The Quiet Part Loud

Submission 30,019

Part of a series on The Simpsons. [View Related Entries]

About

The Quiet Part Loud, also known as The Quiet Part Out Loud, is a slang expression used to describe a person who unintentionally announces the subtext of a public statement.

Origin

The earliest known usage of the phrase comes from a 1995 episode of The Simpsons. On March 5th, 1995, the episode "A Star Is Burns" aired in the United States.^[1] In the episode, the character Krusty the Klown joins the jury of a local film festival. When asked why he's voting for the film by the villainous tycoon Mr. Burns, he says, "Let's just say it moved me…to a bigger house! Oops! I said the loud part quiet and the quiet part loud!" The joke implies that he did not mean to announce that Mr. Burns bribed him for his vote.

On October 13th, 2015, YouTuber Tyler B shared the clip. The post received more than 93,000 views in less than four years (shown below).

One of the earliest known usages of the phase online occurred on November 17th, 2008, when Twitter^[2] user @NilMenten responded to Twitter user @dougkessler with "Dougie honey, I think you just said the quiet part loud" (shown below).

Spread

In the late 2010s, the phrase grew in popularity on Twitter, especially in references to political figures. For example, May 7th, 2017, writer Sarah Kendzior tweeted,^[3] "Eric is my favorite Trump, for he is the dumbest Trump. Always saying the quiet part out loud." The tweet received more than 26,000 likes and 12,000 retweets in less than four years (shown below, left).

However, others began using it in other contexts. For example, on April 29th, 2019, Twitter^[4] user @SerenaSonoma shared a screenshot of a job listing from LinkedIn, which featured "preferably caucasian" in the description. The tweet received more than 41,000 likes and 14,000 retweets in less than two years (shown below, center). Later that year, Twitter^[5] user @emrazz tweeted, "Let’s just say the quiet part out loud: people don’t care that the president is a rapist (they don’t, you know they don’t) because debasing and sexually humiliating women is not particularly shocking, unusual, or unacceptable in our society." The tweet received more than 22,000 likes and 4,900 retweets in less than two years (shown below, right).

On April 29th, 2020, Quora^[6] user Annika Peacock answered the question "What does it mean to 'say the quiet part loud'?" They wrote, "'Say the quiet part loud' means to divulge something readily apparent that was supposed to be secret in public. On social media, the implication is that if you are serving the interests of the wealthy elites, you should not let the commoners know your plans."