There’s A Mysterious Brain Disease In Canada & The 'Voice Of TikTok' Is Suing The App

Lea: What's up, guys, thank you for tuning in. You're listening to Now On Narcity. I'm Lea.

Cormac: I'm Cormac.

Brit: I'm Brit.

Tyeler: And I'm Tyeler, and welcome back to the digital dive bar.

Cormac: We have an amazing show for you today, or at least we think we do. We haven't recorded it yet, but we're pretty sure that by the end of it, it'll be a great show. We're talking about a mysterious brain disease out of New Brunswick as well as a Canadian woman from Ontario who is suing TikTok for stealing her voice. And we're gonna end the episode with Last Call, where we talk about the stories we're going to be keeping an eye on over the next week until our next episode comes out next Friday.

Brit: All right, we're gonna kick it off with our weekly segment Shot And CHaser. We're gonna fire off a bunch of amazing headlines from this week, you might not believe some of these are real. They've been tearing through our site for good reason. So buckle up. Here we go.

Lea: Police are looking for four teenage girls who allegedly vandalized a skatepark with "Hot Girl Summer" graffiti. "Hot Girl Summer" or "Prison Girl Spring"?

Tyeler: Police caught 150 people partying together in Toronto on the weekend and they seized $13,000 in booze. So if you hear of a massive police party next weekend, you know where the alcohol came from.

Brit: Two B.C. men got arrested for a dramatic road rage incident and they turned out to be brothers. To be fair, their mom did take away their PS5.

Cormac: I have a brother and this rings true. That hurts a little. that could have been me. Justin Bieber has announced he will be performing in Montreal in Spring 2022. So I guess COVID-19 will end if we just Belieb hard enough.

Brit: That's not an easy word to say. Kudos. A new word has emerged on TikTok and it is called "Cheugy." Turns out Canadians are googling it frantically, according to Google stats. But if you need to Google it, you might just be a big old Cheug.

Tyeler: Okay, Brit. What does "Cheugy" mean?

Brit: People have varying but often quite similar opinions on what is cheugy. And I think it's the Gen Z form of what we would have called basic. If you think about probably what your Pinterest board looked like in university — so big old blanket scarves, a sign that would say something like, "but first coffee." The ultimate cheug is a Disney adult.

Cormac: Oh, cheugy. Yep.

Brit: If you're posting memes that have a minion in it: cheugy. If you're a man, don't worry, it's a gender-neutral term: cargo shorts, like those classic flip flops that are beige.

Lea: Big yikes.

Brit: But many Millennials are cheugy and the Google Trends really show it, because not only do they not know what it means, but they slot so swiftly into these categories.

Cormac: Tread lightly but not with beige flip-flops.

Brit: Something that's heavy on my mind this weekend that I cannot stop thinking about is this really mysterious brain disease that's happening in New Brunswick. Have you guys heard about this at all?

Tyeler: Yes.

Cormac: Yeah. I mean, when I saw this story and this headline, I had to click in. I mean, the headline is "New Brunswick is tracking 48 cases of a mysterious brain disease with terrifying symptoms." I mean, that's one of the best — one of the most interesting Narcity headlines I've ever seen on the site.

Brit: I was shocked. I was shocked to start hearing about it in conversation. But the strangest thing to me is that it's bumped around the periphery of my mind and my friend group and the conversations I'm having for a little while now, but these conversations are becoming more frequent. So I had to learn more. And when I did, what I found out is that the government in New Brunswick is currently watching 48 cases of what they're calling a Neurological Syndrome of Unknown Cause. Because it is absolutely stumping neurologists, they have no idea where it's coming from. And the symptoms are quite scary. It's just it's all very mysterious. And personally, I think if COVID wasn't around, this is gonna be like, this would be all we're talking about.

Tyeler: So Britt, what are the symptoms?

Brit: Okay, so the symptoms have a pretty wide range, which probably is why things are so inconclusive, but patients are exhibiting a lot of these same symptoms, which comes down to issues with memory, muscle spasms, difficulty walking, some pretty intense hallucinations, a lot of significant weight loss. And here's the one that really stood out to me. It sounds made up honestly, it's just so wild. But people are experiencing something called Capgras Delusion, which is believing that one person — a loved one of yours — has been replaced by an imposter Oh my gosh.

Tyeler: So people are going home to their families, and they're looking at someone that they live with or their parents. And they're like, "I don't know you. Who are you?"

Brit: Yes. I read an example in BBC, where a wife got into bed with her husband. And he said, "Get out of here. I'm married." kind of thing.

Tyeler: Gosh,

Brit: and he was saying, "You're not the real one." So it's not like an "I don't recognize you" situation. But it's an "I believe you've been replaced" — like someone else is an imposter.

Lea: Wow, strange.

