Refusing to subtitle your own videos

One of the lamest excuses for a deaf or hard of hearing person to say regarding their own videos is the refusal to subtitle their own videos (whether it's voice or signing) until a good majority of videos in YouTube gets captioned or subtitled by their own authors. The funny thing is that the best way to spread awareness is to include subtitles in your own videos. Doing that tells other people that you are for inclusiveness for those who cannot hear, understand the spoken words or understand signs. Recently today, on the John Tracy Clinic Facebook page it had a historical JTC video in it that was up but had no captions or subtitles to it. I responded by saying there's no captions. A quick reply was given saying they don't have the resource or time to add subtitles. I then wrote a quick response that was respectful in nature.

I caption my videos I put on my blog by listening to it. I need anywhere from an hour to three hours of my own time depending on the length of the video whether it's my own personal video or something else. I use Overstream (or physically add the captions for my own videos), for example, http://kokonutpundits.blogspot.com/2010/10/matt-hamill-post-fight-video-interview.html, a video I captioned last year. And my video tribute to JTC (http://kokonutpundits.blogspot.com/2010/09/video-tribute-to-john-tracy-clinic.html ).

Yet I'm hard of hearing (moderate-severe) and I took the time to do this by myself because my main audience are mostly deaf and hard of hearing. I know what it's like to be left out, so why would I do that to them even though I can understand the spoken words?

It'd be better to have video captioned first and have it ready to go rather than doing it later. Otherwise, it'd give the appearance of not caring first for people with hearing loss their consideration when it comes to accessibility. It'd be better to caption first in light of the organization's connection and name. Not doing so only serve an ironic reminder on the lack of inclusion.

Let's not use excuses and include everyone whenever a video first comes out by JTC using whatever medium format (e.g. Facebook, JTC website, YouTube, etc.).

Respectfully yours. Mike

Needless to say that video on JTC Facebook disappeared 10 minutes later. I hope they understood my  message on making sure any videos put out are to be captioned. Not to be mean but just showing them the futility in trying to use the "no time" or "no resource" excuse when it comes to adding subtitles to a video. It's very easy nowadays. Nothing complex about it all. All I had to do was prove to them that including subtitles in a video does not take a whole lot of time and resources. I used my own subtitled videos as examples to prove my very point! They relented and removed the video and the comments that went with it.

I include captions/subtitles to my spoken videos but in videos where I signed in a video called "Professionalism or name calling? knowing full well I'd have an audience that do not know sign language. This includes hearing parents of deaf/hh babies! Regardless, this is the surest way to reach the widest number of people out there in YouTube land. Barry Sewell finally saw that light last year and began including captions to all of his signed videos with his first Open Letter to NAD and the Community on June 9, 2010. He has been one of the most prolific signing vloggers out there and among the very, very few who include captions. Adding subtitles to his videos are a guarantee that his videos can be watched by both signers and non-signers alike.  Barry Sewell now has a huge edge over those who refuses to include subtitles to their own signing videos. If one thinks about it, 99.9% of the U.S. population does not know sign language. By including English subtitles to a signed video will ensure a capability of a captioned video to reach a majority of the U.S. population because it then becomes completely watchable.

If you have the means and capability to include subtitles or captions you should do so. Using the excuse as a reason to not include subtitles because you're waiting for the rest of the English speaking population to include their subtitles becomes a very lame one. It simply becomes a cop out excuse and a way to conveniently avoid doing any additional legwork for your signed videos and that you purposely discriminate because of a stupid ideology.  For Barry and I, we don't think of it as doing extra legwork but rather the huge opportunity and potential to reach a much larger and wider non-signing population which amounts to potentially several tens of millions of people in the U.S. alone not counting many more countries outside of the U.S. who know the English language. Remember, I said "potential" and not that the figure I gave is the actual number people will watch. I encourage those who sign in their own videos who have the capability and the means to include subtitles to consider that opportunity. Inclusiveness goes both ways. Let's not be selfish about it and let stupidity be your answer. 

But to focus on a very, very, very small segment of the Deaf community which amounts to potentially some 600,000 (maybe less or more) Deaf people, your non-subtitled signing videos would only reach a fraction of that 600,000 number because about half of those people are adults or older teens who can watch, and then you have an even smaller number of people who even bother or have an interest going onto the internet to watch YouTube videos or even visit DVTV (which btw continues to thrive despite a miserably failed boycott against it) and watch those signed videos.

All in all you have a potential Deaf audience of maybe 50,000 to 100,000 vs a potential audience if you include English subtitles to your signing videos will go up to perhaps several tens of millions of English speaking audience that actively use the internet.  I'm just guessing on the potential side of things but assuredly the number is much, much larger on the English speaking/listening side than the signing side. No one can dispute that one bit.

So, which signing message do you think will have a better chance of getting out to the wider audience? A signed video with no subtitless, or a signed video with subtitles?  Waiting for the hearing population to do the subtitles first is a losing proposition because those that do include English subtitles to their own signing videos have the distinct political advantage and leading edge over those who do not subtitle their videos in getting the word out.  And it is those people whose words are the ones that get out to the general population...and not the signed videos with no subtitles. They will be the ones forever relegated to the eyes of a very small population of Deaf people. And will forever fall on, literally, deaf ears in the hearing population because they do not understand a signed video.