Shadowing Practice: Travis Scott's Body Language In His Apology Leaves Us Wanting Something Else | Why? - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Well hey there idiots, welcome back to Observe.
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In today's video we're going to be analyzing the non-verbal communication of Travis Scott during his apology for an incident
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that happened here recently last Friday at a festival that Travis wasn't in charge of.
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More on that in a second.
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Let's go ahead and run the intro.
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Rapper and producer Travis Scott was the organizer of the Astroworld Festival in Houston, Texas.
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For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about or referring to here, at least eight people were killed at a festival while Travis Scott was on stage.
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Roughly 50,000 people were attending the event when a massive crowd surge occurred around 9 p.m.
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Central Time.
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Officials stated that the crowd, for whatever reason, began to push and surge forward to the front of the stage, which caused people in front to be compressed.
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They were unable to escape the situation.
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Along with the fatalities, there were scores of individuals that were injured, according to the Houston Fire Chief.
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Coupled with the fatalities and injuries, many people suffered the loss of consciousness, strokes, and more negative side effects.
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While the investigation into what specifically caused the surge and what kept people from escaping is ongoing,
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the Houston police chief stated that one security officer claimed
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that he was struck in the neck during the event Friday night while attempting to restrain a concert goer.
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The chief said that according to the medical staff that was present and treated him that night, that he was reaching out to restrain a citizen to grab one,
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and he felt a prick in his neck.
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When he was being examined, he fell unconscious.
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He was then revived by the medical personnel, and they noticed a prick, a mark, in his neck, similar to what you would get if you had received an injection of sorts.
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While this could have a portion to play in the tragedy itself, people are more interested in Travis Scott's behavior during a short apology that he released recently.
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This brings us to this video.
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He, like I said, released a brief video on Instagram addressing the catastrophe and expressing his devastation,
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but people aren't so sure that they're buying it, so that's what we're going to go ahead and look at today.
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Now, before we look at the actual video itself, I want to let you know I spent some time going
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through some other footage to collect a rough baseline of how Travis Scott behaves non-verbally in various situations.
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And from what I can understand, he emotes fairly well and fluidly with his body.
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And then also, I will say that his eyes stay fairly hooded.
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That has popped up regularly.
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But as far as the emotive state as the rest of his face, it seems to do so rather normally if a little subdued.
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Now, let's go ahead and take a look at this and we'll start breaking it down, but we'll watch all the way through it and then analyze it after that.
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So let's go.
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I just want to send out prayers to the to the ones that was lost last night.
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We're actually working right now to identify the families so we can help assist them through this tough time.
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You know my fans, my fans like, my fans really mean the world to me
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and I always just really want to leave them with a positive experience
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and anytime I can make out you know anything that's going on you know you know I stop the show
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and you know help them get the help they need you
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know um I could just never imagine the severity of the
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situation we've been working closely we've been working closely with everyone
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to just try to get to the bottom of this the
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city of Houston HPD fire department you know everyone to you know help us help us figure this out
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so if you
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if you have any information um you know please just contact
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your local authorities um everybody continue to just keep your prayers
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i mean i'm i'm honestly just devastated and i could never imagine anything like this just happening
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i'm gonna do everything i can to keep you guys updated and just keep you guys informed of what's going on.
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Love you all.
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Okay.
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So that's the full clip itself.
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Now we're gonna go back through it and start breaking it down.
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Before I start breaking it down, some things that might have stuck out to you just as an understanding of the context of this specific video specific video,
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it seems as though Travis is heavily altered mentally right now.
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Not sure as to what he's altered on, but it does seem as though he has a substantial amount
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of psychological disconnect from the moment he's in to where he's actually processing.
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And this is coming out largely through his sluggish speaking.
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Some of his nonverbal communication is sluggish, but then he also appears overtly tired as well with an overtly hooded gaze on top of all of that.
