Bill Holton
One of the many reasons podcasts have become so popular over the past several years is because no matter how narrow your interests, you can usually find several podcasts focused on the topic. If you're reading this article you are likely interested in accessible tech, and may already be subscribed to several access podcasts, such as Blind Tech Guys, AppleVis, The Tech Doctor, and Blind Bargains, this last cohosted by fellow AccessWorld writer JJ Meddaugh. In this article we'll introduce you to a pair of relatively new and lesser-known podcasts you may find equally interesting. Each in their own way examines the world around us and offers answers to the eternal question: "What's going on?"
Talk Description to Me
Christine Malec is a Toronto-based arts and culture consultant working with the Canadian National Institute for the Blind. As part of her duties, twice a month she hosts "The Curiosity Club," a gathering of blind locals where guest speakers such as museum directors and astronomers discuss their specialties and offer descriptions of everything from dinosaurs to black holes.
As the pandemic began to take hold last year, Malec invited her longtime friend, JJ Hunt, to join a few group Zoom sessions and describe the images she and other blind people could only imagine: desolate city streets, shuttered businesses, and overcrowded hospitals. Hunt is a 20-year audio description professional working with theaters, museums, and sports events. "That went well," he observed after one of the sessions. "What do you think of expanding what we did on a larger scale?"
The two developed and began producing their podcast, Talk Description to Me, and published their first episode in July of 2021. The duo dove directly into the deep end, devoting their premier to the video of George Floyd's death.
"It was difficult, and painful, but very necessary," says Malec. "This video is being watched everywhere and it was important culturally, but there was so much that wasn't being offered in the news commentary. We tried to stay neutral, describing the events without commentary of our own. We wanted our listeners to decide for themselves how the images affected them."
According to Malec,
Our hope is that the podcast can give us the same cultural references as sighted persons. For example, many blind persons assume TV news is accessible because someone's always talking. But there are constant images flashing behind the screen-visuals they don't even refer to in the broadcast. The blind may know about the attack on the capitol, for example, or the Mars Rover descent-images most people take for granted. JJ and I are trying to fill that gap on an ongoing basis.
The podcast format is simple. After picking a topic, Hunt spends several hours researching the subject and "finding the visuals I feel are relevant for the conversation," he says. "I look for visuals that lend themselves to a good narrative and further the telling of the story."
The podcast recordings are freewheeling conversations between friends. "JJ can describe things that I as a blind person want to understand, but it's up to me to say, 'OK, I get that, but I don't know what you mean by this or that." For example, "We were discussing fire tornados, and I had to ask JJ, 'can we walk this back for a minute? I'm not sure I really know what a tornado looks like.'"
Topics of discussion are chosen in three ways. "First, we look at the news and if there's something we feel will benefit from description we make that our priority," says Hunt. For example, the volcanoes episode after the eruption on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent offered descriptions of the giant ash cloud that overwhelmed the island and the geographic changes left in its wake.
"JJ and I also have our favorite topics," says Malec. "I love astronomy. Hunt likes travel and architecture." The resulting podcasts include "The Moon," "Northern Lights," and "Architecture Then and Now." As for their favorite episode, "We both truly enjoyed discussing the cargo ship trapped in the Suez Canal and the extreme measures it took to free it and restart world commerce," says Malec.
The pair also appreciate receiving ideas from listeners. "We did a 'Three Wonders of the World: Niagara Falls, the Taj Mahal and Angkor Wat,' which I particularly enjoyed, since I've visited all three places."
Near the end of last year Malec and Hunt hosted an open Zoom call to answer listener questions about various news events of the past 12 months. They have also started a Talk Description to Me Clubhouse on the popular Clubhouse app, where they plan to host monthly online discussions beginning with "Describing the Invisible Universe," featuring astronomer Kim Arcand.
Where to Find
Subscribe to the Talk Description to Me podcast using your favorite pod catcher, or visit the Talk Description to Me website.
Say My Meme
Caroline Desrosiers was working with a textbook publisher to make their newly digitized images W3 compliant when she realized textbooks weren't the only problem. "Everywhere online I found images with inaccurate and incomplete alt text or with no alt text at all," she recalls. So she started her own business, Scribely, and began contracting with ecommerce and other websites to provide image descriptions that would both make their sites more inclusive and improve search engine optimization (because Google and others index alt text along with standard HTML content).
Desrosiers made a number of new business contacts during Scribely's first year of operation, including Will Butler, VP of Community for Be My Eyes. "I was intrigued to find someone who specialized in describing images," recalls Butler. "It reminded me of an idea I'd had on the back burner for a while." Butler oversees the Be My Eyes Podcast, as well as 13 Letters, a podcast conversation with individuals who work with accessibility and inclusive design. "Do you think you could describe memes?" he asked Desrosiers
Merriam-Webster defines meme as "An amusing or interesting item (such as a captioned picture or video) or genre of items that is spread widely online especially through social media." Often the image or other media the meme is based on has been repurposed, such as an iconic image from a Star Wars movie being tagged with a new, humorous caption.
Butler began episode one of his and Desrosiers's new podcast, Say My Meme, this way: "Memes might not seem that important if you're blind, but the truth of the matter is they're the new water-cooler talk. Instead of talking about what you saw in theaters this weekend you're talking about which spicy memes tickled your fancy."
Cat pictures with humorous captions are far and away the most popular memes, so of course Desrosiers and Butler devoted their first episode to describing and discussing a quintuplet of popular cat memes-including the internet favorite "Grumpy Cat."
Desrosiers begins with what she refers to as a "quick and casual" description of the image, adding a few of the more subtle elements that will come into play when she moves on to the meme's caption-sort of a setup and punch line combination. Of course to get the joke sometimes you need to have a bit more information. "Sometimes a lot of the humor is in the little details a sighted person would pick up on right away, such as the expression on Grumpy Cat's face above the caption reading, 'If you're happy and you know it I don't care.'"
Desrosiers and Butler often invite guests to their show, either to describe their own favorite memes or to react to them, such as when blind vlogger Lucy Edwards appeared on the podcast after submitting a request to hear a few beauty memes from Say My Meme. They also republish one of the five memes from each show daily on their Instagram feed.
"People who are blind do use Instagram--there is alt text you can add to the images," says Desrosiers. "We thought it would be nice to have a blind use or have something pop up on his feed that's funny and nice for them."
Desrosiers and Butler also invite the sighted public to record their own favorite meme descriptions. These are sent out in the podcast feed during the week. "We hope to have a lot more crowd sourcing of memes as we go along," says Butler. "They are a part of modern, digital life, and we want to participate."
Where to Find
Subscribe to the Say My Meme podcast using your favorite pod catcher, or visit the Say My Meme website.
This article is made possible in part by generous funding from the James H. and Alice Teubert Charitable Trust, Huntington, West Virginia.
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