[Doug]: Welcome to episode 22 of Feeling Through Live. I'm joined here today by Will Butler from Be My Eyes. The title of this episode is appropriately named, Be My Eyes. And we'll, we've got a lot to talk about today, but you know, let's, let's talk about the elephant in the room here, or rather just the title on the screen. Why don't you tell everyone would Be My Eyes is.
[Will]: Yeah. So, uh, thanks. Thanks for having me. It's it's good to be here. And, um, and, yeah, I'm really excited to share a little bit about what we do and talk about your movie, cause it's such an, such an excellent piece of work as well. So yeah, so Be My Eyes is, is a Danish, Danish invention. It was this app that, it was basically dreamed up by this, this Danish guy who has retinitis pigmentosa. So he's got a degenerative eye condition and about six, seven years ago around the time that video chat became pretty popular in mobile devices, he realized that he could actually make a video call to like, anybody and, and point the camera, and they could translate to describe whatever he was looking at or having trouble seeing. And so he thought to himself, this is really great, but what if I don't want to just call the same couple of friends and family all the time? You know, what if I could kind of do this at scale. And he realized, you know, every time I go out on the street, all these people are trying to help me, you know, cross the street or do things that I might not necessarily need help with. But when I do need help is when, when people aren't looking, when he's by himself trying to tell the difference between a can of tomatoes or a camp coconut milk, and you don't want to open it up and smell it to find out. So, Be My Eyes was born this idea that you could press a button and a random volunteer somewhere in the world, who was available would answer within a few seconds, look through your phone camera and describe whatever it is you were looking at. And then you could go on with your day. Uh, and that's what that's, what was, was created. Uh, when we launched the app five years ago, it was a very, kind of, it was a big unknown. We had no idea how many people were going to sign up what the response was going to be. Frankly, we were worried that more visually impaired people were going to sign up, uh, then volunteers and we would have this outsize demand and, and people would be mad because they weren't getting help, but kind of the opposite happened. Um, we had about 10,000 volunteers sign up in the first four hours and a thousand blind users. And so we developed this really great ratio about 20 to one volunteers to users. So that every time it user places, a Be My Eyes call kind of like Uber or Lyft, we ping about 20 people at a time. And whoever is most available will be the first person to answer and be able to be the eyes of the, the person who needs help looking at something. So that's, that's what it does. Yeah.
[Doug]: And, you know, obviously, great, great description there, and I'll be the person on the outside of this being a little bit more of the fan boy of it saying, like, if you haven't used this app, you should download it immediately. It's, you know, I will, when we first connected, I told you, I was like, I was kind of nerding out a little bit because I was like, independently from meeting you, well before it, I had read about Be My Eyes downloaded and was like really excited about, you know, not just the functionality of it, but also just kind of the community that you've, you guys have really built around it. And we'll certainly get into that a little bit more. But I mean, just from a personal standpoint, what I was so impressed with was like, kind of what you were saying. There was this initial concern that, Oh, we're going to have so many people needing to use this and not enough volunteers to make it work, but it being so much the opposite that as someone who's a volunteer on it, I've hardly, I've been on it for like, well over a year, I've hardly ever gotten any notifications because there's just so many volunteers. And the few times I have, I have gotten a notification, I have like sprinted to my phone, tried to get it and like just missed out because another volunteer has gotten it, which first and foremost is so cool in and of itself that there's so many people that make it work so well. But on the other hand, I think it's so cool that like I've signed up for something to volunteer my time. Right. Quote, unquote, volunteer my time. And I'm like super bummed that I miss out on this volunteer opportunity and to create that kind of enthusiasm for people who are like, quote unquote volunteering their time is like, there's very few things that I feel like create that level of enthusiasm to like volunteer your time for,
[Will]: Yeah. Well, there was a, I think what, where Be My Eyes slipped in is there was a gap between, um, the amount of people who really genuinely wanted to help and the opportunities to help. Like I remember when I was in college and I was kind of newly blind. I would, if I wanted to have course material accessible to me, it was like a process. It was like I had to either purchase, you know, a $700 flatbed scanner and expensive software and learn how to use the software and then learn how to, you know, scan it and convert it or go down, walk physically down to the disabled students office, find the group there that converts books into accessible formats have them literally cut the spine off of the book. Um, you know, and scan it through their software, returned it to me, put it onto a CD, um, that, and then I would take home and put into my computer sometimes just so that I could read like one chapter of a book. And, and in a world where like we as blind people are like 1% or one to 3% depending on how you look at it, of the population. And there's so many people who want to contribute to helping us. We really, we, we really shouldn't have to wait when it comes to overcoming an accessibility barrier, it should be pretty instant. Um, and so that's kind of what we're working on at Be My Eyes. Like we joke that we don't want to get to a point where we don't need to exist because the accessibility barriers aren't there, but for the ones that are, we want people to be able to overcome them pretty much instantaneously. And we have college students who will, you know, call 13 individual Be My Eyes volunteers in a row and have them each read one page of the chapter. And they're able to get the book, the chapter read the exact same amount of time that the sighted person would, as opposed to going through that process that I had to go through. Um, you know, 10 years ago, only eight or nine, nine or 10 years ago.