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So that's something that I want to take into consideration is
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that he could very well be on some form of substance that is altering his psychological and therefore nonverbal state.
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So that's going to be taken into consideration with his baseline.
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Things might be more subdued as that seems to be the characteristic of whatever is the alteration is a subduing style.
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So we're going to be seeing less positive spikes more likely.
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And if we do, then we'll have to keep our eye out to see if they're genuine, if they're forced, and just more or less go forward considering all of the information that we have now.
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So let's go ahead and just start the entire video over here.
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I just want to send out prayers to the ones that was lost last night.
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All right, and right off the bat, we're going to start seeing some things pop up that are considered red flags,
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and even considering the context of his possibly altered state are still considered red flags.
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So he's going to start using the word just a lot, and this just word is a pleading word.
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He's trying to show that above everything else, he just does this, or he's just feeling this, or he just wanted to communicate this, and it's this desperation.
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It's a pleading thing.
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Many people will do this even unintentionally to be able to garnish sympathy.
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It shows that you're at your limits and you just want to do dot, dot, dot.
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So he uses that in there regularly, but I don't think that this is something that's intentionally done on his part.
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It might even be done more subconsciously.
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Along with that, we're going to start seeing some very stilted and desynchronized nonverbal communication.
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This massaging of the forehead up here, both in this style and this style that he has here, stays consistently throughout.
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However, it's not in relation to specific emotional points like you would expect it to if it were reflecting an emotional state.
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It's there regardless and at odd times.
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Sprinkle the end with that, he will also start having some sighs that are in there as well.
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Now, these are desynchronized both from his words and the other nonverbal communication that he does.
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He'll sigh and then he'll look and then he'll speak and then he'll do this.
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And what that is letting us know is
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that this is somebody who is processing all of these different movements and trying to present them as if they were genuine.
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AKA, this is fake.
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This is a forced emotion that he's presenting right now.
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Now, the question is, is that because of his altered state or is that because he genuinely doesn't feel it?
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Not really able to say quite yet, but what we're seeing so far is forced.
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Let's continue.
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We're actually working right now to identify the families so we can help assist them through this tough time.
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You know, my fans, my fans, like, my fans really mean the world.
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So you can hear that he's having some difficulty even talking.
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It sounds as if he's trying to, like, I don't know.
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For lack of a better term, he sounds like he's tired and like he doesn't want to be doing this.
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It's like the, and I don't know, you know, exasperated, I think is the word that I'm looking for.
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He feels exasperated and he is displaying that quite regularly, even with that holding and forcing of the tone with the force behind the words,
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releasing the sigh as well.
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It's an exasperated sigh.
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It's not one that's usually related to grief or sadness.
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It's more related to like something along frustration or like I said, exasperation.
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So that doesn't really fit in there.
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But I mean, so far, everything has been completely forced.
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So that makes sense contextually as well, that that wouldn't fit in either.
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So let's continue.
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I mean, and I always just really want to leave them with a positive experience.
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And anytime I can make out, you know, anything that's going on, you know, I stop the show and, you know, help.
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This part's bad.
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So he starts saying that he always wants to leave his fans with a positive show.
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And yes, he probably wants to believe that, but one, no, it's, there's always more to it than just that.
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But that's neither here nor there.
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We're not talking about that.
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Where it gets more important is that where he's talking about
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if he ever sees anything that's going on and he starts having a lot of verbal difficulty.
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He has some you knows, some halting in there.
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That means that something psychologically is processing extra here.
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Otherwise, why would he be suddenly having trouble talking where he was having more ease at it earlier?
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I won't say he was doing a great job earlier because he wasn't.
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But at this part, it is a negative spike in his verbal pattern.
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So he starts having these tells come up.
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And then along with that, he has a little bit of a no shake in there
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as well as he's speaking about seeing these things going on and that he would immediately speak up in that.
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And then he also has a very prolonged blank.
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Now, we have talked at length about the various meanings behind the eye blocking expression or gesture, however you want to say it.
