Just in the last few months, it seems like everyone who is doing content creation on youtube (etc.) is holding a tiny mic up, in the frame of the camera.
I get that mics are needed, but a good desk mic or a headset or whatever else you might imagine is just as good acoustically, and far less distracting. And they were all in use up until a few months ago.
Is this just a fashion trend?
YT and TT are platforms that breed weird quirk uniformity. They all grab your attention with the same phrases (“you’ll never believe …”, “what about [insert something outrageous]? Let me explain …” etc.) For a while, everybody had the same Ikea shelves behind them crammed with shit. Then I think we moved on to neon signs. It used to be fashionable to show off your expensive big microphone, probably much to the delight of its manufacturer. And that’s why I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the manufacturer paid some influencers to hold the tiny mike prominently in the shot like they would hold a dog poop bag filled with poop from a stranger’s dog. And then it was copied.
They often still have the expensive microphone, but use an unplugged tiny microphone just for the aesthetics.
I don’t know if this is true but the absurdity is hilarious to me so I’m choosing to believe you.
I have seen a few you tubers jokingly show that it was disconnected. Because yes, at some point even that became a meme. But I couldn’t find an example off the top of my head.
So make a new business of selling empty tiny mics… No wires, no circuits… But 20% cheaper
It may work out…
The fad has passed. Now the trend is using random objects as microphones.
There was a time that this was something we made fun of. Now this is the goal
Is that Al ? (This “l” is an “L”, as in AL)
No it’s Garth, though his last name starts with Al.
I’m a big fan of not an engineer, who just uses random objects
not the only person I’ve seen do it, but the first that comes to mind
I have to imagine this is the case for a decent chunk of people with those tiny mics, right? Sometimes the audio quality of the talker sounds way better than I would expect from essentially a lapel microphone, and there’s just a regular microphone out of frame.
Not going to lie the tiny mics are a pet peeve of mine like many others in this thread, but I can’t explain it well as to why haha.
I don’t mind the Kallax or Ivar shelves with stuff. It’s a cheap way to show what your videos are about.
But they are completely nondescript tho, unless they actually name the brand you’ll have to know the mic from sight alone. Which is easy when it’s a shure SM58 or SM7B, but when it’s a tiny lavalier mic scotch taped to a hammer that’s pretty difficult.