Text-to-speech isn’t empowering users to escape their screens
While TikTok’s text-to-speech feature allows users to add virtual voiceovers to their videos, it’s limited in its functionality. It only reads subtitles in a single voice, and often makes poor pronunciations. It also cannot handle certain words, such as quinoa. Users may not even be able to turn off the voice on TikTok.
It’s relentlessly upbeat
Until recently, users were able to narrate their videos with a robotic voice on TikTok. However, a lawsuit forced the company to remove this feature. Users are now left to use an unnatural voice that sounds more like an automated Siri. The artificial voice has a robotic quality, with some words mispronounced and an unnatural tone. Users are upset about this, demanding an explanation, and asking the company why they changed the voice.
While the text-to-speech feature was initially introduced to improve accessibility on the platform, it quickly became a meme. Some users forced the voice actor to utter vulgar phrases, while others simply enjoyed the monotone and robotic narration. This practice, called Karenification, is highly controversial and has been the subject of legal disputes. This is because the original voice behind the voice belongs to a real person, and TikTok didn’t get permission from the person to use the audio.
It’s jarring
If you’ve seen a TikTok video lately, you’ve probably noticed that the robot voice has been replaced by a robotic one. While the original voice was better liked, TikTok’s creators had to change it because the artist who created it hadn’t given permission for the voice to be used. The new voice is very jarring; it mispronounces words and has an off-key tone. The new voice seems out of place in a social network like TikTok, where users can share their personal lives.
The new TikToker feature is similar to many popular voice-over apps like Siri and Alexa. They both have virtual assistants that speak to users, and they can play a human role when you type text messages. The robotic voice is a big part of this trend, but some people aren’t comfortable with it.
Another disadvantage to the new TikTok voiceover tool is that it doesn’t segment recordings, so you’ll have to record a script ahead of time. If you’ve made a video with multiple text-to-speech elements, you can use the Set duration setting to make sure that the narration doesn’t overlap.
