Going the Extra Mile

Exciting news! If you watched my most recent video, then you will have found out that I’ve decided to increase the number of videos I’m putting out this month. I decided halfway through filming this week’s video, so that lets you know that I do not have pre-planned content. While I did have a few things on my calendar already that I knew would make this month’s videos more exciting, this is going to be a challenge for me to create content at a faster turnover rate. It’s not quite a vlogmas, but maybe a Christmas special! 🙂

If you follow Lex in the City on Facebook, you will remember that I recently started adding subtitles/captioning to my videos. It was after seeing some TikToks from members of the deaf and hard-of-hearing (HOH) community that I was moved to add this to my editing routine. Going through daily life with people not taking extra time to slow down their speech or find someone to accommodate you, especially during a time where everything revolves around technology, is something that I can’t even imagine how frustrating it can be. As a person who is active on social media, literally almost every major social platform at the moment has incorporated videos in some way, but why should a deaf or HOH person be left out of this just because they can’t hear it? This is where captioning can make a big difference.
Despite not being HOH, I’ve grown up watching movies and TV with subtitles and still do, so I know how big of a help they can be (and how different it is without it). Although YouTube has an automatic translator, it is not always accurate, so I have taken it upon myself to manually transcribe all of my videos. The first video I tried was my San Antonio/Laredo vlog and it took me about six combined hours to transcribe. However, this week’s video–which is of a similar length–only took me about four hours. As I get more practice, I am not only getting faster, but I am also becoming more cognizant in my videos of how quickly I have been speaking. Now, I try to actively speak slower for the deaf and HOH community and also non-native English speakers, as I’ve discovered I have some people watching me from non-English speaking countries. This added step will definitely pose the biggest challenge on this temporary posting schedule, but it will be that much more gratifying for me and my viewers.

Last week, I wrote a blog post about goal-setting and YouTube was one of them that I left out of the post so I wouldn’t spoil today’s news. I wrote towards the end about how even when we don’t achieve every little thing we set out to do, we learn that we are capable of committing ourselves to something. I have absolutely no idea if I will fall short this month, but I am committed and I know that I will give it my best. I am excited to take this on and learn if I am capable of a two-video-per-week posting schedule in the future (2021) while maintaining a full-time job. As always, I hope y’all enjoy the content and please interact with it! Either comment or like the video so I know what to keep creating in the future. 🙂

xx, AE