Australians sound weird

A character (invariably blonde) is introduced in a movie, nothing seems out of the ordinary. Then they start speaking, they sound weird and it makes me frown for a brief second. Realisation dawns, oh they’re Australian!

Hang on a second, I’m an Australian too.

Why does my own accent sound strange on television? Whether it’s Neighbours, some ABC drama, or a Gimmick in a US tv show, our accent just sounds… out of place. It’s funny because I’ve noticed the opposite for Americans, who sound completely normal on TV but weird in person. American is the accent for TV talk and singing. I’m wired to hear American on the TV and Australian in person.

When I hear an Australian, it always causes existential confusion. Do we really sound like that? That (sometimes whiny), laid-back, ocker drawl? Surely I don’t sound like that, I just sound normal.

To test this, I recorded myself and my girlfriend talking. When I played it back, I closed my eyes and imagined the talking was coming from a tv show. We sounded weird too, We ARE Australian! I was shocked by my grand discovery.

It feels weird hearing people around me and realising that we have an accent. It's worrying to think that we’re all walking around sounding weird and we just don’t realise it. An international student once told me we all sound odd, and “not in a good way”. On the other hand, some magazines say the Australian accent is the “sexiest in the world” so I guess some people like it and some people don’t which is fine. Nothing to do about it but accept that we’re normal here but not everywhere.