But Americans are not necessarily rushing to imitate the upper crust anymore. Thanks to streaming hits like The Crown and Bridgerton, the voice is everywhere. “The voice can elevate something that feels a little too real in the moment.” “We think of them as cerebral and not super emotional,” she said. Maybe my brain thinks it makes whatever weird shit I just said more palatable.”Ĭall it the Gen Z version of keeping calm and carrying on: Amy Walker, an actor and dialect coach, said Brits had long been associated with keeping a stiff upper lip. “I’ve always done accents when I’m uncomfortable. “I use it when I try to segue from something weird I said, or if I trauma-dump by accident,” Brown, who is 29, said. Jessie Brown, a hairstylist in Brooklyn, will pop into a British accent when they feel they’ve overshared with a client during an appointment. “It’s similar to when you add “lol” to the end of a dramatic text – it gives you distance.” “When you slightly change how you say things with a little accent, it gives you space from a stressful thing,” they said. The tougher the conversation, the more Cockney I become.”įor Critter Fink, a 26-year-old New Yorker who works in high-end retail, speaking in a British accent can soften the blow of a dark joke. “And my boss was like, ‘Why did you say it like that?’ I think it adds levity to a vulnerable situation. “I said, ‘It’s affecting me mental health, innit?’” she explained. The deluge of bad news out of Silicon Valley has her feeling like she’s approaching burnout, and she recently asked her manager for support at work. It’s the British part of me asking for something that needs to be done, not the real me.”īrinton Parker, a 30-year-old who lives in the Bay Area, works in tech marketing. “I asked my roommate, ‘Can you please take out the rubbish,’” Lieberman explained, sounding like an EastEnders guest star. He also uses the voice as a conflict-management tactic. It’s a defense mechanism, a kind of buffer from my actual personality.” “So I just talked in a British accent for the rest of the order. “I was on a date recently ordering something, and the name of what I wanted came out wrong when I asked for it,” Lieberman said. The Only Way Is Essex is part of a shift in UK culture exported to the US. So he launches into a cheesy Essex dialect whenever he feels knackered, as his character might say. The actors have Australian accents, but Lieberman said those were “harder to do” than a British voice. Old clips of the show – a relic full of mid-aughts cringe – often go viral on TikTok. Then there’s H20: Just Add Water, an Australian teen drama about girls who turn into mermaids whenever they swim or bathe. It’s not just Love Island: “fake British accent” videos have over 188,000 views on TikTok, where young people say they use the voice whenever they feel uncomfortable.Īsher Lieberman, a 21-year-old college student and content creator from Miami, said he picked his voice up from watching old X Factor auditions on YouTube. “It blew the accent the fuck up, and everyone was obsessed with their cute little sayings, like ‘doing bits’.” (For the uninitiated, that means getting intimate but not having sex.) “The accent really took over when I started watching the show,” she said. What’s behind the trend? Green, who is 26 and appeared on the US version of Love Island, blames it on her love for the original UK dating show.
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