Court reporter TikTok is going to melt your brain

thanks to TikTok, it’s become apparent that the hardest job in the courtroom is actually the stenographer, or, the court reporter. 22-year-old Isabelle Lumsden is a court reporter student in Canada . She shared some behind-the-scenes looks on TikTok about how she uses a stenotype machine to transcribe everything that’s being said. A common misconception is that stenographers use a regular keyboard or laptop to keep track of everything, . when in reality they use this specialized chorded keyboard that types in shorthand. According to Lumsden’s most viral TikTok, she hooks her stenotype up to her laptop, which translates all the shorthand she’s typing into actual words. To form words, you have to push specific keys at the same time. This is why stenographers can type an average of 225 words per minute. “I think it’s really cool how you’ve made so many of us genuinely curious about stenography,” a TikTok user commented on one of Lumsden’s explainer videos