For those of you who don’t frequently use Instagram, it now has a feature where videos with sound will play on mute. Unlike many Facebook videos which also play on mute but include closed captioning, Instagram videos are silent and without captions until the user clicks the video to hear sound.
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When Hollywood star (and adorably lovable nice guy) Chris Pratt uploaded a video recently, he included subtitles, but wanted his followers to know there was sound in the video. He asked fans to click the video for sound instead of, in his words, “just reading the subtitles.”
The video– which has since been removed– was immediately met with criticism. Followers called out Pratt for being insensitive to his deaf and hearing-impaired followers. So, in what may be the classiest move ever, Pratt responded with another Instagram video. Pratt learned sign language in order to sign a sincere apology along with the heartfelt caption below.
Instagram does this thing where it mutes all the videos it shows and forces you to turn on the volume in order to hear them. (maybe because most people are watching those videos at work when they should be working and don’t want to get caught. I know that’s when I do it.) So when I made a video recently with subtitles, and requested that people turn up the volume and not just “read the subtitles” it was so people wouldn’t scroll past the video on mute, thus watching and digesting the information in the video. HOWEVER, I realize now doing so was incredibly insensitive to the many folks out there who depend on subtitles.
More than 38 million Americans live with some sort of hearing disability. So I want to apologize. I have people in my life who are hearing-impaired, and the last thing in the world I would want to do is offend them or anybody who suffers from hearing loss or any other disability. So truly from the bottom of my heart I apologize. Thanks for pointing this out to me. In the future I’ll try to be a little less ignorant about it.
Now… I know some of you are going to say, “Hey! Chris only apologized because his publicist made him!” Well. That is not the case. As always I control my social media. Nobody else. And I am doing this because I’m actually really sorry. Apologies are powerful. I don’t dole them out Willy-Nilly. This is one of those moments where I screwed up and here’s me begging your pardon. I hope you accept my apology.
And on that note. Why doesn’t Instagram have some kind of technology to automatically add subtitles to its videos? Or at least the option. I did a little exploring and it seems lacking in that area. Shouldn’t there be an option for closed captioning or something? I’ve made them lord knows how much money with my videos and pictures. Essentially sharing myself for free. I know they profit. So… GET ON IT INSTAGRAM!!! Put closed captioning on your app.
What an awesome display of humility from such a huge star!
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