#DEAFTALENT: Buffer Festival 2015 Recap

Alright, bye. [DOOR CLOSES]

[INTRO]

Hello.

So, Buffer Festival is officially over which
is kind of sad.

It was my first Buffer Festival.

And I kind of invited myself.

Or I tried to invite myself and then I got
the invite.

My friends Laur, from LaurDIY, and, well my
boyfriend, Devon, told me that I should e-mail

them and see if I could possibly become a
featured creator at Buffer and at first -

At first, I didn’t want to.

I was too nervous about it.

I was like, “No, they’re not gonna want
me to come over ‘cos I’m practically nobody

on YouTube, but, uhm…

Yeah, they wanted me out there because -

I’m one of the more “unique” and “interesting”
YouTubers, if you will.

So, I did end up on two screenings: one of
them being the -

One of them being the Science and Education
and the other being Women of YouTube.

On Science and Education, I was with Matthew
Santoro, Jake from Vsauce3, Hannah Witton.

Sabrina Cruz, who is already a friend of mine.

A couple other people who I wasn’t very
familiar with.

And then on Women of YouTube, I was with Hannah
again, my friend, Meghan Tonjes.

Uhm, Estee was on there and a couple other
people that I wasn’t familiar with.

I think that’s what makes me so nervous
about being on events like these, like with

VidCon or Buffer Festival.

I don’t watch YouTube much anymore and if
I do, it’s always a select number of people,

probably people that wouldn’t make it to
these things.

So before we get into the actual screenings,
we can backtrack a little bit and talk about

the events that happened before the actual
screenings.

I did get to stay at a hotel and it was a
pretty nifty hotel.

There were hospitality suites and you could
get free snacks and pizza and stuff.

We actually did eat out a lot.

When you have so many YouTubers in one tiny
room, sometimes, it’s just better to eat

out than to try to fight people for food because
the “real food” came when everyone would

go up there and then they would stay there
and it was just so crowded.

So the first day of the event was the Gala,
the Red Carpet, and we did dress up pretty nifty.

I actually got to borrow my dress from Laur
so, thank you, Laur, for lending me the dress.

Food was good and we had to wait for our limo
to come pick us up.

And that was one of the things that kind of
-

That actually bummed me out -

Was I was the last featured creator, I believe,
to actually get a limo, so by the time that

we went to the Red Carpet, pretty much nobody
was there.

Like, all the interview people and everything.

Nobody was really there so it just wasn’t
as fun.

The Red Carpet was something that I was really
looking forward to and that just was a bummer, but oh well.

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned
about this stuff, is that next time, if there

is a Buffer,

I am wearing a pantsuit because it’s warmer.

October is just way too cold of a month to
do red carpet events. I - no.

And then moving on to the actual screenings
-

Like I said, I was on two screenings.

And there were actually meet ups.

For them, but I did not go to any of them.

One, because I did not think it was really
necessary for me to go because I didn’t

think there would be anybody there.

I only knew one person for sure was going
and we ended up meeting somewhere else.

But, actually, what was kind of funny about
it was that - I - I don’t know why this

happened, but Buffer staff - I believe it
was Buffer staff - called my hotel room with

a voice phone.

I’m not the one you call using a voice phone
to.

But, yeah, they called and they told me that
the meetups were actually mandatory, but then

we were like -

But then they said that because the meetups
were not captioned - they did not have a captioner

for me - I was the exception and I didn’t
have to go.

Buffer did provide me with a live captioner
so I had a computer in front of me or an iPad

in front of me.

I had different live captioners on both days
so the way that we went about it was a little

bit different.

For Science and Education, it was a little
bit more private for us and everybody went

up on stage one at a time and then we all
went together.

And so we were in the back during the actual
video previews so I was, you know, reading

all the captions, like, in my own little corner.

Whereas with Women of YouTube, we were all
on stage together sitting down so I had the

computer to my left and while everyone’s
kind of looking this way or this way, I’m

that person mostly looking this way as I’ll
show you a picture over here where you’ll

be able to see that.

I was very, very nervous about the screenings
because one, I’ve never done this before.

Two, I wasn’t by myself.