Cormac: It's been the, as far as I know, the New Brunswick authorities believe there were six deaths associated with the Neurological Syndrome of Unknown Cause. But my first question was timeline. I mean, I was wondering, like, when did they first notice symptoms? When did this sort of first come on the map?

Lea: Well, actually, the government of New Brunswick has said that symptoms started in 2018, 2019 or 2020, for the majority of the cases, and there was only one case — that they identified in 2020 — who was found to experience symptoms in 2013. So it dates as far back all the way back then… yeah, but it's only starting to be more widespread now. And in March of this year, the government drafted a memo and sent them to the doctors in New Brunswick, or any health care provider with patients, to inform them that if they had a patient who experienced or exhibited any one of the symptoms that Brit just mentioned, to call the Public Health Department of New Brunswick, because they don't know how widespread this is.

Tyeler: So it's like on people's radar, right, like people are watching for it. I mean, 48 people is a lot of people, are they noticing a trend in patients like age, gender? Do we know?

Lea: Well, actually, according to the New Brunswick government, it's been affecting men and women equally. They specify female and male as 50 and 50. So fairly equal. For the age, it's actually just widespread. They don't — they haven't pinpointed a specific age group. Right now, they say the age range for this unknown neurological disorder is 18 to 85 years old.

Tyeler: So I actually read an article by CBC. And there are researchers at UBC who are looking into this, and they're studying cyanobacteria, which is blue-green algae, and this, like, popped up way back in 2018. It killed a few dogs between 2018 and 2019. So they're looking into that, and they're looking into something else called domoic acid, and that could be linked to shellfish. So they're definitely on it. But we still don't know, we still don't know where this is coming from.

Brit: It's interesting, too, because it is, I mean, these are researchers at UBC that you're talking about, Tye. And so it's clearly — this is on the opposite coast of Canada, like, people are aware of it,

Lea: Right.

Tyeler: Yeah, definitely.

Brit: But it's not hitting outside of provincial borders, which is just, it's just mind-boggling. Like, I feel like immediately anything you could think of would be ruled out. And Lea was saying that they thought for a sec, that it was related to cataract surgery or something?

Lea: They thought that in January 2019 and July 2019, they had identified a potential cluster of three disease cases that were possibly, could be related to cataract surgery, but in the end, they found that it was inconclusive, and that the cases were not related. So it's really all up in the air at this point.

Cormac: It's a good question, Brit, though, would we be talking about this more if COVID-19 wasn't a thing? Or do we think we're more keyed into epidemics and health concerns now that we have been living under one for a year?

Brit: Kay, that's such a good point. And I feel like I did not know the name of my local health authority. Miss Dr. Deena Hinshaw, nor did I know, Miss Dr. Bonnie Henry in B.C., any of these folks, I was not clued into public health, anything. So good point. Are we, like, hyper-aware now? Or I don't — sheer numbers, nearly 50 cases is a ton. And I think I'd be — I think that it would definitely be rocking the boat a bit more. But the strangest thing to me is that these cases are not — it's not a contagion situation. Like they're not directly related. It's not — we say cluster, but it's not a group of people who went to a party or work in the same facility, right? Like we're kind of experiencing now with clusters or outbreaks. Like they're, they're kind of unrelated, but they're all in the same province. It's just so confusing.

Cormac; Yeah, I mean, it will be interesting, I think, from a journalist perspective to see if more of these types of cases even with fewer people — like you said, Brit, 50 is a lot. When we see the interesting neurological or respiratory illnesses, whether it's like three, four or five, six people. Is this going to be reported on more? Are people going to be more interested because we've all gone through this collective trauma of a year of a pandemic?

Tyeler: Yeah, I think — I'm speaking for myself. I'm like, hyper-aware at this point like I'm, I'm so hyper-aware of what's happening and this article definitely caught my attention for that reason, and I think people are gonna want to be informed on what's going on in public health.

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TikTok Text-To-Speech Voice: Hello. I'm one of the most recognizable voices on the internet right now. And you're listening to Now On Narcity.

Cormac: Have you guys ever heard of Beverly Standing?

Lea: No.

Tyeler: No, who's that?

Cormac: I had not. But I had heard her. Just as you guys may not know who Beverly Standing is — you may not have heard of her, you have definitely heard her. For the listeners to the podcast, you guys just heard her. She was the little text-to-speech voice we played at the beginning of the segment, and she's the text-to-speech voice all over TikTok. I mean, probably I'm assuming billions of TikToks at this point. She is sort of the default, go-to text-to-speech woman on there. And she's ubiquitous. Her voice is ubiquitous. But as it turns out, she's actually sueing TikTok. She's in the middle of suing TikTok for what she says is unauthorized use of her voice.

