Dare I Say It… (Closed Captions!) I Just Did.
So lately I’ve been seeing a lot of hate or at least negativity towards Captioned videos of any sort. People making posts about “How annoying CC is” “Why does CC exist?” and other remarks.
This is coming from me, a Deafblind Individual who NEEDS CC to understand speech/video/audio of any sort. This also is on behalf of the Deaf/HOH/ADP/Anyone who needs CC.
You abled, privileged, hearing people have the glorious opportunity, chance of a life time, to watch ANYTHING you want without problems. Without discrimination. Without complaints. Without threats. Without negativity thrown at you. YOU get the privilege of being able to enjoy anything/everything that has spoken language to it.
Us, d/Deaf/HoH/ADP/Second Language Need closed captions (CC). NEED accommodation.Imagine (and I do ask you to TRY IT OUT) you have the TV on mute. Can you understand anything? I doubt it, there’s no sound! You’re trying to make out the characters reactions, movements, behaviour but it’s not working because you can’t tell what’s being said. Then you put CC/Subtitles on. At last! You can FINALLY understand the spoken language! You understand what’s happening!! You’re not lost and tired from trying to play charades. Now you can enjoy the show without complaints!
Another Try It Out put earplugs in and walk around all day or at least a few hours with those earplugs. Can you understand speech? Can you figure out where things are coming from? No? Everything is muffled sounding yes? As if you’re in a tunnel?
This is how many d/Deaf/HoH/ADP people feel each and every single day Speech is muffled sounding, distorted, garble nonsense. It’s tiring to constantly lipread (Which isn’t 30% accurate for English language seen on lips), trying to understand what someone is saying when it’s all so muffled!
Now, you go to entirely new country, with only said language as your SECOND language which you aren’t entirely fluent in yet. Even if you are… understanding the second language is fairly hard yes? Everything all muffled and “Blah blah blah” sounding correct? Putting subtitles on can make a HUGE difference! Yes the country’s language can be spoken, but having YOUR language on subtitles can be beneficial for you. You aren’t lost. You aren’t confused. You understand what everyone is laughing about in the movie because you have subtitles!
Gifs/Moving images: people uploads these on tumblr, facebook, other media sites. They have captions on them because people wouldn’t know what is being said. Imagine the subtitles/captions, gone. I doubt you’d have any idea what is happening and what particular scene the gif/moving image is from. Here’s the thing, people don’t complain about gifsets being made that have subtitles/closed captions on it so EVERYONE can see whats happening…. Yet people complain that there’s (OMG!) Subtitles/Captions on VIDEOS?!?! A TEXT POST UNDERNEATH A VIDEO THAT HAS (Dare I say it?) CAPTIONS! HOW UNCALLED FOR!
Did you know that Captions can be extremely useful?
Check these links out explaining why.Perks of Having Closed Captions (CC)
Stop Making Excuses And CC Your Videos
How To Closed Caption Your Videos
rikkipoynter did a video on WHY CC is important
tyleroakley followed up with that and gave reasons why CC is important (Hear Me Out)
paulidin did a video on why Access Matters! Closed Captions
my good friend timelordonbakerstreet shows you HOW to CC your videos
captioned-vines, captioningresource and others do a wonderful job captioning the videos.
Captions are IMPORTANT. If you add captions, you get more respect. When you add captions you don’t get complaints, you get more views/followers/people who will enjoy your videos. When you add captions you can enjoy watching shows on mute while at work, in line, anywhere.
If you don’t like Captions… there’s one Simple Thing To Do TURN THEM OFF WHEN PEOPLE WHO NEED THEM… Leave. Don’t make a HUGE DEAL!1!111 about CC. If the CC benefit the person, then be accommodative, not an asshole, and let the CC be on. Would you rather us ask you 20 questions in 5 minutes asking “What they say? What? Whats so funny? Huh? I missed that! Again?” Doubt it. So put CC on. It isn’t that difficult.
When you see transcript/cc underneath a video…. Please DO NOT delete the CC. All you need to do is go to SOURCE’s page and Reblog from there. It isn’t that difficult.
JUST BE RESPECTFUL because you won’t know who you have hurt/make someone feel upset. You’re unintentionally discriminating and be disrespectful to those who need CC/subtitles.
I need to do this on my let’s plays for Star Trek Online. Though, admittedly, I do tend to mumble sometimes.
(via chescaleigh)
