Chris Pratt apologises to hearing-impaired people for insensitive social media post

Actor Chris Pratt has apologized to all hearing-impaired people over posting an insensitive promotional video for his latest release’ Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2′ on social media.

Pratt used Instagram on Thursday to upload the video, featured video contained frame-by-frame captions, Pratt wrote in the caption of the post “turn up the volume and not just ‘read the subtitles’“ — which many in the hearing-impaired community saw as dismissive, given that some don’t have that option.

In his apology post, Pratt explained that he directed to those people who watch those videos at work when they should be working and don’t want to get caught and he also does it sometimes! So when he made a video recently with subtitles and requested that people should 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, he realized doing this 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.
He truly meant it from the bottom of his heart!

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 May 4, 2017 at 5:59am PDT