[Doug]: They have so many things to say to that. But before I do just a couple of questions from people who are watching. Alice hello, Alice, one of our former guests and amazing, president of the DeafBlind division of the National Federation for the Blind asks, she asks, can you access the app with a braille display?
[Will]: You know, we, we haven't like completely figured out support for the, um, I'd love to hear your feedback, Alice. It's one of the reasons why when Doug, Doug invited me on, I was really excited to join because we've done a really good job with connecting with the quote unquote blindness organizations. Um, but you know, as, as folks may or may not know, it's like deaf, the deafblind organizations and individuals tend to get short shrift on these sorts of things. Um, so I was excited to come on and sort of collect community feedback as well. Cause it's kind of, part of my job is to figure out, you know, what is the best way for us to make Be My Eyes work for people who are, are deaf, right? Like we, we have tons of deaf users who are using it with headphones in and, or some degree of amplification, obviously people with implants, like, you know, we have like a pretty significant deafblind community and definitely a pretty big, uh, hard of hearing a group of users. Because many of our users are older. Um, but when it comes to things like accessing the app completely non, visually and non auditorially, I think we could do better. And I think, um, I think, you know, people are always welcome to reach out to me on that front as well. My email address is will@BeMyEyes.com and, um, I'd love to hear from folks like Alice to see about like, who knows, I might be pleasantly surprised, you know, like we might have our developers in Denmark are really, really conscious about accessibility. So the app itself is a, is a hundred percent accessible. Uh, so it may be a pretty good, but I'm more concerned about like, what is the user experience for a braille display user? Um, and how do we go about nailing that? Cause I don't think we've run a ton of, um, user tests with braille display users.
[Doug]: Yeah. It is like, again, it seems like a technology and again, we'll get more into technology a little bit, but like a technology where there's like a lot of room to keep kind of building it outward to accommodate a lot more people. Um, one more question too for right now is Diane Black. Hello, Diane, asks, how is the app promoted?
[Will]: You know, it's really, it's really, uh, promoted by word of mouth. Um, well in social media, if you count that as word of mouth like organic social media, um, we were a small company. We, we were less than a dozen people for five years. Now I think it's 16 or 17. Um, and we run on, you know, kind of, we run a tight ship and uh, we have, uh, most of the team in Denmark, just a few people in the United States. Uh, and so we don't have big marketing budgets or anything like that, but luckily we have an idea that resonates with people. So our volunteers, we have more than 4 million volunteers now and our volunteers evangelize the app. They are constantly talking about it just in the way that Doug was telling people they have to download this app. We pop up on the front page of Reddit every, every couple of weeks or every couple of months. Um, we, we have social media posts unexpectedly go viral. Uh, every so often we had something kind of go crazy on Tik Tok last week, um, which got us, you know, a hundred thousand new users and, um, you know, promoting, promoting a service to people who are blind or low vision is hard. People who are blind or low vision tend to be isolated from the typical marketing channels or if not isolated, just integrated into the general population. And so we found that the way to promote it amongst visually impaired people is to promote it to everybody. Because if you think about it, we have, we have, um, 4 million sighted users and about a quarter million blind users. But statistically about a quarter million of those sighted users are going to experience a visual impairment at some point in their lives. So we have almost double blind users in our sighted, you know, if you could think about our sighted community and the fact that they will eventually need Be My Eyes. Um, and we have heard many, many times already about people saying, can I switch my account? I was a volunteer. I had a great experience. I helped some people and now I have a visual impairment and I'd like to switch my account to the other type of account.
[Doug]: That's so interesting. You know, I think about a lot of times, you know, something and just connecting with a lot of people saying the deafblind community through Feeling Through, you know, I'd heard, you know, for people who maybe became deafblind later in life, and weren't say, born with Usher and maybe had had an earlier incidence of it, there is this kind of like feeling of psychologically, of being like, it was something that was very, very foreign until it was something that that person was personally experiencing. And it's so interesting to think of, you know, one of, kind of maybe the not as obvious benefits of a Be My Eyes is that it also kind of creates a direct connection and understanding of a community that many of the volunteers will at some point be directly a part of themselves and kind of creating, like, what I can only imagine is like a smoother transition into that. Had they not had any kind of direct connection with, the blind and low vision community prior to, to becoming part of that community themselves, I would imagine.
