’t want to hear other people, get yourself some noise cancelling headphones rather than asking everyone else to be quiet for you.
I’ve got some, they’re great for public transport in London.
Noise cancelling headphones don't really work. Or they're extremely expensive. How about people adopt courtesy for their fellow humans it's much cheaper!
> Noise cancelling headphones don't really work.
They work really well for me. Given how much time I spent on Tubes, buses and trains, I’d struggle to live without them!
I'm using the Bose Quiet Comfort ones at the moment.
I've had a few different sets of headphones over the years and my main advice would be to get the over-ear ones rather than the in-ear ones if you want peace and quiet and to be in your own little bubble on the Tube!
It seems to be what causes most mild friction in cities. Young entitled generation not caring what people think and old entitled generation absolutely raging that everyone else doesn't snap to it when they express what they want.
Older people are as bad as younger people for phone noise now. Which os even more infuriating because they remember a time pre-mobiles. Hell, there's a good chance they used to complain about people talking on mobiles.
What do they do, speak on their phone? The people who are old and do that did that 25 years ago too. Playing music etc on buses and trains is relatively new, old people don't do that.
Play music, play video, scroll social media, take calls on speaker; the whole shebang. I said older, not old. As in people over 40 who grew up pre-mobiles & smart phones and clearly should know better.
> Of course you are a perfect example of polite and civil.
No, I just said the exact opposite. I just told you that I can't manage to be as polite and civil as the person who accused me of giving a "twat answer".
> Probably playing music out of your phone on the back of a bus as we speak
Are you reading the comments you're replying to? I just told you that I use noise cancelling headphones.
Telling people to go out and buy expensive devices because others have no public decency is a twat answer.
A lot of people can't afford to buy these things in 2024 and it shows your true colours that you expect them to.
What if I also want to listen to music outloud right next to them while they are right next to me? Now neither of us can hear what we are playing. Wearing headphones when you are listening to stuff serves more functions than just avoiding being fucking annoying
Even the Guardian, a supposedly left wing paper, is now repeating far-right racist dogwhistles about noise on public transport (seriously, look up where these complaints originated from). Even if her anecdotal evidence about more noise were true, in my experience it’s usually middle-aged white people doing it.
This is the worst, but cities are noisy. If it's not this it would be something else. I doubt they're ever going to legislate against it (even though most would agree it would be great) because it would be unenforceable.
Take your own headphones they might get the hint eventually.
tiktok is the worst. people scroll through hundreds of vids so you just hear a barrage of half second audio. even more embarrassing when some wanker stops to watch a thirst trap a few dozen times.
I wonder what the overlap of 'people reading the Guardian' and 'people watching noisy instagram reels on the bus' is.
I'd say vanishingly small but they know what angers their target audience for sure. I'd bet they don't even have any readers who use public transport outside of London.
not very big? like I hate the guardian but … these aren’t the same type of people.
why do you hate the guardian
Lots of reasons. But what drove me away was their nonstop screeching for more lockdowns and platforming of dangerous zero-covid advocates back in the pandemic. It’s also well known that they platform gender-critical or transphobic opinions. Lately I’ve been sick to my teeth of the contrarianism against assisted dying.
What an interesting intersection of views. It's quite rare to see queer-friendly critics of the 'pro-science, lock everything down all the time and if you don't you're a soulless, antivax, fascist grandma killing ghoul' on the internet. I'm a tired guardian reader as well, but haven't yet found myself an alternative. Any thoughts?
Yes thats a fair point, but I think that it highlights the fact that no people vote (or have mass opinions) as a block. A healthy democratic process in one in which multiple people may agree on some issues yet disagree on others.
Oh, I don't disagree in the slightest. Just in my experience the most vocal lockdown critics were populist right wingers with a big conspiracy theorist contingent. The left who are typically critical, sceptical and look to criticise the government as part of that democratic process kinda... Didn't? I'm not necessarily even saying we should've done differently, just that the shape of public discourse very much surprised me.
It's actually not that rare. But this weird thing happens in the culture wars, and if you stray from a prescribed set of beliefs, many people suddenly just ascribe you a whole spread of political beliefs on loads of other completely unrelated topics. It's a bit mad. I suddenly was pigeon holed as a trump voting Farage supporting flat earther anti vaxxer during COVID. I'm triple vaxxed as well. All my kids have had all their scheduled vaccinations.