And you would think that if you had other
people with you, it would take the nerves

away a little bit, which it kind of does,
but if you’re like me and you can’t understand

the majority of the people there, it’s kind
of like you have to constantly ask questions

over and over and make sure you have all the
information so you don’t screw up.

Because if something happens, it’s probably
-

Gonna be because of me.

And I don’t want that, but it all went really
well.

I think most people premiered the same video
if they had multiple screenings.

I, however, did a different video for both
screenings.

For Science and Education, I did another closed
captioning video, basically.

I just did a brand new one and I made it shorter,
more to the point for the people on the screening

with me and for the people in the audience.

It’s pretty much the same thing as the other
you-need-to-closed-caption-this-is-how-you-do-it

videos on my channel, so I’m not going to
put that video on my channel like other people

will with their videos.

Like, it’s just the same thing.

But what was really awesome is -

When we all had our Q&A, the very first thing
that was mentioned was from Jake from Vsauce3

and he talked about how he already captioned
all his videos and I knew that because when

VidCon was coming, I had tweeted him thanking
him to - or for - captioning his channel and

he talked about how important it was and that
made me feel really good.

Like, the first thing that gets talked about
is a subject that a very small YouTuber brings

up.

A YouTuber that nobody really knows.

So that made me pretty happy and I think I
might’ve cried on stage just a little bit.

And then Matthew Santoro who was also on the
screening also mentioned how he was looking

into it and that he was going to start doing
it.

And what was really awesome is, today, he
left me a -

Post on my Facebook telling me that he had
already got in 225 caption files from Rev

and put ‘em all on his videos so his entire
channel is captioned now which is totally

freakin’ awesome because I think the only
person to do something like that with that

many videos was Tyler Oakley back in January.

So, thank you, Matthew, for captioning your
entire channel so quickly and inviting me

to that party on Saturday.

That was pretty awesome. Thank you.

So not only did Jake talk about it and then
Matt started captioning, uhm, Leah Rifkin,

I believe is her name, she was on the screening
as well and Out of Frame TV, I believe is

what it’s called, is being captioned.

And then we move on to the Women of YouTube
screening which was just… wow.

There were so many people on Women of YouTube.

And I did a more general video, like, being
a deaf woman on YouTube, blah blah blah.

More misogyny, more - different kinds of misogyny.

And, uhm, that’s not going to be premiered
on here either.

I don’t have the file, but I might redo
it because both videos were kind of last minute

and I would rather redo it and make it better
to put on my channel.

But that went really well, uhm…

Leigh…

I’ll put her name here.

She, uh, premiered a video there and it’s
captioned on her channel now so I will link

that down below because it was pretty awesome.

And Estee is looking into it as well so I
have to e-mail her at some point so we can

get that going.

I’m not sure what the rest of the YouTubers
are going to do, unfortunately.

But, hopefully, they will get on the captioning train as well.

That would be pretty awesome.

And Estee and I got a selfie together which
was pretty awesome.

Well, the good thing with Estee was we both
relate.

We wanted to step out of the beauty world
because we kind of felt trapped in that little

beauty bubble because -

It - It - It’s a thing.

A lot of, you know, women on YouTube, when
they’re just starting on YouTube, they don’t

-

They think that you should probably just stick
to being a makeup person on YouTube because

they tend to be more successful.

And not only that, if you stick to the beauty
bubble thing, you kind of hide away from -

The comments that you would get if you were
more of an outspoken kind of person.

If you talked about social issues, feminism
or whatever.

It was - It was pretty awesome to see that
another person on the panel felt the same

way as me and wanted to, uhm, you know, move
out of that and work on to something else

regardless of the fact that other people have
kind of made comments about how you shouldn’t

do this or do this, do that, so -

Or should do that. Yeah.

Other than that, Buffer was pretty fun.

The parties were so-so, but parties, you know,
me, we don’t really mesh very well.

I met a lot of awesome people that became
friends, became acquaintances and, you know,

people that asked me about captioning outside
of panels and -

I would definitely want to do this again.

So, thank you, Corey and Sam and everybody
else from Buffer Festival for doing this thing

and, you know, for inviting me to come over
and -

And fingers crossed that we will have another
Buffer Festival next year because it was really fun.

It was really awesome.

It’s a great way to find out about people
and I would definitely want to go.

I will see you later. Bye.