The deaf community is educating, entertaining and raising awareness on TikTok
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How do you order at a restaurant when you're deaf? Can deaf people hear in their dreams? What sign language phrases should everyone know? These are some of the questions that deaf TikTok creators are answering on the popular social media platform. In addition to addressing common questions and misconceptions, they are also raising awareness about the deaf experience and culture – and what it really means to be deaf.
The deaf community is diverse: it includes people with partial hearing loss, people who wear cochlear implants, people who wear hearing aids, and people who were born deaf or those who became deaf later in life. You can easily see this diversity on TikTok, where hashtags like #DeafTok and #DeafTikTok are growing massively. Deaf people have turned to TikTok as a platform to share their experiences, educate people about the deaf experience, and even teach some basic sign language.
We spoke to Beth Leipholtz, who turned to social media to share her experience raising a deaf child, her 3-year-old son, Cooper.
I think it just became inspiring for me not only to be able to share our story, but to connect with other parents who are maybe in a similar position who wanted to know kind of what to expect as their journey unfolded. And not only that, but also be able to educate, you know, people who weren't walking the same path but maybe would interact with kids with cochlear implants or were curious about what it meant to be deaf.