RIKKI: Hello and welcome back to the channel.
Today, I want to talk about why
I no longer or at least going forward,
why I no longer will be making shout out videos
or recommending YouTubers who caption.
Part of my growth on this channel comes from constantly talking about
the need for proper captions on YouTube.
A whole campaign #NoMoreCRAPtions was popularised on this channel
and I have merch all about it.
I wish I had a sticker to show you
but I have shirts and mugs, stickers, et cetera, et cetera.
And just so you know, if you become a member of this channel,
join this channel and get perks,
you will get 15% off your purchase - so check that out.
I have made videos or tweets when YouTubers such as,
Tyler Oakley, Good Mythical Morning, James Charles,
Colleen Ballinger or Thomas Halbert, et cetera, et cetera.
When they would Tweet or make videos
talking about the fact that they were going to start captioning
and I realise I have to stop making a big deal
when YouTubers caption like some of these creators did,
for one reason,
I have a curse and most of these people stopped
the second I mentioned it.
Maybe not the second I mentioned it but shortly thereafter
and it bums me out to say that but I want to go more into detail
about why I came to this decision.
Why did I start recommending people?
Why did I start making whole videos
that would talk about a whole list of creators that caption?
Why would I make singular videos?
Why would I retweet tweets from people and just make a huge deal out of it?
I wanted there to be, not really a database because I never really...
No, I did make "official" databases on some blogs and stuff
but those were short lived.
But I just wanted there to be some sort of
easy to find, easy to access resource
for deaf and hard of hearing people, like myself,
to find YouTubers who caption.
Years ago it was so, so hard to find out
who was going to caption and who wasn't.
Most YouTubers didn't and, you know, as years went by
YouTubers started to caption,
all because of the work of deaf people before me
and people after me like, Jessica Kellgren-Fozard
and, you know, so many other people.
I wanted to do this to help out fellow deaf and hard of hearing viewers
and I also wanted to do this as a, sort of,
encouragement for these other YouTubers, a thank you.
It was a thank you for making your videos accessible
and I encourage you to keep on doing this.
I'm going to share your channel with everybody else,
so that way, you will get these views from these people.
I wanted to make this a big of a deal as
some of these YouTubers were doing.
And there are YouTubers who have announced it
that are still doing it today.
Don't get me wrong, it's not like everybody stopped doing it, you know.
But a lot of people just stopped
and a couple of these people are very, very, big Youtubers
and I have made videos -
actually when Good Mythical Morning stopped and then they started again
and I made another video about Colleen and James
who made huge deals out of it,
from inspiration porn type of videos to big old tweets and things.
So, I am no longer doing this whole thing
where the moment that somebody makes this big announcement
on YouTube or on Twitter
about how they're going to do this and that.
I no longer want to really get anyone's hopes up.
I can't help but feel like sometimes it's my fault
because I'm getting everybody excited
even though the OP, the YouTuber
is the one who is first announcing it and is getting their audiences hopes up
but then, like, I get so excited and I want to support these creators.
At least, you know, just on the captioning front,
just because they're being accessible. if I don't really care for them
and for any other reason at least we had this, right.
But I don't know what it was but every time
or at least like, half of these people, once they would mention it
and then I would share, other people would share
and then we all got together and got excited.
Things would stop, captions stopped going up after two weeks of uploads.
There was one creator that made a huge deal on YouTube, on Twitter
and then even on Instagram stories.
She captioned one video and then she quit,
even though she said,
from now on that she was going to continue to caption her videos
and I hate that I got so excited
and I hate that I personally went to this person, asked her to.
She said, yes, I'm really excited and then...
I don't know what happened and it hurt.
It's like I said in the video that I did about Colleen and James,
it feels like they want to make this big deal,
they want to get all these brownie points
for suddenly being accessible to a marginalised audience
and they hold that little piece of cheese or something
on a little string and once you get too close,
they snatch it away from you and it seems like they don't care.
I just hated that feeling and I really didn't want to make anyone
else have that disappointed feeling because it sucks, right.
But here's the thing, that does not mean that I no longer
will be sharing any video that gets captioned still.