[Will]: Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of ways to put it. I don't really believe. I think disability is a really useful concept as an identity thing. And I have a lot of pride in my disability, but I don't think it's very useful for our society as a whole, because it, because it alienates and it others. And I think like everybody has need for good design, accessible designed things, whether it's because you're blind or deaf or because you're holding a baby in one arm or the sun's in your eyes, or you have a limp, or, you know, you've sprained your ankle or your arthritis is kicking in. And it's like, are those people disabled? Sorta, you know. Um, and I think that I've heard a lot of different versions of this little hippy phrase, like a friend, Chris Downey, who is a blind architect who says everybody's got a disability, it's just that some people haven't found theirs yet. Um, I've had, I've heard folks with NFB say, the National Federation of the Blind say, um, everybody's blind. Everyone will be blind if they live long enough, which is a little more of a sinister thing, but it's true. I mean, like everybody experiences visual impairment, um, at some point in their life, the world health organization said that 2.2 billion people are experiencing some sort of visual impairment right now, which is like a staggering number. It's almost 30% the population. So obviously empathy is like really important. And it's important to understand that it's not us who can see and them who can not. It's, we are all in this very, we all have this very delicate gift of being able to interpret light with our, with our brain, through our eyes and it's, and we can't take it for granted. And, um, for the many, many people who don't, we need to make the world work for them. Um, so, so there's a lot of different empathy exercises out there that many of which sort of missed the mark and some of them, which sort of hit the mark, but it's tough. And you'll hear a lot of people saying like, Oh, I didn't totally know where you're at. Like when I take off my glasses, I'm blind. And it's like, there's just like, people are really, really desperate to feel connected to people with disabilities, but they're not given that many opportunities. So I'd like to think that Be My Eyes gives people an authentic opportunity. It's not exploitative, it's a win win for both parties. I'm truly a win win for both parties. Um, and, and doesn't, and doesn't dip too much into like empathy exercises that don't give the individual a ton of information.
[Doug]: Yeah. And you know, kind of to what, kind of something that we touched on before and what made, what that kind of like brings up for me is, you know, one of the things that I think is really great about Be My Eyes and kind of the enthusiasm that's generated around it is that it goes beyond creating something that, like something that allows for more accessibility. I think it, it really does create community and like a mutuality of, of like a benefit, a benefit, right. Cause like I know, you know, in connecting with you before this, I know that there's a lot of people who are a volunteer who are perhaps, you know, to, to put it in kind of like a cliched way that are getting even more benefit from it than the, than the person they're volunteering for in the sense that I can only imagine this has been amplified during COVID, but obviously there's a lot of people who are isolated, increased loneliness. Um, and, something like this is a technology that not only allows to increase accessibility, but really just connection. I mean, I'm sure there's, you've probably gotten a number of stories like that throughout time, but I can only imagine more so over the last six months.
[Will]: Absolutely. People are, people are incredibly eager right now to find a volunteer opportunity that, um, that resonates with them and makes them feel like they're, that they're being effective and at home or wherever they are. Um, and yeah, if anything, if anything our tasks that, that we need to figure out is how to provide more opportunities for all these wonderful volunteers who have signed up to do more. Um, I think there is an element to it, of people like that. There's no obligation. I think that we live in a time where you should be able to kind of make your own schedule and do things your own way. That's kind of expected at this point. And so I think, I think it's good that there's never, we never force any volunteer to do anything. Um, so we're going to try to maintain that and keep it casual and keep it like fun. Um, everyone knows it. As soon as you start being expected to do something regularly, it kind of loses its fun. Um, but yeah, I, I've been trying really hard to build community because 10 years ago, 12 years ago. And I asked a lot of my vision. I didn't know any people who are blind. Um, I had no reference point. I had no bookmark, nothing like no foothold for what visual impairment was all about. And I was listening to podcasts. I was searching the internet. Stuff wasn't out there. There were no blind YouTubers like there are today, there were no blind podcasts like there are today. It was a pretty obscure corners of the internet where you could find information about blindness and it wasn't stuff that was appealing to an 18 year old kid. So we're trying to engage with that as a, as a brand and as a company to try to put out multiple podcasts. We have community calls a couple of times a month where we have hundreds of blind people from around the world talking to each other on the line. Um, we have, uh, you know, we produce a lot of content that tries to bring people together as a community. And we're constantly thinking critically about how can we make this the biggest blind community in the world, really a community and not just like a nameless, faceless user base, you know?
[Doug]: And not only are there a couple podcasts associated with Be My Eyes, but you are the host of said podcasts.
[Will]: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know why I do this to myself. I'm so busy. Let's start another one.
[Doug]: But I'm, you know, why don't you just let people know who are watching and interested what those are called and where they can find them.
[Will]: Yeah. So you can go to bemyeyes.com/podcasts. And, um, there are two podcasts there. One is called the Be My Eyes podcast, and that is entirely interviews with blind and low vision people who, really, my only criteria is, are they blind or low vision? And are they passionate about what they do? That's basically it. Um, I just want to show as many different perspectives as possible on what it means to be blind. And we've, we've interviewed, you know, um, world travelers, PhD chemists, the president of the NFB folks from other organizations. Um, we're bringing on folks from the ACB we've got, uh, You know, just like real sort of like trying to have really meaty discussions about what it means to be blind in today's world and, and how you get by and all the different ways of getting by it. Cause there are so many different perspectives. So that's the Be My Eyes podcast. Then there's a podcast called 13 Letters, the accessibility podcast. It's one, three, L-E-T-T-E-R-S. And 13 letters is kind of a joke about the word accessibility and how sort of inaccessible the word accessibility is like a 13 letter word. Um, and so it's basically just all about inclusive design and, physical and digital accessibility. We interview a lot of folks from companies who are designing things to be more accessible to people with disabilities. And yeah, and I cohost that with, uh, accessibility engineer from Salesforce. And I'm happy to say that if you go to the website, bemyeyes.com/podcast, all of the episodes also have transcripts as well. Um, so they're all, like fully accessible. Um, and it's super important to us as well.
