Video: https://youtu.be/fPiwKyWG6ps
Sixth video for #DeafAwarenessMonth! This is a very personal topic for me, and it’s really important to me that this is successful or at least sparks some change. Feel free to share with anyone!
Hello and welcome! If you haven’t seen all of the other five videos, you can find a playlist linked here. Today’s video is about #NoMoreCraptions. It’s signed [CRAPTIONS-NO-MORE]. This is very different from #CaptionThis. It’s a very different thing. There are a few ways to sign this hashtag. You can sign [CRAP-tions no more], or [LOUSY-tions no more] just another way of saying crap. Some of you may be “…what are you talking about? Craptions? What?” That’s the name that we deaf people have given to the auto captions on YouTube. If you know, generally… They’re kind of… well, crap. It depends on how good the sound quality is, really. Sometimes, if the sound quality is amazing, really good, they’re not THAT bad but still has errors. It’s not perfect. And if the sound quality is even just a little bit ehh, that’s it, forget it. The captions are pfft. Hence the name, crap. Let me back up first. This campaign started because we were just sick of having horrible captions. And a lot of YouTubers would say, “Oh no, we do have captions, the auto captions.” So we have to go and explain what they don’t understand – those captions are awful. We often have to tell them to watch the videos themselves, and see how awful it is. So this campaign really started as a way to fight for better captions on YouTube, ACTUAL captions. Not just… Craptions.
This is so, so, so important. Not just for the deaf community, for other people who have auditory processing disorder; people who are learning a second language, and using those captions to help them learn it; and plenty of other reasons. It’s even good for kids who are starting to learn how to read. Captions help you improve your reading skills, and reading quickly too, not really slowly. So, having actual captions is really important. Not just auto captions. It’s not enough. One big benefit of having actual captions is you will get more viewers, more foreign viewers. Because the captions can be translated to another language, and be of a better quality than the craptions.
Now some of you may be “Okay, I want to do captions but how?” I can refer you to two sources. One is… Google. No seriously, Google has a lot of resources explaining how to do captions on different platforms – Facebook, YouTube, etc. The second one that I will link you to is Rikki Poynter’s video “Three Different Ways of Captioning.” You can watch that, and pick whatever method you prefer. To be clear, if you decide to do community captions, (which means the community can do captions for you) you have, have, HAVE to review the captions. Because, unfortunately, there are some people who abuse that, and will put their own commentary in that, jokes, or completely unrelated things in those captions. That is an abuse of that service, and that blocks us from having the proper access to your content. So make sure you review those captions!
A big reason why I’m doing this video, specifically for me personally, is that I really really really want creators to do captions on their videos. Because unfortunately, there are a lot of creators I don’t follow. Specifically because they don’t have captions, or even craptions on their videos. There are SOME, very few, that I actually do still follow because I really enjoy their content. I really like their videos, and they do have craptions on them most of the time. I tolerate it and watch those, but… Most of the time, my thinking is – Nah. Not worth it. Not worth my time watching it, trying to figure out what you’re even saying. Because sometimes the captions are way off base, and it’s like… What? It will sometimes have complete gaps. You’re talking, but there’s no captions because they’re craptions! So… Please, please, please caption! The more you caption, the more likely you will get people following you. Like me. There are some people that I wouldn’t mind following, but I don’t because they don’t have actual captions on their videos. I’m not going to waste my time with them. Which is kind of sad, and it sucks, for both me and for you. So seriously, please do captions! Please, I’m begging you! Do real captions! Okay, that’s all I have for you today. Hope you learned something new. If you didn’t know about craptions before, now you do! And I will see you next time.
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