So, what I wanted to do from now on, is instead of boasting
or getting really excited about creators in general
who will make a big announcement tweet or video
saying that they're going to caption
because you never know
what's going to happen down the line in the future,
you don't know what's going to happen two days from now,
two months from now.
If a video of theirs is already captioned -
and I have done this in the past anyway.
If a video is already captioned and shared
I most definitely would retweet that or share it on
Facebook or whatever and let everyone know that
the video's captioned because once they're captioned -
they are properly captioned, mind you, no craptions, right.
The captions are already there, so you can't really disappoint anyone,
unless you're really malicious enough to remove the captions which
I don't understand why you would.
Maybe, some one would and I think you would have to be really mean to do that.
Don't do that please.
It can't really hurt anyone's feelings that way, right?
So, I would at least think that, to me, some sort of middle ground, right.
If some things are already accessible,
it's going to be there for as long as the Internet lives.
So, I think that's a happy medium.
With all that being said, I still encourage
YouTubers to properly caption their videos,
whether they do it themselves, they pay someone,
they get community contributors to do it.
I still send out letters to people.
I started doing that for Playlist and VidCon creators.
A good portion of #NoMoreCRAPtions shirt sales or Teespring sales,
do go to getting like, paper, envelopes and stamps and things
to send to YouTubers to encourage them to caption
and teach them a little bit about it. So...
This isn't a fight that I'm giving up
and it's not a fight I think anyone should give up.
I just think maybe it's better to, kind of,
re-prioritise, reorganise the way things go.
I mean, you know what, let me know what you think should happen,
should we continue to give the benefit of the doubt
and promote creators as a whole who said that they're going to caption
and just, you know, give them the chance
or should - do you think that maybe
it's easier, less painful if we just went video by video, right?
Because even though I feel kind of set in my ways
at the moment, there's still a small part of me
that is like, but maybe I'm being a little too much about it, right?
But I just, I feel like this has happened
so many times, with so many creators,
even more than who I'm mentioning in this video and that...
I don't know.
It just hurts me because some of these creators I'm acquaintances with,
I don't want to say friends but at least acquaintances with
and we speak every once in a while.
And I even had an in person meeting with one YouTuber
and this was at Playlist and the whole time it was just
her practically ignoring me and getting interrupted by her group of friends
that were at the table and I'm just like,
do people not want to take captioning seriously?
Like, they are not taking it seriously.
They tell me that they want to take it seriously
but then when I'm there, it almost seems like a joke to them
and oh, that person in particular doesn't caption to this day.
That is just another example of where I'm coming from.
And I know I'm not alone
because when I made the video about Colleen and James
and I even retweeted James again and kind of, calling him out
about how everything just, you know, you just kind of stopped doing it.
People were showing their disappointment and I hated seeing that other people
were also disappointed because it shouldn't be that way.
You made a promise, you made announcement, you made a big ass -
I mean generally, for more than one person -
you made a big ass deal of all of this, only to not do it.
I don't know, it sucks.
Anyways, let me know what your feelings are down below.
What kind of route do you think is the better way take?
Give creators the benefit of a doubt as a whole?
Just stick to the videos that are already captioned and share those
and, you know, still encourage them, you know, don't quit on them altogether.
Just be like, hey remember, you had this one video captioned,
It would really nice if you could keep on doing it.
There will always be some creators that you know for a fact
probably just won't stick with it
but if there is anybody that you know can be pushed back
onto the train a little bit, I want us to be able to do that.
I would love to know your thoughts
and have a really good conversation about this.
Be sure to share this with your other deaf and hard of hearing friends
who watch YouTube,
share this with your hearing allies, share this with creators
to try to get the ball rolling and get people to understand that captions
really are important,
they make things so much more accessible
to not only deaf people but people with other disabilities
that may need captions to really focus and learn a new language.
Things like that.
They help the viewer and they help the creator.
Thank you so much for taking the time out of your day to watch this video.
Be sure to subscribe and hit that notification bell
so you don't miss out on any future uploads.
I also have a Patreon if that's more your jam,
than the YouTube membership thing
and I will see you later. Bye.
(MUSIC)