(marker scratching)
(electronic video game chime)
Hello, so as you may notice, I'm in my car.
I'm not in my room.
I'm in my car,
and that is mostly because my tripod,
my camera mount, my...
Everything regarding that setup
is currently defective and I'm not sure how to fix it
because I don't have the tools.
I don't know what tools to use,
so I'm just gonna be in my car using my iPhone.
It's so much easier that way, less stressful.
But you can see more of me.
That's always nice.
I think the lighting actually works a little better.
I promise this is not a copy of Meghan Tonjes' People Keep Talking.
This is not a news show, and I don't have sunglasses, so...
So this video is going to be like a self-confidence,
acceptance, finding acceptance within yourself kind of talk.
Oh, before I leave here,
I should probably pay my water bill,
because it's right over there.
A couple of weeks ago, I launched DeafPoynters.com.
I write articles on there about deafness and stuff.
We have guest posts, that sort of thing,
and somebody emailed me on the email account
that I use there asking me about how I found acceptance,
how I accepted being deaf and what have you.
I think both growing up and now.
I also get comments on YouTube from people
who grew up the same way as me, right,
and they tell me, you know...
"It makes me feel good
"that you are confident in yourself,
"that you have accepted yourself,
"because I grew up like you.
"I didn't get that.
"I still don't have that, but you are helping,"
Which makes me feel...
Makes my ice heart, my heart of ice
feel so warm and fuzzy inside.
Hello, person driving.
I don't care.
You don't pay my bills!
For the record, this is a very chill, sit-down video
and I feel like I might just do this from now on.
I like it.
And so those comments made me feel all nice and warm inside
and I figured this video needs to be done,
because it's an important topic,
but also because it will help me with my presentation
next month about finding a deaf identity.
More news on that later.
Link down below.
Let me start off by saying that
I was not always as confident as I am now,
and I still am not even always confident now.
That's something that I don't think
is ever going to be 100%, 24/7.
We all have insecurities at certain times.
Whatever, right?
As a kid, when I first got diagnosed,
I didn't really pay that much attention to it,
because it just wasn't something I was familiar with.
I didn't know anything about it.
I wasn't worried about it.
I never noticed it.
When I was diagnosed, for the first year or so,
I just didn't care.
The only things that were important to me
were am I going to be able to watch Pokemon
at 6:00 - 6:30 in the morning before school?
Is Busted - What I Go to School For
going to show up on MTV, before I go to school,
because I love that song,
and am I going to be able to watch Sailor Moon
at 4 PM on Cartoon Network.
Actually, I think that show was canceled
by the time I was 12 on Cartoon Network.
Anyway, it just didn't matter to me then.
It wasn't important.
I didn't know anything about it.
I just didn't pay attention to it.
When I was hanging out with friends,
I never had an issue,
because nobody really noticed anything.
We were kids, whatever.
All we had to do was go run around outside.
Everything was, you know, dandy.
Now, in school that was a little bit of an issue,
a different issue.
I've made videos about when my US History teacher
made fun of my incomplete work out loud to the class
in front of everybody.
I think I mentioned comments my math teacher made
senior year about how I wasn't paying attention enough.
There were times when I would be hanging out
with the more popular kids,
because I was an outsider when I was in school, okay?
Sometimes that made me feel,
having hearing loss made me feel very insecure
when I was a kid, because when the more popular people
would have asked me questions, I wouldn't understand them,
and they would kinda like snicker.
So that kinda made me feel awkward.
When I started getting to junior year,
senior year of high school, that kind of did it for me, I think.
Group projects always made me feel insecure,
because I couldn't keep up with anybody.
I had no idea what was going on.
I looked like the lazy kid
that really didn't want to do anything.
I didn't want to participate,
but that wasn't a "I just don't feel like doing it" thing,
that was a, "I really have no idea what's going on"
type of thing.
I didn't really have a lot of friends.
