The splendor of the coronation of King Charles III. of England last May couldn’t keep up with the anecdote that caught the most attention from TikTok users. A private conversation between the ruler and his wife, Queen Camila, made headlines after Tiktokerin Krystin Kalvoy, who specializes in lip-to-face reading videos, decoded the contents of that chat. In the video you can see the couple exchanging a few words in their carriage just outside Westminster Abbey. According to the Tiktoker version, the monarch expressed his dissatisfaction with having to wait a few minutes in front of the church. Although the accuracy of Kalvoy’s dubbing cannot be guaranteed, the video went viral on the platform, fueling a trend that has been brewing for months on Gen Z’s favorite social network. Videos are proliferating under the name lip-reading, in which they, with the alleged ability to read lips, reveal snippets of private conversations between celebrities.
Always in the media spotlight, Jennifer López and Ben Affleck are some of the involuntary protagonists of these publications. The same happens with model Kendall Jenner’s intimacy with Bad Bunny. Taylor Swift, a regular target of rumors across the pond, hasn’t escaped scrutiny either. During the iHeartRadio music awards ceremony held in Los Angeles last March, the artist chatted informally with singer Phoebe Bridgers. According to Tiktokerin Nina Dellinger, one of the most successful lip readers on the social network, Swift said, “My type of person, it’s good to always have her with me.” A contextual snippet that managed to garner tens of thousands of views and hundreds of comments.
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In general, no big secrets are revealed, just loose phrases that capture the imagination of those who easily plunge into the world of rumors and speculation. It is important to note that the accuracy of labiofacial translations circulating on TikTok is by no means guaranteed. Humorous duplicates aside, sometimes you can put something in the mouth of a celebrity that they didn’t actually say. There is even disagreement as to what is heard in the same video.
Behind these profiles are Tiktokers like Nina Dellinger, who have almost a million followers on the platform. The 26-year-old content creator was born in California and lives in Belize, where she runs a small tour boat business. She admits that she discovered her ability to read lip by accident while in high school. “I wasn’t aware of that at first. I sat in class and looked at people and I realized that I could understand what they were saying, but I didn’t give it any meaning,” she recalls when asked by EL PAÍS. To combat the boredom of the lockdown period, Dellinger downloaded TikTok in 2020 and the miracle was done. “I posted a duet video (split the screen into two videos) of me lip-reading by a content creator who had posted a video where he was talking but had no audio.” She never expected that release to go viral and make her something of an eminence in virtual lipreading. Among her most watched videos is the one in which the singer Olivia Rodrigo talks to the actress Iris Apatow and in which, ignoring prying eyes, she alludes to a third person. “This video has 33.6 million views and 3.1 million likes,” emphasizes the Tiktoker.
But meddling in a conversation that’s too private can have consequences, which is why Dellinger has his own red lines, claiming to have left out anything he deems “too personal,” particularly names, dates, and sensitive information. In fact, she assures that she has never received a complaint from any celebrity involved in her videos: “I always try to be respectful and would never post anything personal or defamatory.” No celebrity has ever complained. I once read the lips of actor Miles Teller in a video and his wife said he was right on several counts. The interest in knowing how celebrities think and talk when they think no one is listening is fueling a trend that’s only just begun and shows how the new era of gossip is unfolding on TikTok.
Ethical and legal dilemmas?
It is worth asking whether the rules of good education, which determine life in society, are being changed in the digital world. Sharpening one’s ear to learn about someone else’s conversation is not usually seen with good eyes, let alone when uttered in all directions. In this sense, compared to the millions of reproductions that accumulate in these videos, there are voices against lip-reading, which is on the rise on TikTok. Some users question this virtual fashion and recall the existence of privacy even among celebrities.
Undoubtedly, the phenomenon raises ethical dilemmas, but the truth is, given the law at hand, it is not so clear that it violates people’s right to privacy. In the case of Spanish law, according to lawyer Ignacio Palomar Ruiz, director of Servilegal Abogados and an expert on the right to honor, what matters is whether the nightly conversation is in a genuine “public interest”. As the expert explains, lip-reading “represents a new trend, for which there is no specific regulation, but which falls within the sphere of the right to honour, personal and family privacy and one’s image, protected by Article 18 of the Constitution”. According to this fundamental right, the context decides whether the law is broken or not.
Considering that famous people are involved, it depends a lot on the place where the conversation takes place and whether the reporting is due to the implementation of the right to information and freedom of expression: “If the images taken and used for lip reading belong to a famous person, whether at a public event (galas, award ceremonies, red carpets…) or in public places (street, terrace, shop, public beach…), this action would be compatible with the right to privacy and would not constitute an unlawful interference , as the protagonists are responsible for ensuring sufficient secrecy so that the environment does not hear or see what they wish to keep in their privacy.” However, he qualifies: “This does not constitute carte blanche to take pictures of celebrities on public roads and publish the corresponding lip reading, because for it not to be an illegal interference it must also be in the public interest.”