Syrmor, whom I have blogged about before, is well-known for his YouTube video interviews with various people in VRChat.
Yesterday, he released a new video about the hard-of-hearing/deaf/Deaf community in VRChat (abbreviated to d/Deaf/HoH). For those of you who are not aware, a distinction is made between lowercase-d deaf, which refers to the medical condition of hearing loss, and capital-D Deaf, which is the term used to refer to the culture, society, and language of Deaf people, which is based on Sign language. (Deaf is capitalized just as American or Canadian would be, since it is a unique culture.)
And yes, there is a version of Sign language (capital S, because like English and French, it is considered a proper language) used in VRChat! Actually, there are several versions: one for users of the Valve Index hand controllers, which allow for individual finger movements, and another is intended for users of hand controllers without individual finger movements.
Here’s a six-minute VRChat Sign language introduction, showing you some common signs:
The video states in a disclaimer:
All signs are based off of American Sign Language, however due to the limitations of VRChat, most of the signs have been changed and/or combined with similar words. Always look up the proper sign before using anything taught here outside the game.
Here is Syrmor’s video, which was posted yesterday, and has already had over 215,000 views as of this morning!
Symor first stumbled across this community when he encountered a Sign language interpreter at an in-world church service (as shown in the video). Through this contact, he discovered a VRChat world called Helping Hands, where you can teach yourself sign language, including some signs which are unique to VRChat (for example, the use of the portal sign to refer to “world” rather than the ASL version of the term).
Syrmor is doing an absolutely inspiring job as an embedded reporter and documentary filmmaker in VRChat, giving people an opportunity to present their stories to the wider world. Syrmor actually earns a living from advertising on his popular YouTube videos (he currently has 697,000 subscribers to his channel) and from his Patreon supporters (here’s a link to his Patreon page if you want to throw some financial support his way). In fact, he was even the focal point of a real-life meetup of his fans in Toronto, Canada, dubbed Syrcon 2019, which people attended from around the world!
Gee, where can I find some groupies? I’d like a convention, too! 😉