[Doug]: What, you know, I guess, whatever you're able to share, what are, and you were kind of alluding to this, but what are, what's the future of Be My Eyes look like, obviously, you know, you're not just growing your user base, but you have these ways with, through the podcast that you're building community around it. Are there any like initiatives or new elements to it that you're like able to share now that are like things that are in the near future things you're working on?
[Will]: Yeah. Um, so I think basically the big step we took in the last year or so was thinking beyond volunteers and, you know, the volunteer community is amazing and that's what keeps that's what makes the app run. Um, well actually, ultimately you need to get that. I don't think it's probably a package or something ultimately, what, what makes, um, what makes the app run is actually money, right? So the, the volunteers don't pay, the users don't pay and that's really important to us. We don't, we don't want anyone, anyone using the, benefiting from the app to pay. Um, but we, we needed to find a business model and we realized that actually companies had a real desire to connect with the blind and low vision community because they've been so hard to find and to serve historically. And so we went to Microsoft and we said, would you guys like to receive the Be My Eyes calls in your disability support center? Uh, directly through Be My Eyes. And they were like, yeah, absolutely. And so that was our first kind of partnership where we actually provide Microsoft customer support in the Be My Eyes app. We pretty quickly after that expanded to Google and then all these other companies, uh, including the whole umbrella of companies under the Proctor and Gamble company, um, you know, brands like Tide and Mr. Clean and all these other ones. And, um, and then this summer when COVID hit, we, we went to all the blindness organizations and said, would you like to provide customer support to your consumers? Uh, so we've got, I think, like going on 50 companies now who are in the Be My Eyes app. It's kind of like the, you remember the yellow pages, the phone book, you know, like, or like, uh, you know, it's like a listing, you know, the phone book for, for our blind and low vision users. And it's amazing, you can call and in like 30 seconds, you can be video connected to someone from a company who is an expert at whatever you need help with and they'll tell you how to fix it. So, so in the next, you know, upcoming, we're really looking to see how we can leverage the specialized part of the app and to giving people totally new experiences, improved access that they never had before, whether that's help with their pets or help with, uh, you know, voting or, um, you know, kind of teasing some things here. But like, uh, there's a lot of use cases that we'll see in the Be My Eyes app benefiting from having access to an expert, as opposed to just a volunteer pair of eyes.
[Doug]: I love that. I love that. I'm going to take a quick pause for an interpreter switch. Yes. All right. All set. Great. So yeah, continuing here. Yeah. Those are really interesting ideas. And I think, um, you know, I think just anytime you have an app that has the numbers and the, and the enthusiasm as Be My Eyes does, I think that the sky's the limit. Um, so like, you know, I think all of that and whatever else you guys dream up, I think is probably fair game for you guys. There's the kind of the, it seems like the opportunities are limitless there.
[Will]: I hope so. So we, we, you know, we're, we are, having a founder who's blind, you know, we were pretty, um, we're pretty committed to our cause. And even though we're not a nonprofit, we're pretty committed to our, our purpose of providing this free support. And, and that is a, and not sort of taking the low hanging fruit of like advert, putting in bombarding people with advertising or charging people a subscription or all the kind of easy outs that most apps go for to survive. So as a result, it, it's a, it's a very, kind of like a critical challenge that we figure out how to fund Be My Eyes sustainably through a business model that works. Um, and I won't lie and say, you know, it's a challenge. Um, but we're kind of relying on the fact that we do have so much, or that, um, that, you know, good will prevail, we'll find a way to keep it going in one way or another. It's going to be really interesting to see how the, how the business model bears out.
[Doug]: Well, as you continue to crack that code, please fill me in. Cause I'll be curious to know. I love, I mean, that's, I really feel like a kinship with Be My Eyes in that sense. And like, you know, obviously Feeling Through is not anywhere like on the like users level as it Be My Eyes, but I feel like there's a lot of things in which we're trying to navigate similar spaces around that. And certainly really admire and also we'll look for any advice you might have as you continue down that path there. But, uh, one...
[Will]: I know like new generation, you like, the new climate is like ethics and like, doing good for the world are equally as important in people's buying decisions as price and all these other factors. So like, I think we're in a time where it's very reasonable to think that a purpose and profit driven company can do well. And, and the two are not mutually exclusive or at odds with one another. So I have great faith that that's the case.
[Doug]: Yeah, wellI'm, going to join you in that faith there. So that makes two of us, but, you know, I'd love to, um, so we're both talking to each other from Los Angeles. We actually found out when we first connected that we're essentially neighbors, live a few minutes away from each other. You moved down here pretty recently, right? To Los Angeles.
[Will]: Yeah. It was about a year ago.
[Doug]: About a year ago. And can you tell me what, what brings you, what brought you to Los Angeles specifically?
[Will]: I mean, I think, I think I feel, I think I feel a resonance with the energy in Los Angeles, I, I am pretty social and pretty, uh, I, I'm pretty enthusiastic about meeting new people and exploring different creative outlets and different ideas. And so there's a lot of motivation down here to create. Um, I love that. And even though I'm not sort of industry, like I, you know, entertainment industry, uh, I've always been a storyteller and a writer. And, um, you know, I was making movies on iMovie when I was 12 years old. Like I just, like, I like rendering a story.
