World’s Loudest Person Breaks 32-Year Guinness Record

Some people have an indoor voice. Others have a Guinness World Record.

We’ve all known someone who could clear a room just by raising their voice. I just didn’t know Guinness World Records actually measured it.

The title now belongs to Joseph McGrail-Bateup, a 58-year-old honorary town crier and air conditioner cleaner from Canberra, Australia. Inside a radio studio, he shouted the word “now” at an ear-splitting 122.4 decibels, enough to break a record that had stood for 32 years. The previous mark of 121.7 decibels belonged to Northern Ireland schoolteacher Annalisa Flanagan, who fittingly yelled the word “quiet” back in 1994.

The town crier connection almost makes this feel inevitable. McGrail-Bateup has spent years projecting his voice in public, so perhaps setting a world record was simply the next logical step. Guinness World Records has been documenting unusual human achievements since the 1950s, and this has to rank among its noisiest entries.

It is hard to appreciate just how loud 122.4 decibels really is. It is comparable to standing near a jet aircraft during takeoff, a roaring chainsaw, or an ambulance siren. For perspective, prolonged exposure to sounds over 120 decibels can damage hearing in seconds. Even heavy metal concerts rarely get that loud. Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor once said their famously thunderous shows peak around 109 decibels, making this record “stupid loud.” At 122.4 decibels, even Judas Priest’s Screaming for Vengeance sounds like easy listening by comparison.

As you can imagine, social media wasted no time filling up with jokes about husbands and wives setting new records during arguments. I will leave those jokes to everyone else. But God rest my mother’s memory, because if anyone could have given Joseph McGrail-Bateup a run for his money, it was her. She never needed a decibel meter to let us know dinner was ready, or that we had five seconds to get home before we were in real trouble.

Come to think of it, that probably explains why my dad started losing his hearing. Between my mother’s voice and two kids running around the house, the poor guy never stood a chance.

What’s the loudest person you’ve ever known? I’m willing to bet almost every family has one.