After well over a decade in the spotlight, Community star Gillian Jacobs surely must get tired of people mangling her first name, which is pronounced with a hard G — as in “gall.” Which is exactly what After Midnight’s closed captioning system, or the people behind it, exhibited when Jacobs introduced herself on Monday night’s show.
After a brief introduction from After Midnight host Taylor Tomlinson, Jacobs greeted the crowd with a quick primer on exactly how to pronounce her name: “Yes, I’m Gillian Jacobs,” she said. “That’s hard G, soft J, but the vibe is just right.”
It was an innocuous enough statement… unless you were reading the closed captions.
As first spotted by one eagle-eyed Redditor who was able to snap a quick pic, the vibe may have seemed a bit more salacious if you weren’t actually listening to Jacobs speak.
Below is a clip showing what aired on CBS and as of this writing is still streaming on Paramount+:
After Midnight experienced a closed captioning fail of epic —and X-Rated—proportions earlier this week. (Clip below as aired on CBS and as of this writing still on Paramount+.) Full story: https://t.co/0T7vCH3y9n pic.twitter.com/n3aAqR0wFI
— LateNighter (@latenightercom) April 25, 2024
The translation error — or sabotage, depending on how your mind works — brings to mind another hard G word: “self-gratification.” And a phrase: “giving yourself a hand.”
Some viewers understandably wondered if someone in charge of the closed captioning may have just been having a little bit of fun with their job—the show is titled After Midnight, after all.
