Bad Lip Reading (also known as BLR) is a popular YouTube channel that spoofs music videos and politicians by overdubbing humorous vocal work that matches the lip movements of the targets. Rolling Stone described the channel as "the breakout hit" of the 2012 US presidential election cycle.[1]
The "Bad Lip Reader" behind the channel is an anonymous Texas-based music and video producer.[1] The first Bad Lip Reading video released was a spoof of Rebecca Black's song "Friday", titled "Gang Fight". New music and lyrics were matched to Black's video to make it appear as though she were singing about gang warfare. The "Gang Fight" YouTube video, released in March 2011, earned BLR a million hits and thousands of subscribers.[1]
More spoof videos followed, including interpretations of The Black Eyed Peas' "Boom Boom Pow" (a viral video[2] called "Everybody Poops"), Taylor Swift's "Our Song" and Michael Bublé's "Haven't Met You Yet".[1] The latter was transformed into the "electronica inspired" "Russian Unicorn",[1] which Bublé himself praised as his "new favorite song"[3] and "one of the coolest things I've ever seen."[4]
In September 2011, BLR branched out from pop singers to politicians with a "bad lip-reading" of Texas governor and US Presidential hopeful Rick Perry. BLR replaced clips of Perry with invented dialogue matched to his lip movements, including "what's good is getting these goats for our computer industry"[5] and "I'm bored by famine. I cannot wait for a medieval cookie, a Cinnabon, hot yellow Kool Aid, and save a pretzel for the gas jets!"[1] Following the Perry spoof, BLR has released bad lip-readings of President Obama[5] and Republican presidential candidates Michele Bachmann[6], Mitt Romney, Herman Cain, and Ron Paul.
In a Rolling Stone interview, the producer behind the Bad Lip Reading videos said that he first encountered the technique of lip reading when his mother, then in her 40s, lost her hearing due to unknown causes. While she excelled at lip reading, he was unable to pick up the skill despite trying: "I was terrible at it."[1]