Why I Caption My Videos
Transcript:
So I have a lot of videos for you this month and I'm excited, but I'm also a bit frustrated because some of them are super, super long. I can deal with long videos. I edited them just fine. But what I didn't really think about was that my normal videos are five minutes long... but these videos are like fifty minutes long, these panels.
It takes a lot longer to caption a fifty minute video than a five minute video. That's frustrating because I really want them captioned. Most videos on YouTube don't have captions. I'm really lucky not to need them most of the time because I don't really have a hearing issue. I can understand most videos pretty well.
But hearing issues aren't the only ways captions can be useful!
Today I thought we'd talk about some other ways you might enjoy captions, even if you hear just fine.
Okay, this one is a sneaky one... Captioned videos can be watched on the down low.
You can mute a video and still completely understand what's going on if it's got captions. This means you can watch videos in places maybe you shouldn't watch videos like school. Or church! Um... I'm not advocating watching videos at school or church when you shouldn't be, but you could! You could with captions, I'm just saying. I'm not telling you to, I'm just saying.
It helps search results.
Google Search treats captions the way it does words in an article. If it can read what you're saying then it can better show you up in search. If you're a small YouTuber this could be very important, because it could help you find a bigger viewership. Isn't that awesome? I think that's awesome. Mostly because I am a small YouTuber. *laughs*
It's super easy to create them, too.
YouTube now has a feature in the Creator Studio where you can just type in your captions as the video plays along. Some people don't like this, but I think it's really fun! If that doesn't sound exciting to you there are several other ways you can do it, too. It's really not that time intensive at all.
I learned how to do it by watching a video by Rikki Poynter... I hope I'm saying her name right. She's a really big champion of captions on YouTube and she has lots of videos on the subject. I will link to a video somewhere. You should check it out. She has a lot of really informative videos. I'd recommend her if you'd like to learn more.
This one isn't really useful, but… it makes you feel cool.
TV and Movies have captions, so if your YouTube channel has captions you're in the company of greats. That makes things awesome, don't you think? And honestly, it does make your videos more accessible to deaf or hard of hearing users. It also helps people who have English as a second language better understand your video. Or maybe even translate your video into their own language!
How cool would it be to be understood in a language you can't even speak yourself?
I know I really appreciate captions when I have a headache because I get very light and sound sensitive. I just curl up in bed with the volume low and captions on and just rest my head a bit. Normally I have to watch Netflix or Hulu because YouTube is not very good with captions.
But I love captions, you guys, and I love YouTube so let's fix this. Let's fix this together!
My captions aren't perfect, but they're exactly what I mean to say, so I hope they help somebody.
I really wanted to post my panels with the captions already embedded, but I didn't want to delay my other videos because it took so long to caption the bigger ones.
I'm still going to work on that, but I'll have to post them without the captions at the start. Eventually I hope to have them all captioned. You can help me caption them, did you know that?
That's another really cool feature. YouTube allows your viewers to help you caption a video! YouTube's very cool with the collaboration stuff. Do you use captions in your videos? Do you enjoy captions?
Let me know. Tell me in the comments.
Show me more captioned YouTubers. I would definitely like to find them. I'll see you soon. Have a great day. Bye.