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So eye blocking can mean that you are separating yourself from a negative stimulant in some realm.
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It could be an extended blink.
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It could be actually touching your eyes.
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It could be even hooding your eyes more so than normal.
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Any of those could be seen as eye blocking.
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Now, if you're watching this and you're thinking, well, I sometimes have my eyes hooded just because I'm tired
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or I blink really long because my eyes hurt or something along those lines, you're absolutely right.
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And that's where this gets muddy is that an eye block can mean
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that they're forcing or they're deceiving it can mean that, but it doesn't mean it always.
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There are so many exceptions.
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Now, in this instance, what makes this more of an anomaly is
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that it's sticking out oddly from the rest of his nonverbal communication around it.
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So before that, he does maintain his eye contact kind of with the lens more or less, but he also keeps his eyes open more or less.
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So this area is a spike in
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that he now has shut his eyes off completely for a very extended amount of time
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and it doesn't show up anywhere else except for here.
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Now the question is, why does it show up around here where he's saying, I will do anything.
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If I ever see anything going on, then I'll do anything I need to make sure it's stopped and safe and so on and so forth.
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Why does that sort of tell come up here?
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Well, we have to ask that question and keep it in mind and consider any other context.
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Now there have been rumors and people have said that he really didn't have any desire to stop the show.
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And I haven't been able to see any footage myself of the incident
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but based off of this and seeing this here
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that would actually make sense just based off of the non-verbal communication stuff
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that we've seen let's continue on now let them get the
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help they need you know um i could just never imagine
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the severity of the situation we've been working closely we've been
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working closely with everyone to just try to get to the
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bottom of this city houston hbd fire department you know everyone
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to you know help us help us figure this out so
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if you if you have any information
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so during this time he now is holding his eyes shut for a much longer time again
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so we have to keep
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that in mind with context of the earlier moment where he did display
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that extremely long eye blink
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so now perhaps maybe that's not as much of an anomaly since we have two
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but this one is still centered around some pretty intense situations
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while they're talking about who they're working with and what all is going on behind the scenes.
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So just because we have this new one doesn't mean that this one isn't specifically centered around a trigger, but it is something that we need to look at more.
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But something that I will note here is what people are noticing is
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that Travis seems to be doing his best to communicate all of the emotions that this instance demands, and he's doing so poorly.
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He's forgetting facets of it, or he's not displaying facets of it.
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So right now he's displaying the exhaustion, the exasperation, and the frustration that might go into that, but he's not displaying any of the grief or sadness that's going into this.
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That's where people are really turned off is that he is fully emoting, but he's not showing that he's emoting the emotions
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that people would want to see from somebody who was responsible for such a thing.
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So there's a there's a pretty big issue in the public side with this
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and we're kind of seeing why that is non-verbally.
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Let's continue watching the video.
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Um you know please just contact your local authorities.
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Um everybody continue to just keep your prayers.
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I mean I'm honestly just devastated
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and I could never imagine anything like this just this is compensating
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so a few things actually non-verbally speaking real quick here he's regularly licking his lips
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and this is an agitation tell this can also indicate just a dry mouth
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which also might fall into the fact
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that he is altered mentally in some way we don't know how that's affecting him physically as well
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so that is something that is popping up either it's agitation
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or it has some physical reason behind it
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or it's a coupling of those but then along with
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that now he starts doing some verbal packing that lets me know that he's compensating in this area.
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He uses some words like nevers and always, and I could just never imagine anything like this happening like this.
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And it just starts adding more and more and more to it.
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And that makes it less sincere because he's now compensating in this area.
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And so that it's not really a hard, fast rule.
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I just don't see that as more convincing in that area, but we'll continue watching it.
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And And then we'll kind of talk at the very, very end.
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Happening.
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I'm going to do everything I can to keep you guys updated.
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Just keep you guys informed of what's going on.
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Love you all.
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Okay.
