+
More

Chris Pratt apologized to deaf fans online then had harsh words for Instagram itself.

In a recent video on social media, mega-celebrity Chris Pratt made what seemed like a reasonable request.

Photo by Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images.

The "Guardians of the Galaxy" star asked his fans scrolling through their feed to turn up the volume and listen instead of, as he put it, "just reading the subtitles."


In doing so, he unintentionally alienated a ton of fans who depend on those very subtitles.

Almost 38 million adults living in America have some form of hearing loss, and implying that a subtitled video was somehow a lesser experience was, well, a bit insulting.

So Pratt took to Instagram to issue a powerful and heartfelt apology.

"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," he wrote.

"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."

In addition to his writing, Pratt used his hands to apologize in the 100% silent video.

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. #CCinstaNow

A post shared by chris pratt (@prattprattpratt) on

His willingness to reach out and make amends sparked an outpouring of support for the actor.

Though a few commenters noticed his signing wasn't completely accurate (though not bad for a newbie), hundreds of comments poured in to thank Pratt for taking the time to better educate himself.

While the apology was genuine and moving, it was perhaps the very end of Pratt's message that held the most weight.

"Why doesn't Instagram have some kind of technology to automatically add subtitles to its videos?" he asked. "Shouldn't there be an option for closed captioning or something?"

He's got a good point. While other platforms like Facebook have added auto-captioning tools to make it easy on publishers to create more accessible videos, Instagram seems to be lagging behind.

For a platform with about 700 million monthly users, Pratt doesn't think that's acceptable.

"I've made them lord knows how much money with my videos and pictures," he wrote. "Essentially sharing myself for free. I know they profit. So... GET ON IT INSTAGRAM!!! Put closed captioning on your app. #CCinstaNow"

With well over a million views on the video so far, it's obvious that Pratt's support means a lot to the Deaf and hard of hearing community.

Hopefully, having this kind of star power behind an important cause will lead to some much-needed change.

All photos courtesy of The Coca-Cola Company

Behind the Scenes Making Recycled Records with Mark Ronson

True

You’re walking down the sidewalk, earbuds in, listening to your favorite hip-hop beats. As your head bobs to the sounds, the sun warms your back. It’s a perfect day.

When the chorus hits, the empty Sprite bottle in your hand becomes a drumstick, passing traffic becomes a sea of concertgoers, and the concrete beneath your feet is suddenly a stage. Spinning on your heels, you close out the song with your face to the sky and hands in the air.

Keep ReadingShow less
@penslucero/TikTok

Pency Lucero taking in the Northern Lights

Seeing the northern lights is a common bucket list adventure for many people. After all, it ticks a lot of boxes—being a dazzling light show, rich historical experience and scientific phenomenon all rolled into one. Plus there’s the uncertainty of it all, never quite knowing if you’ll witness a vivid streak of otherworldly colors dance across the sky…or simply see an oddly colored cloud. It’s nature’s slot machine, if you will.

Traveler and content creator Pency Lucero was willing to take that gamble. After thorough research, she stumbled upon an Airbnb in Rörbäck, Sweden with an actual picture of the northern lights shining above the cabin in the listing. With that kind of photo evidence, she felt good about her odds.

However, as soon as she landed, snow began falling so hard that the entire sky was “barely visible,” she told Upworthy. Martin, the Airbnb host, was nonetheless determined to do everything he could to ensure his guests got to see the spectacle, even offering to wake Lucero up in the middle of the night if he saw anything.

Then one night, the knock came.

Keep ReadingShow less

Baby Cora bears a striking resemblance to actor Woody Harrelson.

We can all get a little fascinated by doppelgängers and it's fun to find people who look alike. But what do you do when your baby girl looks uncannily like a famous middle-aged man?

Mom Dani Grier Mulvenna shared a photo of her infant daughter Cora side by side with a photo of Woody Harrelson on Twitter, with the caption "Ok but how does our daughter look like Woody Harrelson." The resemblance truly is remarkable, and the tweet quickly racked up hundreds of thousands of likes, shares and replies.

Keep ReadingShow less
Image by sasint/Canva

Surgeons prepared to separate 3-year-old conjoined twins in Brazil using virtual reality.

The things human beings have figured out how to do boggles the mind sometimes, especially in the realm of medicine.

It wasn't terribly long ago that people with a severe injury had to liquor up, bite a stick, have a body part sewn up or sawed off and hope for the best. (Sorry for the visual, but it's true.) The discoveries of antibiotics and anesthesia alone have completely revolutionized human existence, but we've gone well beyond that with what our best surgeons can accomplish.

Surgeries can range from fairly simple to incredibly complex, but few surgeries are more complicated than separating conjoined twins with combined major organs. That's why the recent surgical separation of conjoined twin boys with fused brains in Brazil is so incredible.

Keep ReadingShow less
Education

Unearthed BBC interview features two Victorian-era women discussing being teens in the 1800s

Frances 'Effy' Jones, one of the first women to be trained to use a typewriter and to take up cycling as a hobby, recalls life as a young working woman in London.

Two Victorian women discuss being teens in the 1800s.

There remains some mystery around what life was like in the 1800s, especially for teens. Most people alive today were not around in the Victorian era when the technologies now deemed old-fashioned were a novelty. In this rediscovered 1970s clip from the BBC, two elderly women reminisce about what it was like being teenagers during a time when the horse and buggy was still the fastest way to get around.

Keep ReadingShow less
via Pexels

Parents who just can't stop fighting

Whitney Goodman, a licensed marriage and family therapist, shared a video about kids who grew up in homes where their parents were always fighting, which made many people feel seen. It also started a conversation about who deserves more empathy in the parent-child relationship: the parents or the children.

Goodman is known as the “radically honest” psychotherapist and the author of “Toxic Positivity: Keeping it Real in a World Obsessed with Being Happy.”

"If you grew up in this kind of house, you may have noticed that your family would split off into different alliances or teams to try to manage the material discord. Because the marriage wasn't a good or safe foundation for the family, everybody else had to kind of go and form these new teams,” Goodman explained in an Instagram post.

Keep ReadingShow less
Joy

People fell in love with Marty the cat after his owner wrote a heartbreaking goodbye letter

“I know this is a small tragedy in the grand scheme of the world, but one that I feel acutely knowing that I expected many more years with my friend."

Photo by Juanita Swart on Unsplash

RIP Marty

Tons of people found themselves clicking on the trending hashtag #RIPMarty, expecting to hear tragic news about a celebrity of some sort.

Instead, they learned about Marty the cat, whose owner shared the most heartbreakingly beautiful goodbye letter following his passing. That letter quickly went viral online, leaving folks completely invested Marty's story, not to mention utterly devastated.

Will Menaker, who shared the letter on Twitter, began by sharing how he and Marty first met. Or more accurately, how Marty introduced himself by emerging from under a car and unapologetically following Menaker up to the steps of his apartment seeking pets. Eventually, as the weather began to get colder, Menaker experimented with bringing Marty inside.

“From that moment on I was in love. I wouldn’t say I ‘had’ a cat, but from then on I shared a house with a tuxedo cat I would name Marty,” Menaker wrote.

Keep ReadingShow less