AI Summary
5 min readEar Rumblers Assemble
A couple years ago, a producer at the Independent Media Initiative Conference in Austin overheard a group of YouTubers talking about a subreddit he had never heard of: r/earrumblersassemble. The community's description read, "A subreddit for those who can control their tensor tympani muscle." He had no idea what that meant—until he realized he could do it himself. "This is the thing that I can do that I kind of didn't think anybody else could do," he recalls. "I thought I was special."
The tensor tympani is one of the smallest muscles in the human body, located inside the ear. When voluntarily contracted, it produces a rumbling sound—like a drum roll, being underwater, or a rocket lift-off. The problem is that no one else can hear it. Unlike being double-jointed, ear rumbling is a party trick you can never demonstrate. The subreddit exists precisely because it's the only place where people who can do this can find others who believe them.
The Search for a Medical Explanation
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What you'll learn
- 1 (01:31) **The Discovery of a Hidden Superpower** - Hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Severson introduce the subreddit r/earrumblersassemble, a community for people who can voluntarily contract a tiny muscle in their ear to create a rumbling sound.
- 2 (05:24) **The Medical Establishment's Skepticism** - The hosts reveal that a spokesperson from the prestigious Mass Eye and Ear hospital says they have "never seen this clinically," creating a mystery about the phenomenon's legitimacy.
- 3 (06:24) **Finding a Believer: Dr. Anand Devaiah** - Ben and producer Grace Tatter visit Dr. Anand Devaiah, an otolaryngologist at Boston Medical Center, who immediately reveals he is also an "ear rumbler."
- 4 (09:36) **The Mechanics of the Rumble** - Dr. Devaiah explains the biological mechanism behind the phenomenon, describing the contraction of the tensor tympani muscle and its connection to the eardrum.
- 5 (13:10) **A Benign and Unique Trait** - Dr. Devaiah addresses the concerns of the r/earrumblersassemble community, reassuring them that the voluntary ability is not harmful and should be celebrated.
- 6 (16:44) **The Unexplored Potential of Ear Rumblers** - The hosts and Dr. Devaiah discuss the lack of formal research and the potential insights that studying ear rumblers could provide about hearing and human perception.
- 7 (20:03) **A Broader Lesson in Perception** - The conversation expands to consider how the ear rumbling phenomenon is a powerful example of the fundamental challenge of understanding another person's subjective experience.
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Show Notes
Ben can make a roaring, rumbling sound with his ears that no one else can hear. He never thought much about it — whether only he could do this, or whether everyone could do this — until he discovered a subreddit called Ear Rumblers Assemble: a whole community devoted to the mysterious and understudied ability to voluntarily tense one of the miniscule muscles in our ears.
We go into Ben's ear with Dr. Anand Devaiah, and raise questions about how everyone experiences the world differently and the enduring mysteries of the human body.
Show notes:
- r/earrumblersassemble (Reddit)
- Thanks to Reddit, a New Diagnosis Is Bubbling Up Across the Nation (KFF Health News)
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