This ad by Samsung is going viral – I know this because I was sent it by no less than 5 people and whenever I’m sent something by no less than 5 people, something is seriously going VIRAL!
The product itself looks cool and I want to know more about it.
But I was left feeling so sad.
The video is touted as “heartwarming”, mostly I think because so many people gathered to learn sign language for the purpose of creating the ad.
But to me it emphasised how lonely it really is to be deaf in a hearing world, to be deaf in an aural/oral community.
For every one of the interactions that the guy in the video had with the people who learned sign for Samsung, he has 10 interactions in real life, where he is left out. Where he has to bend over backwards to figure things out. Where he is struggling. Where he is isolated.
And the thing is, being deaf is largely a non-visible disability.
If you are hearing and actually do know sign language and wanted to talk with a deaf person, how would you know we are deaf? How would you know to sign?
You just don’t know, do you.
I feel like that’s one thing that I wish people would understand about being deaf. How isolating it can be. How videos like this aren’t really touching in the aspect of people coming together to learn some sign for an ad, but in how this man doesn’t have access to communication and inclusion in the same way that most hearing people take for granted.
Hopefully the product Samsung are selling will actually help. Anyone know more about it?
Meriah Nichols writes about travel, disability and parenting. Deaf, she is also the mother of Moxie, who has Down syndrome. Meriah’s writing has appeared in Huffington Post, News.com The Village Voice and Scary Mommy, among others. She currently farms half the year on the Lost Coast of California and travels the Pan American Highway during the other half, “roadschooling” the kids.
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Andy not him, me.
March 16, 2015
I feel the same way about this.
Many people believe that this is real. I am seeing messages from people saying “How nice of all those people to learn sign language just for this guy” without actually realising that it is an advert. IMHO this is misleading.
There is also the question of whether it is fair to exploit our language in this way. It shows this man at a severe disadvantage because he’s a sign user. It makes signers look a bit needy, again IMHO.
The reality is that provided they live in properly supported communities signing deaf people get along just fine. We only really have problems with the hearing world. Take out the hearies… there is no problem!
Perhaps this is a good moment to make a point of explaining some home truths about deaf people?
Hartmut
March 22, 2015
I don’t know more about Samsung in Turkey. I just suspect that it is one of the major sponsors for the Congress of the World Federation of the Deaf, which will take place this Summer in Istanbul/Turkey. The video shows, Samsung is funding the “Call Center for the Deaf” in Turkey, kind of a interpreting relay service between deaf and hearing people.
While I agree with the criticism in the article, the video does make a positive contribution for the betterment of the deaf in Turkish society by not stressing the oral ability and monolingualism in Turkish for Deaf persons, but by hearing people using sign language, The Call Center is one aspect, and this video to show how ordinary people can use signs in ordinary encounters with Deaf people. Of course, the video being an advert needs to skip the part where the hearing person begins to speak to the Deaf person and the ensuing usual rejoinder of the latter’s inability to hear.
Important is to acknowledge the positive impact of the video to masses that it has become viral.