My favorite YouTubers (who caption!)

Captioning on YouTube has been a hot topic in the deaf/Hard of Hearing world lately, especially among teenagers.

YouTuber Rikki Poynter – Pikachu lover and advocate for closed captioning, who’s also deaf – has sort of led the charge for getting all YouTube videos captioned. She explains in her video why captioning is important for Deaf/HOH people, as well as those who don’t speak the language that the video is filmed  in. She also posts a whole load about deaf related topics.

Captions on YouTube has been such an important topic lately, mostly because they are so bad. In 2009, YouTube released their automatic captioning feature for videos using voice recognition algorithm, but the text is often inaccurate. While YouTube does let users upload their own captions, it can be time consuming, and most users don’t do it.

However, with encouragement from the Deaf/Hard of Hearing community, and people like Rikki, there are some YouTubers who are leading this change.

Here’s a list of some YouTubers I’ve found who caption their videos:

My top 3 favourites (alongside Rikki) are:

Tyler Oakley

Tyler is probably the biggest star out there who captions his videos- and I praise him for it! He vlogs about his life, his book and random things! He made a video asking others to caption too!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2cBTlLCKjU?rel=0&showinfo=0]

 

Lilly Singh (aka: IISuperwomanII)

I love Lilly, she’s funny- she talks about absolutely everything from types of people at parties to general everyday problems! When she dresses up as her parents it’s brilliant! I also appreciate her captioning for her Deaf/HOH fans.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvOdmNf1vhE?rel=0&showinfo=0]

 

Sean Forbes

He’s a deaf musician who sings, signs and produces music through feeling vibrations. It’s very inspirational- and he puts lyrics on his music videos!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5l-2Jo14cQ?rel=0&showinfo=0]

 

There are more than 360 million people worldwide have disabling hearing loss in the world, according to the World Health Organization, and I bet lots of them want to watch YouTube. (YouTube has over a billion users — almost one-third of all people on the Internet.)

Help make YouTube videos more accessible! I invite you to help me to encourage YouTube content creators to caption their videos! Closed captioning is really easy to do, just follow this guide.

These YouTubers also caption their videos:

• Vlogbrothers
• Nigahiga
• Thatkatieproject
• Stevie Boebi
• Claudia Boleyn
• Paul Roth
• Kurzgesagt – in a nutshell
• Rclbeauty101
• Verypinkknits
• Kat Blaque
• Annieelainey
• Amy Poehler’s smart girls
• Alexa Poletti
• Tommy Edison
• ASL Stew
• Annoying Orange
• Profrobbob
• Yyolandaa
• PBS Space Time

If you know any more captioned YouTubers, let me know in the comments below!

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Ellen Parfitt, is an 19-year-old typical, but not ordinary, teenager. She was born profoundly deaf, but it hasn’t prevented her from achieving major accomplishments in her life, such as finishing her education, scoring an marketing apprenticeship, and working as a lifeguard, Avon Representative and Girlguide Leader. She is passionate about deaf awareness and campaigning. In her free time, she runs her jewelry and gifts business with her mum.

You can follow her here on Open Ears on a regular basis, or on her personal blog, Day in the Life of a Deafie and on Twitter @deafieblogger.

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