Hot Ones Has an Issue Which Is Falling on Deaf Ears - An Accessibility Request
My father is one of the earliest fans of Hot Ones. Sadly, he has gone pretty deaf due to medication that created ototoxicity.
He relies on accurate subtitles to enjoy his entertainment, yet Hot Ones relies only on the auto-generated AI captions from YouTube for their English subtitles. These distractingly go word by word, are inaccurate, and don’t do the content or fans justice. Captions are inaccurate enough to make interviews feel like a game of telephone - and playing telephone sucks when you’re deaf.
I get why smaller channels use auto captions, but this isn’t a small channel. This is a channel with millions of subscribers, yet doesn’t spend 50-75 bucks to have someone create subtitles for those who supported them from the start and still would like to.
I love Hot Ones, and even more so does my father. But the lack of genuine subtitles feels like a slap in the face. I know that seems like hyperbole (or “hi purple Lee” if we are using auto captions), but it really does sting.
If anyone at First We Feast sees this, please bring this up to the higher-ups. You can help make this change happen and help many thousands of people with it. If money is an issue, I’m genuinely more than happy to Venmo you 50 bucks if that means my father and many others can properly enjoy a recent fantastic interview. Thank you for at least reading this.
TLDR: Please add proper CC/human-edited subtitles to Hot Ones episodes for deaf/hard-of-hearing viewers.
EDIT: Thank you for the support on this. If you choose to reach out (please do!) to First We Feast or @ them, please keep all comments and messages polite and constructive :-)
The goal is simply to make them aware that human-edited captions would make a huge difference for those deaf and HOH fans. I think getting their attention on social media and showing them the overwhelming response to wanting proper subtitles could really help make a change.