[Doug]: If this was by the way, if this was like, like The Tonight Show, I would like embarrass you by going, let's cue up one of those movies from when you were a 12-year-old. I wish we had the team to dig that up so we can embarrass you right now.
[Will]: Uh, yeah, I mean, like, and, and also I have a ton of friends down here. So to me it was just like a lifestyle move. But also if I'm being honest, I think that ultimately, um, the only way we're going to change people's minds about the misconception of disability is by showing them really compelling stories that flip them. And, you know, if you tell a really good story on screen to people, to an unsuspecting viewer, you can flip them almost in one sitting, you can make them think totally differently about someone that they were stereotyping almost in one sitting, especially in the era of binge watch, right? Like when you can watch 12 episodes of something without leaving without even really pressing the next button, um, you can totally change someone's mind so that, uh, the next time they see a deafblind person in public, they don't react with a frown. And by looking away, they react with a smile and an interaction or a smile, and not even, they don't even need to help the person or talks to them just sending good energy their away. I mean, we can feel it, people with canes and stuff. When we walk down the street, we can feel when you're looking at us, we can feel when you fall silent, when we pass, you know? Um, and, and those are the little micro events in our lives that make our lives hard. It's actually not the lack of sight or the inability to do certain things. It's, it's the way we're treated. And I think that, I think that probably ultimately, whatever changes people's minds about, about, about those stereotypes is gonna come out of LA or is going to come out of at least, uh, the distribution machine that is based here in LA.
[Doug]: Well, you're definitely speaking our language, the Feeling Through language, for sure. When you talk about the power of storytelling to change perceptions, I mean, that's certainly something that's been...
[Will]: It's sounds corny, right? Like it is at this point, it almost sounds like not corny, but like obvious or like played, but, but if you really think about it, it's, it's, that's all, that's all we have really is like, we, our whole lives are stories that we've made up about ourselves. Sorry.
[Doug]: No, I mean, you know, there is a little bit of corny and cliche to it, but it's definitely, I mean, it's a, it's definitely true. And it's something that, you know, I think is obvious to a lot of people. And I think there's a lot of people it's not necessarily obvious to, in the sense they don't necessarily think about or engage with entertainment like that on a regular basis, but it's still happening. Um, I mean, I think even just in the way that you just shared, you know, one of the, I mean, like personally what you were sharing and I'm sure a lot of people can relate to this as one of the real challenges for say someone who's blind and low vision is not necessarily even like a lack of eyesight, but more just the kind of microaggressions of like moving through the world on a moment to moment basis and having those kind of like quiet moments of someone kind of treating you differently or whatever that may be. I think that's probably obvious to a lot of people watching, but also completely something that a lot of people watching haven't thought about at all. And, and kind of the necessity of sharing that and, um, having that kind of, maybe someone hears that today in a way that they have heard someone else kind of say that before but it hadn't really registered. So in certain ways it's kind of helpful to like reiterate these things that seem like they're, they're fairly true for a lot of people, but not necessarily how people, people haven't necessarily ingested it in a way that really changes them in that visceral way.
[Will]: Yeah. But you can't spoon feed it to people. That's the problem is that, like you can't, you can't empathy train someone's gut reaction to fall silent. When a blind person walks down the street, that's their, that's their like impulse and you can't just have a nice, you know, YouTube discussion where someone says, you really shouldn't do that and then have them not do that anymore. That's not going to work. What you need to have is someone kicked back on their couch and enjoy a story about someone who is like that and have their mind change in a really profound way. So that the next time they see someone like that on the street, their impulse is different. Their like their unconscious reaction is different. They can change their, I feel like a lot of empathy training is about changing people's like conscious reactions about like, okay, I know how to do this. Here's the steps that I take when I see this person, here's how to properly guide a blind person down the street. What I'm trying to change is like a lizard brain reaction to like, to people with disabilities and to make them people actually feel joy, feel pleasant, feel unthreatened ,feel not pitying when they see someone with a disability, because that is what actually breaks the negative feedback loop and creates real advancement.
[Doug]: And you're absolutely right. I mean, I think what, at least what I noticed some of this empathy training to be that you described versus say the experience of getting engaged with a story, the difference, like you're saying is that, engaging kind of this conscious mind versus this deeper unconscious mind. And I think, you know, with storytelling, the, and, you know, particularly like watching like a film, film or TV, it's because rather than like, still being that separation where I'm over here and you're over there and I'm like learning more about that person over there, a story allows you and in a lot of ways forces you to climb inside of someone else's experience and really have like a much deeper, you know, approximate in a, in a more visceral way, what someone else's experiences like, from more of like the inside, rather than the outside looking over to someone else that's very separate. And I think that's where a lot of the power of storytelling lies to change these like deeper subconscious beliefs or reactions to things.