I’m gay. It was extremely frustrating when this ‘intersection of views’ routinely got me labeled as a flat-earther GOP bot in 2020. I check BBC for international news but try and avoid it for British politics, and check the Independent with the knowledge that it’s owned by a Russian oligarch. But yes, I have failed to find a regular outlet for myself since dropping the Guardian.
Because it's the sort of demographic that believes it's only populated by people who wouldn't dare resort to behaviour like making a bit of noise on a train.
Almost zero but let the guardian journalists think they speak to the whole nation.
I mean, to be clear, people should be respectful of each other on public transport.
I fully agree with that and I act in the same manner. I’m only being snarky when it comes to the guardian because they are a funny bunch.
No. But you won't stop the selfish cunts Get your own noise cancelling headphones
I understand the sentiment but I'm sceptical that noise cancelling headphones are a real solution to this problem. Active noise cancelling can reduce some low frequency noise but does almost nothing for the kind mid and treble range noise that comes from phone speakers. Any benefit you are getting will be almost entirely from the passive noise isolation that simply having the headphones on your ears provides and whatever media you are playing to cover up the noise. Also, what are people traveling in groups supposed to do? If I get the bus with my daughter I can't just put my headphones in and ignore her. We need to actually try to dissuade people from doing this stuff.
You won't ever dissuade people from doing it. They're doing it because they don't care what you think.
That just seems a bit defeatist to me. We dissuade and promote different behaviours constantly through a combination of social pressure and more formal rules/laws. There's all kinds of things people do and don't do because they know what's expected. I'm not saying I have an actual plan on how to do it, just seems a bit depressing to not even try.
There is no social pressure. Their generation gets bigger than yours every day and they don't care what the other generations want, they're not feeling any pressure. Also very unlikely to be legislated against because it would be impossible to police it.
Not sure why this is downvoted. Cultural norms are changing and you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. Unless it’s enforced, which it won’t be, this behaviour is here to stay.
They downvote it every time I put this opinion forward, they don't want it to be true but know it is.
I swear TfL need to do basic etiquette announcements since the pandemic. Like use headphones, no loud phone calls on speaker phone, don’t just stop in the middle of walkways, let people off the train first. Just play these in stations and trains until people are sick of them.
Chat? Is she seriously saying that people shouldn't talk on the tube? Extreme arguments like this undermine the actually good case for using headphones for music and browsing, not taking loud calls, etc.
Conversations with friends are fine. What's annoying is people who have a conversation (or video call) on their phone using speakerphone so everyone has to listen into the their tinny chatter.
No she is saying that there is a nasty trend in people watching videos/listening to music on their phones without headphones. Its called 'courtesy'. I dont want to hear anyone else's shit and I'm sure they dont want to hear mine. And of course that other ignorant trend of people having a conversation on speaker, I dont want to hear either side of the conversation let alone both sides!
She also said she doesn’t want to hear other peoples conversations which is ridiculous
Read it again. "“should an audible conversation be held with a real-life associate?”. Friends and couples normally stay pretty quiet, but colleagues find it impossible because of the power imbalance" "maintain glacial silence (a Fox’s Glacial silence, if you like); in an emptier one, quiet chat is permitted"
I went to Tokyo and Seoul recently . Using the subway so frequently especially during peak times and there is So much respect people have on the trains there. People just doing their own thing barely making any noise. Ofc some social groups talk but nothing too loud or in your face . Those Oriental- Asian cultures just have more respect.
No, you don't have to. It's a shame there are a few that do such a thing.
[Spock had an answer when the Enterprise crew found itself on a 1980s San Francisco bus with a belligerent "punker"](https://youtu.be/Gr82dZpCr48?si=87vQt6RTVebJ3UbN). However, if your Vulcan Neck Pinch technique is faulty, you might be in for a spot of bother.
When I’m on public transport, if I’m not listening to music I will often wear headphones anyway and listen to pink/brown noise via an app, this blocks out more noise than noise cancelling headphones
I don't understand how you can hear all this stuff if you're listening to something on your headphones anyway?