Tyeler: Wait. So what do you mean? What does that mean? Like what is she actually sueing them for?

Cormac: There really is a voice actor out of Ontario, Canada. And she was contracted by the Institute of Acoustics to do some work a couple of years ago. And this work she was doing was voice acting work that was intended to be made for text-to-speech. So, like, you hear it on TikTok, you write something you hear that little automated kind of Siri-style voice. But she didn't authorize for TikTok to use it. So when she found out that that was her voice being used on TikTok. She was shocked, and she had no clue. And can you imagine? It's so widespread. She had no idea that it was her.

Tyeler: Can you imagine her just downloading TikTok, she opens up the app voices and she's scrolling and she's like, "that sounds familiar." And she's scrolling through and it's her being like, like literally her voice talking back to her. Imagine how trippy that would be.

Lea: Think of what position she is in where she's not even receiving any money from the millions of TikToks that have been using her voice.

Tyeler: Well, especially when you're talking about creators that are making money off those TikToks.

Brit: Right, right.

Tyeler: That's wild.

Lea: So they're making money off of her and she is not receiving anything in return, not even credit for her own voice which they are using on their videos. There's no — her name has not been anywhere, obviously on TikTok. Nobody knows who that voice comes from.

Cormac: So Tye, have we heard from TikTok on this? Have they made sort of any defense or any refutes of the claims from Miss Standing?

Tyeler: Yes and no. So we actually reached out to TikTok for a comment when we wrote this story on Narcity, and we didn't hear back. But they did respond to the National Post. A TikTok spokesperson told them that the company does not comment on ongoing litigation.

Cormac: Okay.

Tyeler: And that's all she wrote.

Cormac: So there's not — I mean, we haven't heard a lot from TikTok here. Obviously, there's no information from TikTok within the court documents because they were just filed by Beverley Standing and you know, TikTok did not comment within the court documents. There's a lot of information out there in regards to copyright, and in regards to voice copyright. In the BBC, an intellectual property and technology expert talks a little bit about — voice artists do have copyright. Like their performances are protected by copyright. But in commercial situations, copyright is often assigned to another business, but they still retain moral rights, which should ensure that they're recognized as a person performing. But I think when it comes down to it, I mean, it's going to, I think the nuts and bolts of this issue is in the contract, and we don't have access to the contract. None of us have seen it. So I think, you know, however, this case gets resolved, and we'll keep an eye on it. It's most likely going to come down to what was in that original contract between Miss Standing and the Institute of Acoustics.

Tyeler: Definitely. We'll see.

Brit: Yes, and, and this is fresh, like so on May 5, she filed the complaint against ByteDance, which is the parent company of TikTok. And yeah, she's just saying that, of course, she did not give permission and she's not receiving compensation. But it's not — it's not just compensation, like it's permission and property, at the end of the day.

Cormac: She's also taking an issue with the fact that — and this is quoted from the court documents we're talking about here that she filed, "The TikTok user is able to determine what words are spoken in plaintiff's voice and some videos depicting plaintiff's voice have involved foul and offensive language." So when she's doing a voiceover project, I mean, I'm assuming she knows the script, she has consented to what she's saying, but now, TikTok has taken it — we are going to see more and more of this, I guarantee it, because we are as a culture, I feel like as an internet culture, we are so used to just like, "Oh, that was funny. I'm going to take that and I'm going to use that in a separate joke." But that's just the way memes works. That's just the way jokes work at this point. You know, you see a tweet, that's funny, you're going to screenshot it, and you're going to use it to tweet out another joke that's unrelated. But now someone has an association because they've seen the original joke, too. But at what point does it become, you've actually taken this unlawfully, and I didn't consent to it, and you're making money off it and now I deserve something for that. I think it's a really interesting line to be drawn in the sand.

Tyeler: So speaking of voices on TikTok, Lisa at Narcity wrote an article and she actually spoke with a dude named Stephen Kalyn, who is the man behind hilarious Trudeau impressions on TikTok, let's run a quick clip.

Stephen (as Trudeau): First things first, I am not a medical expert. But if you want to wear a mask that is okay. It can help prevent breathing and or, uh, or speaking moistly … sweet Mary Mother of God, did I just say moistly?

All: Laughing.

Brit: That's actually shockingly accurate though.

Lea: Well, Stephen is pretty good. I'm not gonna lie, but you know what? Quebec's very own Sam Paradis gives him a real run for his money. He does Premier François Legault impressions, he does Justin Trudeau impressions, and they are so spot on, guys. This guy's going viral. We interviewed him on MTL Blog. I just talked to him today to ask if we can use this clip in our podcast so let me know what you think guys.

Sam (As Legault, in French): Hello Justin, listen, for Christmas, I don't know what else to do to make people respect [social] distancing. Do you have an idea?

