She is intensely annoying. The glasses, nose ring, manner of speaking and inability to remain still for even a fraction of a second all combine to create a perfect storm of unwatchability. Someone should tell her.
I didn’t think her vocal fry is that noticeable.
At my work, we hired a young guy a few years ago who talked with a serious case of vocal fry. I couldn’t figure out why he was doing that for quite a while, then I heard about “vocal fry” and how all the kids are doing it. In reading about it, I’ve read that we old people complain about females doing it more than males, but my introduction was from a young man.
I am also annoyed by Cara Santa Maria’s speaking style, and I’ve heard her say that she gets complaints about her vocal fry, but that’s not what bugs me with her. It’s what I call “Cartman-speak,” like when Cartman said “respect my authoritay.” With the last syllable of a sentence or of a phrase before a pause, she stretches out the sound and makes it into an indistinct schwa sound. So if she said “respect my authority,” it would come out like “respect my authorituuuuuuuuh.” Nails on a chalkboard.
And another thing - what’s with the kids nowadays saying “no problem” instead of “you’re welcome”? If I buy a sandwich, I tell the employee “thank you” when he gives it to me, and the response I get is “no problem”?!? Yeah, it’s not a problem that I’m giving your establishment my business. Who trained you?
I seem to be the same way. I keep seeing people complain about “vocal fry” as the WORST THING EVER. I keep listening to clips that supposedly exhibit it. And I keep failing to notice anything unusual. It just sounds like somebody talking.
Same for me, I’m not really noticing much to take issue with, to be honest.
And man-buns! Don’t forget man-buns!
Actually I have less of an issue with man-buns. When I have longer hair I appreciate the option of getting it off my face and men should have that too.
I do wish the beard trend would go away.
ETA: My normal speaking voice is fried, but I do try not to elongate the last sound in the sentence the way “girls” do today.
There’s a young lady in my office who by all metrics is smart and capable. However, it is painful to listen to her because of her voice pattern. I had never heard of “vocal fry” before this thread, but that’s what she does. In spades. I always thought of it as “valley girl” talk. It’s much worse than the girl in the video. Every sentence ends with that half-tone downward swallow, or however it is described.
She’s applied for internal advancement positions a couple of times–ones that are heavily weighted towards outreach and presentations. But her way of talking does not put her in the best position to advance in those types of positions.
a) It is a very minor tic.
b) I find a lot of men complaining about vocal fry from women speakers. I think this is for a few reasons - women haven’t typically been able to reach an audience of people who will listen to them. There is just a larger sample size now and the tiny percentage of ‘vocal friers’ is now a larger number. Also, I think this is a sexist. ‘This girl doesn’t sound like the (typical male) voices of authority that I’m used to and so I find it annoying.’ Have you listened to the topic she’s speaking on? Did you witness the effective way she presented it? It’s a good segment and she delivered it well; vocal fry and all.
I turned it off before too long as she was annoying and her way of speaking and mannerisms off-putting so I got nothing from the content of her talk. That doesn’t feel very “effective” to me.
Nothing to do with whether she is female or not, that is a ridiculous thing to say. i’d listen to Emma Thompson read out the phone book.
This is my reaction. She was irritating from end to end.
Her appearance, mannerisms, accent, and pacing are all foreign to my world. Even a written transcript of her speech would read awkwardly to my sensibilities.
I see it mostly as a generation gap.
Yeah, I can’t hear anything either. I have no idea what we’re talking about. The OP describes it as a “back of the throat growl” and the vocal fry article talks about things being in a very low pitched register. I’m not hearing either of those things in the video – she’s actually got a fairly high-pitched voice, nothing growly about it.
Is this like the soap taste in cilantro? 
I have a co-worker with a shaved head who occasionally wears a fake man-bun hairpiece for laffs. Recently we all had to have our ID badge pictures retaken, and this guy wore his man-bun so that it was front and center, top of his head. 
I laughed til I thought I’d die! How the photographer didn’t catch that I’ll never know.
This whole topic is ridiculous but this is the pinnacle of absurdity.
She fries very frequently on the last word of a clause.
“…the world can be a minefield in the winter…”
“…when you rub them on your hair…”
“People have experimented with it for thousands of years…”
“…builds up a static charge on them…”
She does it more than that but those are places where it’s pretty noticeable.
In that video, she actually said “this phenomena”.
OK, I listened to those exact lines, and if she’s doing something abnormal on them, I’m still not hearing it. But that’s fine, it’s obviously bothering other people. I just lucked out.
To the people not hearing it-- how old are you all?
I can understand not being annoyed by it (I’m not particularly), but I don’t really understand not hearing it. It’s analogous to not recognizing falsetto when you hear it.
On first hearing I cannot tell she is doing anything odd vocal wise…though I do find the editing where is almost no pause between sentences a bit irritating…
I guess I should thank God there is at least thing the whipper snappers are doing that I can’t even detect…
BTW…where does “whipper snappers” come from…sounds old school AND vaguely dirty at the same time…
I don’t hear that much vocal fry. A little maybe, but the worst example i have heard i can’t share, because it’s a i work with.