Viral TikTok video: Helen Keller Did Not Exist

If you are a TikTok user then you might be familiar with how easy it is for a video to go viral. With TikTok, basically people post whatever they’d like including posting about conspiracies. One of the conspiracies that came out from TikTok is that Helen Keller never existed.

They claim that Helen Keller was a fraud and it was not possible for someone to be deaf and blind and learn how to write books. According to Newsweek, the first video (but now deleted) of this conspiracy by one user in May 2020 using the hashtag #helenkellerwasntreal and had about 600,000 views. Several other videos have also been deleted during the year by TikTok, but the most recent one was posted by a man with the username @krunk19 in December 2020.

I recently checked and the video is still there as of today. That video he posted said Helen Keller is a fraud and has 2.2 million views. His bio says he does satire, but it seems like people did not pay attention to it.

One man named Daniel Kunka decided to test this theory with his young nieces and nephews to see if they knew Helen Keller. His tweet of their responses went viral. They told him that Helen Keller did not exist. He tweeted his concern of what Gen Z (born from between 1997 to 2015) is believing and how we are “one TikTok away from being erased from an entire generation.”

Daniel Kunka (@unikunka): “Guys, something insane happened to me today.

I am on a text chain with my teenage nieces and nephews along with my mom (their grandma) and today my mom asked them if they knew who Helen Keller was...

And their response was that Helen Keller was a fraud who didn't exist.”

“At first I thought they were trolling grandma, which is admittedly fun. But after awhile it was clear they weren't joking.

"How could someone be deaf and blind and learn how to write books?" My nephew admits she probably existed but was probably only one or the other.”

We, the Daily Moth, wanted to know what the DeafBlind community thought about this. So, we reached out to a member of the DeafBlind community, Keith Clark, to explain some insights.

INTERVIEW:

ID: Renca sitting on the couch with a black shirt and there is a painting portrait of flowers on a wall behind her.

RENCA: Hello! We have Keith here with us today. I wanted to quickly explain how Keith and I will be communicating. I am in one screen and Keith is in the other. There is a protactile (PT) interpreter next to Keith, but not on screen. You will see the PT interpreter’s hands with Keith’s hands. That is how we will be communicating. Ready, Keith? Come join us and introduce yourself and tell us where you are from.

ID: Keith is wearing a maroon shirt. He has silver hair. He is seated in front of a black wall. The PT interpreter (not seen) is next to him.

——

Keith:
Hello! I’m Keith Clark. My name sign is [K letter shaking slightly]. I’m from Seattle, Washington.

Renca:
I’m happy to have you with us today to discuss that TikTok viral video about Helen Keller. First, I want to ask what the DeafBlind community’s perspective is on that video.

Keith:
Thanks for asking. I checked with my friends and my community, and asked them what they thought. Many of them, including myself, didn’t know about it until the Daily Moth contacted us. That makes sense, since TikTok is designed for sharing videos with no captions and no transcript, so TikTok isn’t for and isn’t used by the DeafBlind community.

Renca:
I think that viral video seems to have started in 2019, and it has continued to gain more views. I’m curious, how do you and the DeafBlind community feel about that theory becoming viral and why hasn’t there been someone who has challenged them? It may be because there’s no access, and what are other possible reasons why there hasn’t been someone from the DeafBlind community speaking up about this issue?

Keith:
Yes. In my perspective, our community response hasn’t been as strong with no urgent need to say something to defend Helen Keller. For one, we already know she’s real. She has been emphasized in our lives and the DeafBlind community tends to emphasize Helen Keller as a famous person we should know. And does Helen Keller represent our community? No. In our modern world, there are so many different people who aren’t like Helen Keller. She doesn’t represent us well. That’s one person in a total of 190 years that has spanned since her time, and that’s only one piece of DeafBlind history that exists. That’s not enough. We need more representation. There are many more DeafBlind individuals that existed before Helen Keller and afterwards who achieved great things, developed a name for themselves, reached prominent and leadership positions, and more. However, they are not as recognized. One reason for that is Helen Keller was seen as someone who was ideal and met the hearing, sighted, able bodied system’s expectations. Helen Keller could speak, lip read, and write. She had a good appearance. She was wealthy. She could afford to have a person accompany her, so that person was always a buffer to her surroundings and behaviors, such as to not touch people. Other DeafBlind people before and after her were often not wealthy, not white, not able to afford a person to accompany them, and touching others and signing wasn’t deemed acceptable or recognized as important. That parallels the Deaf community with many other groups that often, if not able to meet the expectations of the hearing system, don’t succeed. We share similar experiences in that aspect.

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Renca:
I’m curious, in your thoughts, how do you think we, the community, can give more recognition to DeafBlind individuals who are often overlooked? You’re right, Helen Keller is often the only DeafBlind person spotlighted but the reality is there have been many great DeafBlind people in your community. So, how do you think we as a community can recognize those overlooked DeafBlind people today?

Keith:
Social media needs to be designed to be accessible. Social media is now becoming more important and is a way for people to get famous or gain success, but it’s not accessible. How can that be solved? In big social media technology companies, are there any DeafBlind members in their accessibility teams? There are leaders stepping up the ladder in education, politics, and other organizations, and less opportunities for us. If you want more recognition for us, then you must make more opportunities and include DeafBlind people in the system. As for social media it’s important for it to be accessible, like there can be captions but there needs to be a transcript too. Captions aren’t always accessible.

Renca:
Why do you think Generation Z deny Helen Keller’s existence and truly believe that? I’m curious why you think they actually believe that? While we can believe other things that we read about, with that situation, it honestly personally surprises me that that kind of topic could go viral with so much support. Some people might be being sarcastic, and some not, but there is a group of people that actually fully believe that Helen Keller didn’t exist. Wow. Why do you think they believe that?

Keith:
Ok. Again, in terms of representation in the DeafBlind community, there is only one person - Helen Keller - and that was many years ago. There’s not enough representation, so it makes sense that today’s generation doesn’t know about today’s DeafBlind figures. Again, it is so important for social media to be accessible to us so that people can know more. It’s interesting, I’ve been a part of different groups in different platforms. I noticed many leaders in technology companies focus on audio. So they advertise accessibility and cool new features that are said to be super accessible, but they’re auditory based. So, again, the Deaf community and the DeafBlind community can relate and we must challenge that. I think they will listen, and realize more. Most of them aren’t aware. They think audio is enough, but it’s not. We still have a lot of work to do on a corporate level.

Renca:
Any last words you’d like to share, and about what we can do to support the DeafBlind community as a part of our community, too? What are your thoughts for the community?

Keith:
I think an important word is inclusion. How can we design our systems to improve and be more inclusive to diverse people? This means not only DeafBlind people, but for many other groups too. We have a lot of work to do. Over the years we’ve noticed how the system is designed for a select group of people and not others. So, now, in that process of improving design we still need to make sure that we include DeafBlind, Deaf, other disabled people, and other groups. I don’t want to say the system should be designed for us. It should be designed with us. We should be a part of that discussion, leadership team, operations, and the whole process. That’s important.

Renca:
Thank you, Keith for sharing and giving our community more things to think about. The fight for accessibility and inclusivity continues.

Captioned by aslcaptions.com

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-9123327/Conspiracy-theory-Helen-Keller-fraud-DIDNT-EXIST-ignites-social-media.html

https://www.newsweek.com/tiktok-bizarre-videos-questioning-whether-helen-keller-existed-1559296

https://twitter.com/MarleeMatlin/status/1346690167701061632