Sam (As Trudeau, in French): Listen, François. I know it's not easy, but I found a solution for Canadians. We'll eat in separate rooms. Me and Sophie, we'll be in the living room. Grandma will be in the bathroom. And the kids will eat in the shed.

Tyeler: Okay, that is so accurate.

Brit: Oh my goodness! Both of them.

Tyeler: It's like the cadence of his speech when he's impersonating Trudeau. It's, like, so accurate.

Cormac: That's brilliant.

Lea: So we want to know, who did it better? You guys can let us know in the comments, send us an email, tweet at Narcity Canada. Who did the impression better?

Cormac: You guys — well, you guys haven't heard my Justin Trudeau impression.

Brit and Tyeler: Let's hear it!

Cormac: Aaand cut to music.

Tyeler: It's time for —

All together: Last call.

Cormac: This is the segment where we talk about stories we're keeping an eye on over the next few weeks. Lea, what are you, what are you looking for?

Lea: Well, Red Dress Day just passed on May 5. If you don't know what Red Dress Day is, it is a day of healing for victims and families who are affected by the issue of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Two-Spirit people. And the city of Montreal, along with the Native Women's Shelter of Montreal, has created a tip line for missing and murdered Indigenous women, for anybody that may have any information or literally anything that can help the city and police forces find these missing and murdered Indigenous women. So yeah, they just implemented it, and it's going to be open for the next six weeks. But everybody obviously hopes that it will run for much longer than that.

Cormac: Mmhmm, absolutely. Brit, what about you?

Brit: So May long weekend is coming up. Um, this is normally a joyous time for people. Come one, come all. I think in Ontario, you guys say "May Two Four."

Tyeler: Yeah, we sure do.

Brit: We say "May Long" in Alberta here. And things are pretty grim, particularly in Alberta. We're leading the country in per capita cases. We've just got a whole new boatload of restrictions. And so I'm just curious, like, weather is nice, people have COVID fatigue, as we know, and we're seeing a lot of rule-breaking. So I just want to see not only how are things going to play out with these restrictions over the long weekends and what are the ramifications are going to be, but following those, what are restrictions going to look like? Because B.C. is set to lift their current circuit-breaker restrictions right after May Long. So I'm just dying to know how things are gonna shake out, if we're gonna see more of those big party headlines, or, or what it's gonna look like. I'm at the edge of my seat here. Let's see. May long weekend, May Two Four, what's it going to be? Cormac, how are you feeling? What are you looking forward to?

Cormac: We've started looking towards the summer in terms of what's filming in Toronto. A big series that came out last week in Jupiter's Legacy was filmed in Toronto. So I wrote a story about that. There's lots of, like, little kind of hidden gems and not-so-hidden gems for people from Toronto to check out. They'll definitely recognize some locations. But there's also lots of stuff filming later on this summer that I'm particularly excited about. We wrote an article — Patrick on the Toronto desk wrote an article about celebs that you can probably or you might be able to see in Toronto in Ontario this summer. We've got Karl Urban, who's going to be around filming The Boys. Elliot Page, obviously, with Umbrella Academy. Mila Kunis is apparently going to be in town filming an adaptation of a novel called Luckiest Girl Alive.

Lea: Girl crush.

Cormac: And of course, everybody's favourite: Zac Efron.

Tyeler: Oh, baby.

Cormac: In Hamilton this summer, working on his movie Firestarter. So if you ever needed a reason to go to Hamilton…

Tyeler: I'd make the commute.

Cormac: Tye, what stories are piquing your interest for the next little while?

Tyeler: Well, it's playoff season baby. NHL playoffs are kicking off this Saturday. Bruins vs Capitals. And the Leafs, in a shocking turn of events, number one seed.

Cormac: Yep, they've had a good season!

Tyeler: So I'm super excited to see how this playoff season will play out. The four Canadian teams this year — if you're not in the know — are the Leafs, the Oilers, the Jets and the Habs. Boo.

Lea: Go Habs go. Don't even!

Tyeler: I'm really excited to see how the Leafs play this year.

Lea: Put some respect on the Habs.

Tyeler: We're gonna lose listeners from that comment.

Lea: No, we won't! Oh my god, are you kidding? Iconic, most iconic team in the NHL.

Tyeler: Okay, alright!

Lea: Don't even start with me. I'm a die-hard sports fan. I don't know if you guys knew that.

Cormac: Whether you are listening to this at an NHL rink or you have taken the transcription, popped it into your TikTok text-to-speech, and are listening to somebody else deliver this podcast, thank you for sticking with us. Thanks for tuning in this week. We'll have another episode for you next Friday. I'm Cormac.

Lea: I'm Lea.

Brit: I'm Brit.

Tyeler: I'm Tyeler, and we'll see you at the digital dive bar next week.