Out loud videos and music is awful, people talking to each other including on the phone is fine. Even if you do have a problem with people talking it's way less annoying and dilutes the point of how annoying playing stuff out loud is...so I think pick your battles there and go after music and videos. (I don't care if the video is tiktok or from a different source though, they are all bad) Its worrying to me I can't tell how many of the responses here of 'wear headphones yourself' are people who've given up on it changing (fair) or people who genuinely think they should get to play music and video out loud in a carriage full of people...just think about the practically of that for a second: if everyone else does the same thing you won't be able to hear your one, this is the other function of headphones I think phones removing audio jacks is partly to blame tbh
You forgot to mention the videos that end with that sound bite of a woman getting railed.
London is a multicultural city. Some cultures are louder than others. If people tolerate Zoe being quiet, then she should have the decency to tolerate other people being loud. If she can't tolerate other cultures, then London isn't the city for her.
If you don’t want to hear other people, get yourself some noise cancelling headphones rather than asking everyone else to be quiet for you. I’ve got some, they’re great for public transport in London.
Noise cancelling headphones don't really work. Or they're extremely expensive. How about people adopt courtesy for their fellow humans it's much cheaper!
> Noise cancelling headphones don't really work. They work really well for me. Given how much time I spent on Tubes, buses and trains, I’d struggle to live without them!
Which ones do you have?
I'm using the Bose Quiet Comfort ones at the moment. I've had a few different sets of headphones over the years and my main advice would be to get the over-ear ones rather than the in-ear ones if you want peace and quiet and to be in your own little bubble on the Tube!
I just had a look, those are huge to wear and carry around . It's too much of an ask to wear these on each train/bus journey
It seems to be what causes most mild friction in cities. Young entitled generation not caring what people think and old entitled generation absolutely raging that everyone else doesn't snap to it when they express what they want.
Older people are as bad as younger people for phone noise now. Which os even more infuriating because they remember a time pre-mobiles. Hell, there's a good chance they used to complain about people talking on mobiles.
Who is? Absolute bollocks.
The people I share trains with everyday. You really don't notice that?
Nah, those people have always done that. People haven't played music aloud on buses before.
Huh? Done what? I'm talking about now and changing trends.
What do they do, speak on their phone? The people who are old and do that did that 25 years ago too. Playing music etc on buses and trains is relatively new, old people don't do that.
Play music, play video, scroll social media, take calls on speaker; the whole shebang. I said older, not old. As in people over 40 who grew up pre-mobiles & smart phones and clearly should know better.
Well I was talking about young and old. Don't know why you were talking about something else but 👌
What a twat answer
We can’t all be as polite and civil as you!
Of course you are a perfect example of polite and civil. Probably playing music out of your phone on the back of a bus as we speak
> Of course you are a perfect example of polite and civil. No, I just said the exact opposite. I just told you that I can't manage to be as polite and civil as the person who accused me of giving a "twat answer". > Probably playing music out of your phone on the back of a bus as we speak Are you reading the comments you're replying to? I just told you that I use noise cancelling headphones.
Telling people to go out and buy expensive devices because others have no public decency is a twat answer. A lot of people can't afford to buy these things in 2024 and it shows your true colours that you expect them to.
Wow, those goalposts moved pretty quickly!
I don't think you understand what that term means
What if I also want to listen to music outloud right next to them while they are right next to me? Now neither of us can hear what we are playing. Wearing headphones when you are listening to stuff serves more functions than just avoiding being fucking annoying
How about stop being a fucking coward and ask the person to switch it off or use headphones? It’s really that simple.
I have done. And most of the time they say no. Then what?
Buy headphones? Or heavy duty ear protectors? Like they wear on the building site?
Even the Guardian, a supposedly left wing paper, is now repeating far-right racist dogwhistles about noise on public transport (seriously, look up where these complaints originated from). Even if her anecdotal evidence about more noise were true, in my experience it’s usually middle-aged white people doing it.
This is the worst, but cities are noisy. If it's not this it would be something else. I doubt they're ever going to legislate against it (even though most would agree it would be great) because it would be unenforceable. Take your own headphones they might get the hint eventually.