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Frame from Shepard Tone Plays via YouTube's privacy-enhanced embed

Shepard Tone

J_II
Demos
YouTube
Cited on HN 3 times, 2020–2022, never outright recommended score 0
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026

HN uses it as the reference example of the illusion and as a metaphor for endless escalation.

A five-minute demonstration of the Shepard tone, an audio illusion made from octave-separated tones that makes pitch seem to rise endlessly without ever getting higher.

“(really dizzying to listen to :P)” (HN, 2020)

3 citations · Demos

3 Hacker News comments

From the HN archive; up to 20 kept per video, favoring different commenters. Recommendations first.

@mettamage Oct 2020 Cites it
on HN thread The Worst Decision of My Career
For some reason, your comment reads like a Ted Ed Talk: a nice story with a cool lesson in it :) Fun Shepards: [link] [this video] (really dizzying to listen to :P)
Dizzying Shepard tone example.
@xmprt Dec 2021 Cites it
on HN thread How are Rome's monuments still standing?
I think software will never feel like it's improved because as technology improves and changes, new features will be expected of software and so while some parts of software improve, other new parts will bring down the average quality. It reminds me of Shepard Tones which sound like they are infinitely increasing in pitch which is impossible because the human ear can only hear certain frequencies. ( [this video] )
Analogy for endlessly rising pitch.
@tjr225 Jan 2022 Cites it
on HN thread Eviction notice downloads soar after federal moratorium ends
I've been thinking about this a lot lately. The current state of things appears to be that internet and media/ad revenue AI machine seem to have come together to put us in an sort of shepard tone of fear and impending doom. Pandemic, war, inflation, division, shortages, crypto, every storm has a name, everything is record breaking. I have more to be grateful for than I've ever had before, in spite of all of this somehow- but I can see the inequality growing around me. To me it seems like chaos has gone "viral." I don't know when or how it ends and we come out better for it. [this video]
Metaphor for endless escalating fear and chaos.

Video list and Hacker News comment labels from HackerTube (prompted by @karpathy), released under ODC-By 1.0, built on the open-index/hacker-news archive. Hacker News data is provided by Y Combinator; comments remain the work of their authors. Video titles, channel names and thumbnails belong to their creators and are shown via YouTube. HackerTube Watch is an unofficial edition. Data export of 2026-10-31.

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