I don't really think that had that much to do with
the whole being deaf thing,
but trying to keep up with conversations and stuff
at lunch or whatever, it's just ...
It makes you feel insecure, which is one of those things
that added to it, because when you're the only deaf person
in that entire school...
Actually, I think there was one other girl who was deaf.
She wore hearing aids on both sides,
but I didn't really like her all that much.
We weren't friends.
She annoyed me.
So that was a thing.
Really, I was the only person those last few years
of high school there.
She was there for the first two years.
The last two years she went somewhere else.
It was just, it didn't make me feel all that great.
Then once I graduated high school,
I did take a year off school,
but I wanted to take a year off to find myself
and maybe find some work.
That never happened.
College, lack of college was a thing,
because of lack of financial funds,
lack of finances, there we go,
and then I didn't know what I wanted to do.
There was a lack of accessibility,
because when I went to ask about it
they were just like, "Huh, what's that?
"I don't know what that means," so there was that.
I tried finding retail jobs for quite some time.
Part of it was difficult, because I didn't have a license
so I had to rely on rides which wasn't going to happen.
Nobody was going to drive me back and forth,
but people also weren't going to teach me how to drive,
so that took awhile.
When I had that one interview at Chipotle,
they didn't want me, because I couldn't hear them very well
and they were concerned that I wasn't going to answer people
and it was just a very difficult time.
And you know, there were...
When it came to dating, I was doing online dating,
and I liked a few people, but I was always petrified
of actually meeting them in real life,
one, because you never know if they're going to be creepy,
but also because, well what if
I don't understand this person?
What if I go to meet them, and we can't have a conversation,
because I'm just going to be like, "Huh?
"What, can you repeat that?" over and over and over,
which can potentially get on somebody's nerves.
So there was that.
That's something that can take a toll on you,
because you're always wondering,
okay there's something wrong with me.
Like yeah, there's something wrong with my ears.
I can't hear very well.
That's something that's wrong with me,
but it was just...
Like I always felt like I wasn't going to be
good enough for friends, for a boyfriend,
or whoever, whatever I would be dating.
That was mostly from years 16 years of age to around 20.
We get to the acceptance part, right?
Not 100%, but once I started doing YouTube
and once I got into Tumblr.
Tumblr was really when it all started for me,
because I wanted to find out more about me,
about who I was, about this whole deaf thing that I had,
because the most that I knew about myself really
was just me writing all my makeup videos on the intro
when I was a makeup vlogger.
"This person is hearing impaired.
All rude comments about her voice will be deleted
and you'll be blocked." or something.
That was pretty much everything that was
deafness related to me.
Nothing else... I knew nothing else.
I knew ABCs in ASL.
That was it.
I had no idea about Deaf culture, a Deaf community,
that type of thing. So...
Once I started doing research on Tumblr,
I noticed that hey,
there might be other people like me.
What is this Deaf culture thing that is happening right here
in this little tag section of Tumblr,
and then I started learning more and more,
not just about the scientific part of it,
like the medical part of it,
but the fact that there was a group of people
that had events and celebrated this kind of stuff and what have you.
It was this little family,
and as someone who grew up not really having family at all,
it was very new to me.
But it made me feel kinda happy.
A little bit weird, because family, when you grow up,
at least for me when you grow up without family for so long,
like really, the idea of a family is very strange to you,
but I was just happy that there was something
that I knew or people like me.
I really have no idea where I'm going with this video.
This was slightly unplanned.
Well, it's a chit-chat video.
We're fine.
When I decided to quit doing makeup videos on YouTube,
because it was pointless to me,
and I started doing Deaf Basics on YouTube,
like just regular, everyday kinda stuff,
simple.
When the very first Deaf Q&A came out...
I can not talk.
I'm running out of voices.
I'm running out of my voice.
When the Deaf Q&A came out,
and "Shit Hearing People Say" came out, the...
It went sort of viral.
