About
YouTube Automatic Caption FAILs refer to erroneous closed captions that are sometimes produced by Google’s automatic speech recognition technology for videos on YouTube. Since the release of the automatic captioning feature in March 2010, various screenshots of absurd or humorous YouTube mistranscriptions as well as photoshopped instances have been circulating online.
Origin
On November 19th, 2009, Google’s YouTube team announced[1] the release of a new automatic captioning feature for select videos, using the same voice recognition algorithm used to translate voicemails sent via Google Voice. Though the service was initially only available for a select few partner channels, the service had been launched for all YouTube users on March 4th, 2010.[4] The same day, several videos demonstrating the inaccuracy of automatic captions were uploaded to YouTube (shown below).
Spread
Also on March 4th, YouChewPoop forum member Phoenon[5] started a discussion thread titled “Post inaccurate YouTube transcribed captions here" and AllDeaf forum member Netrox[7] relayed the announcement in a thread titled “YouTube gets Automatic CC Videos,” which was largely met by positive feedback despite its glitchy shortcomings. Throughout the rest of May 2010, several articles about YouTube’s humorous transcription errors appeared on Switched,[6] FilmFail,[8] Mashable[3] and The Huffington Post[2] among others. By September 2011, a single topic blog titled Caption Fail[11] had been launched on Tumblr with both raw and photoshopped screenshots of absurd captions. In 2013, discussion of videos illustrating these inaccurate captions continued on the Daily Dot[14], New Media Rockstars[15] and Crave Online.[16]
Notable Examples
As of August 2013, there are more than 116,000 search results for “caption fail” on YouTube.[10] Screenshots of these captions can be found on FunnyJunk[12] Tumblr with the tag #caption fail.[13]
Rhett & Link’s Caption FAILS
On January 31st, 2011, YouTubers Rhett and Link uploaded an experimental video titled “Lady Gaga Putt-Putt Rally,” in which the duo repeatedly processed their scripted dialogue through the automatic captioning feature, ultimately turning it into a funny, non-sequitur conversation (shown below, top left). Following the success of the pilot episode, the comedy duo expanded their experiment into a semi-regular web series.
[9]
Search Interest
External References
[1]Official Google Blog – Automatic captions in YouTube
[2]The Huffington Post – Funny YouTube Caption Fails
[3]Mashable – A New Meme is Brewing – YouTube Caption Fail
[4]Tech Crunch – YouTube Launches Auto-Captions For All Videos
[5]You Chew Poop – Post inaccurate Youtube transcribed captions here
[6]Switched – YouTube rolls out auto-transcript, LOLs ensue
[7]AllDeaf.com – Youtube gets AUTOMATIC CC videos
[8]FilmFail – Youtube Closed Captioning Fail
[9]YouTube – Rhett & Link CAPTIONFAILS
[10]YouTube – Search Results for “caption fail”
[11]Tumblr – Caption Fail
[12]FunnyJunk – Search Results for “caption fail”
[13]Tumblr – Posts Tagged “caption fail”
[14]The Daily Dot – YouTube captions of Taylor Swift lyrics vs. Taylor Swift lyrics
[15]New Media Rockstars – YouTube’s 5 Worst Hilariously Catastrophic Auto Caption Fails
[16]Crave Online – 7 Funny Caption Fail Videos