Music

The BBC’s Attempt To Live-Subtitle Kanye West’s Glastonbury Set Is A Spectacular, Adorable Failure

"HE RAPS."

by Alex McKinnon  29 June 2015

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Kanye West just did his headlining set at the Glastonbury festival, proclaiming himself “the greatest living rock star on the planet,” performing a rendition of Queens’ ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and upsetting music-dads everywhere with his cussing, cussing ways.

While we could listen to dads grizzling about “that Can-ya” ruining real music for everyone until the sun explodes, the real highlight of the set came for those watching it on the BBC with the captions on, because whoever had the job of rapidly transcribing Kanye’s lyrics to the audience was either having a terrible workday or the best workday of their life.

Being hesitant to relay swearwords and racially-charged terms via caption is understandable, but that’s why these handy characters — ***** — exist. “Ligger,” apparently, is a footbridge people use for fishing, which changes the context of a lot of rap music pretty drastically if you think about it.

The increasingly-distressed aunty who does the BBC’s captions eventually gave up entirely:

I don’t know if this one is real, but God, I hope so:

Bev? BEV?! Save me, Bev.

There’s even footage, featuring commentary from an angry chav:

Bad subtitles are life. I live for this shit.