The video, the Q&A went sort of viral, but then "Shit Hearing People Say"
really went viral, and that's when other deaf people
started finding my videos,
and they started following me on Twitter,
and then I was following people on Tumblr,
and we started having conversations.
That changed everything for me,
because I did not feel so alone.
I saw these other people that had friends,
had a family, had hobbies
that were going pretty well for them,
and that's when I finally started learning
to really accept myself and who I was
and what my ears were, what they were not,
and honestly I think that if that were to never happen,
then I wouldn't be
where I am now.
Now, like I said, it's not 100%, 24/7.
I still get insecure sometimes.
If I meet new people, if random strangers
are coming up to me asking me questions,
I sometimes really shut down.
I still remember the time when a woman at Food Lion
came up to me and asked me something,
and I told her I couldn't understand her,
and she looked like I had the plague,
looked as if I had the plague and ran off,
and just other things that,
other things that people try to do,
to try to make me feel smaller than them.
There are times when I'm just like, okay, whatever.
Whatever, whatever, lady.
Whatever kid, I'm going to move on.
Whatever.
You go be the way that you are,
but then there are sometimes when I'm like,
"Okay, I'm going to go hide in a corner now."
This often happens honestly at stuff like VidCon
and Buffer Festival and pretty much anything
that's like that.
Whenever I go to YouTube Space in Toronto
there was a lot of happy hour things.
That was a spot that always made me very self conscious,
and that was just last year.
Big social outings, still they make me very, very nervous,
because I'm going to be that person
that doesn't understand what the heck is going on,
unless there is somebody interpreting or typing for me.
I am a very strong believer in representation.
I do believe that in order...
I believe that finding acceptance in yourself
is easier if there is representation out there.
You have stuff like Switched at Birth.
Granted, it's not perfect.
It has its issues, but it's the best thing here right now.
Before that it was Sue Thomas F.B.Eye,
which I have not seen.
I would really love to, but right now, Switched at Birth
is the best thing that's on television
for representation at this moment,
on mainstream television anyway.
The other stuff, like The Chances
and other small projects that's happening,
that's also representation,
but as far as mainstream media goes,
you turn on ABC Family, Switched at Birth
is the best thing that's there, and that's ending.
It's on its last season.
When that's over, where is the representation now,
because right now there isn't another TV show like that.
If you do have deaf characters that show up,
they're played by hearing people,
and I don't want to turn this into an argument
about, "hearing people can't act out as deaf people,"
but it's just representation is important
to finding acceptance in yourself.
At least I think that.
At least for me personally, that's what made it easier.
I also believe sometimes in
the 'fake it 'til you make it' mentality,
where you like to think that you're hot stuff
even if nobody else seems to really give a crap.
If you can do it without getting overly conceited
and acting like you're top dog of the world,
just forcing that confidence in yourself for a little bit
until it sticks, that worked out for me.
It might not work out for everybody, but it helped for me.
Self acceptance and self confidence is difficult,
it's difficult for a lot of people,
not even just marginalized people, like everybody.
A lot of people around the world have insecurities.
That's just the way it is.
That's what makes us human.
We are not Terminators who are completely emotionless
unless you are Cameron.
Sarah Connor Chronicles, anybody?
So yeah, that's my thing.
I'm going to try to have a written post on Deaf Poynters
that will hopefully make this video sound
a little more eloquent.
I don't know.
I just want to have a nice,
chill conversation
as if we were friends talking to each other
rather than me doing...
Rather than me being a YouTuber,
who is shouting things at you
that is half-scripted I guess.
I don't know.
Yeah, so that's it.
I hope that helped a little bit.
(laughs)
If you want to follow me on all of my social media, links
to that will be down below.
If you want to help support my content,
you can do so by being a patron on Patreon
or leaving a tip on ko-fi.
Both links to those will be down below.
I upload every Monday and Thursday unless otherwise stated,
and I will see you later.
Bye.