[Will]: Everybody, everybody is. We're all very used to being bombarded with advertising. Um, most of us are pretty used to the school setting and what it's like to be lectured to. Um, we've all seen plenty of Ted Talks. So our ability to filter out, um, information, information that is being spoonfed to us and like take what we like and leave what we don't and in part our political beliefs on it and do this, and then mix it with a little bit of that and check this and create our own little weird dish is, is pretty, pretty well honed, but what we don't have, what we, what we don't have honed as well, is our reaction to a really well told story. Um, a really good story, frankly, can be dangerous, just as dangerous as it is powerful, you know, because it takes you, it grips you, it takes you for a ride and it can change your mind. Um, and you know, it's like, I'm not going to be able to feel I'm not gonna be able to go back to what I thought about deafblindness. You know, I've interacted with plenty of deafblind people in my life, but, but Feeling Through did change my mind about it in some subtle ways. And I'm not going to be able to go back to what I did before, what I thought about deafblindeness before I watched the movie, like it or not. And like, and I think what you show is really positive, but that's also why our filmmakers have a tremendous responsibility is because if they misportray whiteness or deafblindness or deafness or disability in general, they can do a ton of damage, like a ton of damage. And they can set back the entire population of people with disabilities hundreds of thousands of years, if they want to, you know, um, with just one terrible character or one, um, kind of thoughtless maneuver in a story.
[Doug]: Yeah. I mean, I think I love it. They bring up responsibility, you know, that's something that's definitely really important to like what we, you know, did with Feeling Through and what we try to do with our platform. But, and I'm not, you know, certainly far from doing everything perfect. I'm definitely the first person to say that, but that, that responsibility, you have to do your best to be extremely conscientious of the message that you're putting out. And the potential impact that it has on people is absolutely imperative. And I'm someone who like, you know, maybe I'm a little bit more to the extreme of that as like a social impact filmmaker. Like that's very much interwoven into the whole reason why I would choose to tell a story in the first place. But with that said, I think like it applies to everything. You can, you could have like a complete slapstick comedy, but there still needs, there's still a responsibility in there. Right. And that doesn't even mean you can't poke fun at something, right? Like, you, one of the podcasts that I listened to, um, you had a blind comedian on there and obviously a lot of his humor is poking fun, but it's like, you're doing it in a, there's still like a clever kind of meta way to do that, where you can, you can be poking fun at yourself and empowering yourself, or you can be poking fun of yourself and kind of holding up erroneous myths that people have to kind of like laugh at it, but also have to examine it in a way. So there's, the responsibility is in everything. And so much of like, I'm maybe again, a little too far to one side of the spectrum, but there's so much that I see on TV, on YouTube, what have you, where I'm like, I watch it and I'm like just knowing how much time and energy it takes to make something, and I'm like, why did someone choose to make that? Like, why did someone choose to put all their time and energy into this thing that like, could be like that thing that you're saying that's like, could be like varying degrees of like harmful. But at the very least like, like a net zero gain at best where it's like, what is that really? And look, I'm not someone who says, not every piece of entertainment or thing we watch needs to like change the world or like, you know what I mean, make the world a better place, which is something that like, I love the ongoing joke in. Um, what's it called on HBO where they're in Silicon Valley. Silicon Valley, where the running joke is everyone in Silicon Valley is creating an app that's going to change the world. Right. And like, make the world a better place. I'm not saying everything needs to do that, but there still is a responsibility in everything and anything you put out, particularly for those who have a platform that, where it's going to reach tons of people. And that's something we think about a lot. I'm glad you are bringing it up because I think it's something that may be, there's a lot of people who maybe don't create content that haven't necessarily sat with that part of it or thought about it. But it's a really, really important thing for everyone to be aware of because it's not just for the content creators, but it's also the content receivers and being, having this awareness of what, you know, maybe getting a message from something and being like, I don't know if I, I don't necessarily know a lot about the deafblind community or the blind, low vision community, but there's something about that maybe feels a little off, like I'm going to kind of do my own research there because this thing, I don't really know why, but it's not sitting with me in the right way. And I want to look into this topic myself more so that I don't feel like I'm overly influenced by this thing I just saw or whatever that is.
[Will]: Yeah. I'd like to think people with disabilities are often kind of like last in line when it comes to like social justice issues. Um, I think it's because disability brings up a lot of issues with around our mortality that scare people. And so it's a little easier to rally around, um, other identity, um, aspects of identity that are less about like your body falling apart or whatever. Um, and, and so, um, yeah, so, so I think like, as a result, other groups are a little further along and like, you wouldn't like, um, you wouldn't write a film with like a native American character and just be like, Oh, I'm just going to like a makeup, like everything about like the way he talks and the way he dresses and the way he looks and the stuff he says about being native American. I'm just kinda like weighing it most people these days, like somebody might do that, but most people would, would be like, Hmm, no, maybe I should read a book.
[Doug]: Some people will definitely still do that though, for sure.
