Really, what does the fox say?

This video as anyone that is decently in tune with pop culture making ridiculous noises in order to figure out the verbal communication of foxes. Yes, that is a real video. I mean, it is probably done in some sort of vein of humor, but it has some truth to it.

As children, we are taught to associate sounds with certain visuals. If you were cool like me, you probably had one of those sound spinner things that would moo when it got to the picture of the cow and so on. All the children’s shows preach this sort of teaching by repeatedly telling us “Dogs go ‘woof'” and “Cats go ‘meow’.” I could pull out my feminist card and go into how these noise identifiers are socially constructed as the norm for animals, but then we would be here all day talking about how even breakfast is socially constructed (like, why save all that goodness for only one time of the day? The patriarchy, man, it’s cruel).

Back to foxes and the noise they make, but wait, we still don’t know that. And not knowing that can kind of make us as humans uncomfortable because we feel the need to connect audio to visuals to create a whole story. That is why people nowadays like TV more than radio because they have the visuals right there in front of them so that they don’t have to do the work of trying to picture it in their heads with just audio. Yet, people will say how they liked books better than movies because they liked how they imagined it better than what was presented to them on the screen.

Because of that same kind of logic, audio will always be more powerful than visuals. It lets you just hear the pure emotion and relate it to yourself in whatever way you see fit, instead of seeing what it is “supposed to” look like. Shane showed us a Soundslides story done by NPR of this man who took up photography after he learned that he had Parkinson’s. When the story got to him emotionally remembering his doctor telling him that he had Parkinson’s, the screen faded from one of the man’s photographs to just black. This created such a pure emotional atmosphere, much more than if it was accompanied by a photo. I hope I can create something that can carry a great story through Soundslides with powerful audio and helpful visuals.

I mean, we may never know what the fox says, but I am sure it is a pretty powerful noise.