Okay, to be completely honest, I have no idea what a chud is. But that doesn't mean I haven't heard someone being called one. To be clear, it wasn't even said in a mean way — most usages of this word seem to be banter, anyway. Despite the playful nature, though, he was called this word because of how he spoke — a way that many participants in speech and debate often do, myself included at times.

Speech and debate teaches us a lot. We learn how to project our voices loudly and clearly. We learn how to deliver our arguments and prove our side in a coherent manner. We learn how to find our advocacy and speak up for what truly matters to us. These are all invaluable skills that we should be proud to possess and have earned through our perseverance in this activity. However, those very same skills can be actively harmful when used at the wrong time, in the wrong place, and in the wrong manner.

Speech and debate is supposed to teach us how to communicate — yet in situations outside of competition, those very skills are sometimes hindering our ability to do so.

Chuddy Teamwork

Take schoolwork and collaboration, for example. School projects are built around teamwork and the sharing of ideas. But when debate kids take over, a group project stops being a group project and turns into a crossfire. The judge isn't there, but the same intensity in projection, defensiveness, and stubbornness still is — often at the cost of everyone else in the group who just wants to share an idea without getting rebutted for three minutes straight.

This isn't a small issue. Collaboration is one of the most cited skills employers look for in young professionals. If we're conditioned to treat every disagreement like a round we have to win, we're undercutting one of the most valuable transferable benefits that debate is supposed to provide.

The "Chud Voice"

Beyond collaboration, there are real social costs to the way many debaters speak. The "debate voice" is incredibly common — among novices and varsity members alike. The artificial lowering of a person's voice, extreme tonal variation, or unnecessary volume projection might signal confidence in a round, but it mostly signals one thing outside of it: annoyance.

There is no reason to shout when answering a teacher's question. There's no reason to artificially deepen your voice while explaining what an acid is to your friend in chemistry. And please, please do not spread when reading Romeo and Juliet aloud in English class. Yet these rhetorical habits show up constantly, and they serve as stark reminders of what an unchecked "debate voice" actually does to how the world perceives us.

This phenomenon isn't unique to any one school or program. This thread on Reddit captures everyday people from across the country discussing how the "speech and debate voice" reads to outsiders. A thread on College Confidential goes even further, with commenters using words like "arrogant" and "pretentious" to describe debaters they've encountered. Whether or not those characterizations are fair, the fact that they're common should give us pause.

The Effect Upper Classman Chuds

Additionally, for students who are newer to the activity, watching upper-level debaters deploy the "debate voice" outside of rounds models behavior that normalizes it. The habits travel downstream. If we're serious about growing a healthy, accessible, and welcoming forensics community, part of that work is modeling what good communication looks like — inside and outside the round.

To be clear, I'm not grouping all speech and debate students under one umbrella. Nonetheless, I'm talking about a significant enough portion of the community that it shapes how all of us are perceived. And ironically, it's exactly their unawareness that makes this fixable.

The Solution

The good news is that this is one of the most solvable problems in the forensics space. It doesn't require budget allocations, national organization policy changes, or anything structural. It just requires awareness and intentionality — from individuals, teammates, and peers.

For individual debaters: Start with self-reflection. Genuinely ask yourself: do I speak this way? Have I steamrolled someone in a group discussion who wasn't a debater? Have I defaulted to stubbornness when the situation called for listening? This kind of honest self-inventory is uncomfortable, but it's the starting point. Debate conditions us to always be winning the conversation. Unlearning that, even partially, is one of the most valuable things you can do with your skill set.

For teammates: Not only should we be looking out for ourselves, but our teammates as well. Hold each other accountable. If your PF partner sounds like they’re spreading in math, tell them to slow down. If your policy friend is not listening to a non-debater friend’s ideas then support the other friend and point the issue out to the policy debater.

From there, look beyond your teammates for feedback. The jokes people make about debaters being chuds are not just noise — they're insights. Instead of getting defensive when someone teases you about how you speak, reflect on it. Outside critics are often the most valuable mirrors we have. Peer feedback from people outside the activity is genuinely hard to come by, so when it shows up — even as a joke — treat it as a gift. Once we do that we can start to receive the true benefits of speech and debate, such as communication and listening as highlighted in this article.

Speech Teaches That the World is Our Stage — But Not Every Scene is a Round

Debate is one of the most demanding, rewarding activities a student can commit to. The skills it builds are real and lasting. But different stages require different forms and styles of communication, and recognizing that distinction is itself one of the most important things debate should teach us.

If it doesn't — if we leave every tournament better at arguing but worse at listening — then we're only getting half the education the activity has to offer.

So ask yourself honestly: are you a chud? And if the answer is even a little bit yes, that's not an indictment. It's an invitation to grow.