[Will]: Unfortunately, but we've made a lot of progress somewhere and people will catch heat if they don't, if they do that, right. At least, you'll at least catch heat. There is, well, no one will bat an eyelash. If someone did that with a blind character, people, people think of a blind characters and deafblind characters like these mythic creatures and, and like, we're not mythic creatures. Like we're, we're like totally real people fighting for our survival and our existence, just like everybody else. And there's like, there's like 30 to, depending on how you slice it. There's like 30 to 50 million of us in the, in the United States alone, just, just trying to fit into this society. Um, so when you just like paint with a really broad brush and just like improvise, like a representation, you're screwing us over like, um, in the same way that you'd be screwing over, you know, any other group that you just decided you were going to kinda like, um, you were gonna just, you know, makeup, makeup of your own creative version of. So I don't know. I'm like I'm the last person in the world who wants to sit around and watching, you know, like only like, you know, no offense, but like only like documentaries about social good. I don't think you would want that either. Like you serve a role in a broader, you know, ecosystem. But you know, because we don't want just one note, you know, everything to be, but, but it's not about, it's not about whether the, whether the story is uplifting or not. You could make a, uh, socially responsible horror movie. Right? Like, and if you look at some of the stuff from like Parasite and get out on these things, like these are like thrillers or horrors or whatever, they are like, they're, they're not uplifting per se, but, but they're socially responsible and they have a social impact that is significant. So, you know, you go that route too, Doug.
[Doug]: Certainly not, that's something that I would certainly consider. And I think what you're bringing up too, are those, those are examples, you know, aside from like genre, what the story is, those are creators who have something to say and are using various genre components to tell that thing. But it's like, I think it's like, what is at the basement of that? The bottom of that is someone who has something to say and something that's really important so that you can say it in any number of ways. Right. You can say it in this thing. That's very, very much this clearly like meant to be like this moving sentimental thing. You can say it in a way that's funny and absurd or in a way that's scary or whatever that is. But I think that's, I mean, I know that for me, I'm not drawn to, I don't really like, when people are like what's your favorite genre type of movie, I don't necessarily have one. I'm more just drawn to people who are creating something that has something to say. And have like spent the time to really think about it, in a way that makes it like a worthwhile thing to say, whatever that is really. I don't like, you know, I think there's as many, as many people in the world, there are like valid things to say, it's just people actually take the time to, to have it generated from that place. And certainly, you know, entertainment business is a business like anything else. So there's a lot of things that come from the other direction of like, okay, like, you know, for whatever algorithm or business model we have, we think this kind of thing is going to do really well box office wise, money wise. And then we'll just work our way backwards and just create something around that. And here you go. It's a business, like, of course that's gonna happen too, but, you know, I think what's, you know, though, we haven't necessarily seen it reflected in the numbers yet. What's great about what's happening right now is that there's at least, you know, in a lot of it is having like say Hollywood have its arm twisted a little bit in like Oscars So White and things of like really calling out the lack of representation inclusion, but what that at least creates is an environment where, you know, the industry at least feels like it has to do something and hopefully things will follow suit too. As recently as I think it was yesterday I don't know if you saw the Oscars starting in 2024, and again, I think there's a little lead up to it, There will be an inclusion, um, a requirement to be able to be nominated for best picture. Um, so you can imagine how that'll, um, for those who maybe aren't inclined to do that anyway, will really force the hand of people to, to have to be more inclusive. And disability is included in that, um, as well as, as, um, ethnicity, um, in some other categories. So, you know, these are, these are things that are fortunately more in the forefront of people's minds Now, even if it's taken, if it's just kind of like for political reasons to like not come off as, you know, the bad guy or what have you but some tangible change particularly recently, nonetheless. And support.
[Will]: Absolutely. And, um, yeah, no, that's great. I, and I'm no, I'm not like purist about like, Oh, like only, uh, only a blind actor can play a blind role or only a blind writer can write a story about blindness, but just because, just because with the sheer amount of great stories about blindness out there, there should, there's not enough blind writers and actors yet to serve that the number of valid stories that should be told. Um, but if I were running a studio, I would sure as hell, make sure that anyone who is pitching me anything had done their due diligence, because if they're running a network or studio, I don't want it. I don't want to green light something that, that is going to, whether it's a horror movie or a, or a documentary, I don't want a green light something that is gonna, is gonna do damage to a group of people or get, get, you know, get me in trouble or whatever it might be.
[Doug]: Is there, you know, are there any particular stories that, that you want to see or things that like specifically come to mind that like don't exist or that you haven't seen enough of that you'd like to see?
[Will]: Well, it's really interesting because we were starting to get this amazing, um, steady stream of what would you call them? Like, I should have thought of a term in advance, but like, like otherness comedies, you know what I mean? Like, uh, you've got like, um, who is doing great? They've got like Ramy and Shrill. Um, you know, HBO has got, um, some great stuff. Like there's all these comedies that are kind of like, um, here's how my identity makes me feel othered and here's how I'm dealing with it. And they're very like, kind of driven by the writer director type who, you know, stars in it or something they're like, and this is like a whole genre. And, um, I think they're great. I watched them all. Um, I like take them as like a mold and, and like, I think that, I think there needs to be, you know, more of that, but that's going to get old, uh, pretty quickly and people are going to be like, Oh, it's another one of these like, here's how I'm different than everyone else, the world is bearing down on me comedies. Um, and, and I, and I don't want to sound, I don't want to sound callous, but it's like, we're going to ratchet through a lot of groups and some of them aren't going to nail it and they're going to become more and more watered down. And then suddenly it's going to be this thing of one person and like, Oh, we already did the, you already did the, uh, you know, the Muslim otherness comedy, like can't greenlight another one. Can't greenlight another Ramy, because we've already like, got our Ramy greenlight, another, you know, Aidy Bryant because we did Shrill and that's damaging too, because there's like this isn't about like doing a, doing a fill in the blank story. It's about, it's about making room for more human stories.