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Love you all.
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A little contempt there at the very, very end.
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That's just his polite way of signing off.
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So the apology.
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Indeed.
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I don't...
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Hmm.
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This was pretty brief, right?
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This is a short video.
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So let's look at just what we saw non-verbally speaking, then we'll talk about the opinion side of things.
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So throughout it, we saw a characterization non-verbally of just subdued body language, and this is probably done through an alteration of a psychology, likely through substance.
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that's just my kind of conclusion here.
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I'm not sure about that.
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I mean, I don't, I haven't had any blood work from him or anything like that, so this is just me looking at him.
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But then considering that context and seeing what spikes we saw from there
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and which ones we didn't see and just making sure that we've looked at all of the information,
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it seems as though he was emoting in negative ways towards the incident itself,
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but not in the realms of grief or sadness, which is what people would hope to see but more so in the frustration or exhaustion side of things.
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From what I can understand, he's not displaying sadness overtly but more so frustration.
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And while this isn't enough to say that he's not feeling sad or he's not feeling sorry, I can say that at this point while he's releasing this video,
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sadness and grief are not at the top of his priority list emotionally.
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It's frustration, exasperation, and then also just trying to maintain a sense of being human while being altered as he is here.
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So that's what we're seeing here.
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That's why you're so frustrated by this
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and yes this this apology does not hold any light to the atrocity that happened there.
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That's terrible.
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That's really really terrible to have that sort of thing happen.
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Everybody rags on things like TanaCon for being really hot and
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that was terrible as well and people went to the hospital
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but to have eight deaths at least eight deaths and numerous others injured and it's terrible and this response doesn't cut it.
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So take this or leave it as you will.
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I hope you enjoyed this.
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I hope you enjoyed the breaking down of the nonverbal communication.
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In an instance like this, if you see somebody who is trying to manipulate you, it could come out in areas like desynchronization if they're trying to show that they're super sad,
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but you notice and it feels off
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because say they're they're gesturing differently than their words or their breathing isn't falling in line and it feels desynchronized.
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Just keep your eye out.
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Make sure that you're not being manipulated by somebody or somebody's trying to pull the wool over your eyes.
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That's all that I'm going to go ahead and have for the day.
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My name is Logan and you have been oh
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so awesome as you always are and I will see you in the next video.
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Cheers guys!
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Why Practice Speaking with This Video?
This video offers a unique chance to practice real-world English communication. The speaker uses conversational tone, natural pauses, and emotional expression—key for mastering everyday speech. Analyzing Travis Scott's apology also exposes you to high-stakes communication, where clarity and empathy matter. Use it for shadowing practice to improve fluency and intonation; mimic the speaker's rhythm to sound more natural. Platforms like shadowspeaks or a shadowing site can help you compare your delivery, making this video a powerful tool for learning English with YouTube.
Grammar & Expressions in Context
- "We're actually working right now to identify...": The present continuous tense ("are working") shows ongoing action. Useful for describing current efforts, e.g., "I'm studying to improve my English pronunciation."
- "anytime I can make out anything that's going on...": "Make out" means to understand. This phrasal verb is common in casual speech—try "I can't make out what he's saying" in practice.
- "I could never imagine the severity...": "Could" here expresses impossibility in the past. Use it to emphasize surprise: "She could never imagine winning the prize."
Common Pronunciation Traps
Watch for these tricky sounds:
- "devastated": The "a" in "dev" is short (like "bed"), not long. Avoid over-pronouncing it as "dee-vah-stated."
- "catastrophe": Stress the second syllable ("ca-TAS-tro-fee"), not the first. Many learners misplace the stress here.
- Contractions: The speaker uses "you know" and "um" frequently—these filler words are natural in speech but can trip up learners. Practice saying them smoothly to sound more conversational.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | we've been working |
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | if we do, then we'll have |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has popped · has been · have talked |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | were killed · be compressed · were injured |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.