As someone who has done plenty of sound recordist work, it’s known as ‘room tone.’
Also, I feel seen because I’ve had to explain that so many times. Even to people who really should know.
Woah this is my screenshot
that’s crazy
It’s neat how much the image has degraded
Edit: original image
Title text: “If you can read this, congratulations—the archive you’re using still knows about the mouseover textâ€!
Terry Pratchett writes about this, how there is a difference between the sound of someone not being there and the sound of someone hiding and not making any noise.
He often writes about how things like bird song can be a type of silence and how a train that always passes at the same time every night, not passing at that time, can wake you up from its absence.
I used to live right next to a big ol’ belltower. It’d chime every hour and on special days, it’d be chiming throughout the day. A friend came to stay and was baffled at how I could sleep and work through it all