[Doug]: Totally.
[Will]: Um, so I worry a little bit about that. Um, and so we need people to be a little more creative when they're writing now to think, how do we make, how do we make really good stories with really diverse characters that aren't explicitly or implicitly doing that relatively now, formulaic thing of trying to make the viewer relate to that otherness.
[Doug]: Well, and, you know, that gets to the point of like, you know what, I think a lot of, you know, inclusivity and diversity become very much like buzzwords that starts to like really lose meaning, um, when you're talking in anything, but if we're talking about in media, but like when you kind of, you know, work that down to the foundation of it, like what's really important. And an extension of what you're saying is getting to a point where these traditionally marginalized communities, whichever they may be, and we're focusing on disability right now. But obviously, it could be, we could be talking about various ethnicities and any marginalized group is getting to a point where first of all, having any representation, right, for groups that aren't represented at all. I mean, in our case Feeling Through is the first film to star a deafblind actor. A first. Like a literal first, right? The next step of that is to have more, but like, because there, I'll use the deafblind community as an example, because of Feeling Through. So Feeling Through's the first. So obviously the first is, that's very important to the whole ethos and kind of the, the buzz and or marketing and or coming into Feeling Through is also having that relationship to the fact that it's a first, then the, you know, the next one or other stories in that space fortunately, won't be the first, but it'll still be one of the only representations of the deafblind community. Right. And so there's still really this, like, there's so little context for most people because of it being a community that's so underrepresented that you're still very much in conversation with and aware of that complete lack of representation. And then if you walk that out far enough, the hope is you can have a deafblind character in any role, right. That like where it's not, it doesn't always need to be about so much about their deafblindness. Right. And you can kind of walk that out with anything. And the hope is, you know, like using Ramy as an example, which is a great show that, and obviously being really important that it's like the first representation of like a Muslim American family and kind of like all the ways in which, you know, storylines, which they go down in that, and then Ramy becomes a big enough star where Ramy, isn't just like the Muslim American dude in this thing, but he's like leading a movie or a TV show. That's not even about that really. And then hopefully like, right, paves the way for more, you know, Muslim Americans to not be in shows that are just about them being Muslim American. That's kind of like the hope there, right? It's kind of like, we're so not close to that in a lot of ways, but I think that's ultimately kind of the hope when you're really boiling down representation and inclusion.
[Will]: America, capitalism, whatever you want to call it, Hollywood, like they're always going to try to put us in a box and you have to be wary of that, even if it's a nice cushy inclusive box. And, and, um, and so we just have to fight that, uh, and I'm not worried anymore about whether representation is coming, it's coming. I'm more worried about how it's going to be commodified and packaged. And I don't want us to be vacuum sealed in, um, in a, in a kind of a boring little corner of, of media that there's a concept called the disabled, the, uh, Georgina Clique wrote about, and others I think have written about it as well, public disabled, disabled arts ghetto. And it's like, uh, this is, uh, this is, you know, this is like mainstream art, and this is like disabled art. And I worry that we're going to create some version of that. Um, every time we do something like the Oscars makes a big thing about inclusive, you know, inclusivity or, um, Hulu starts greenlining, more woke shows. Um, it's a huge step forward. And I hope that, uh, it just means more integration and more blurring the lines of what is a socially responsible show and what is not, or what is good for people and what is not. But I, but I do worry at times too, that we're going to just sort of, uh, that it's just going to be commodified and co-opted by corporate interests to sell more, you know, uh, products or whatever, whatever, what have you, you know, cause you're already seeing that across, you know, woke advertising and all this stuff, and it's going to make us cynical about inclusion. We're going to become cynical about inclusion, and then we're going to backslide because we're going to be like, Oh, I'm not gonna, you know, I'm, I'm too savvy to, to be tricked by that.
[Doug]: Well, when you're the studio head of the, the studio division of Be My Eyes, you're certainly going to lead the charge against that. But, um, but on that note, we are out of time for today. And normally this is, after a great conversation like this, this is where I would like, twist your arm to come back and join me again, which I still will, but you're joining me tomorrow, for The Feeling Through Experience, the panel portion of The Feeling Through Experience for all of you watching again, that will be tomorrow 4:00 PM Pacific time, 7:00 PM Eastern time, goes, you can go straight to our YouTube channel, youtube.com/feelingthrough. You'll see the event is already up there. You can set a reminder, tell all your friends, everyone you've ever met. Um, and, uh, yeah, we'll see you tomorrow. And, um, well, um, I'm excited to get to talk to you two days in a row. This is a treat for me.
[Will]: Yeah. Yeah. I'm excited to watch the movie. It's going to be great.
[Doug]: Well, right on.
[Will]: Well, thanks so much, Doug. I really appreciate it.
[Doug]: Thank you. And thanks for everyone tuning in and, for Feeling Through Live, we'll see you, uh, obviously next Friday, but also see all tomorrow for The Feeling Through Experience. Bye everyone.
[Will]: Thanks Erin. Thanks Jamie.