TikToker Notices Two Deaf Men Insulting Him in Sign Language, Little do They Realize He Knows Sign Language Too
They say your ears burn when somebody is talking about you but is it the same when two people are signing about you? One man on TikTok found out after he realized that two deaf men were speaking about him while he was having a meal after a night out.
TikToker “@matiisigns” (AKA Matii Cripps) is a U.K. based content creator who vlogs about his life as well as using his platform to advocate for and educate people about sign language. While Matii isn’t deaf himself he is what’s known as a CODA, which stands for Child of Deaf Adults. Because of this Matii knows British Sign Language (BSL) very well, a skill which most people with the ability to hear don’t have.
It’s this knowledge of BSL that allowed Matii to quickly spot two deaf men conversing in sign language in his local McDonald’s after a night out. Matii explains that he had been out for the night with his boyfriend and best friend at The Scene, an LGBTQ+ venue in Lincoln. He soon realizes that the men are signing about him, “and these men are not saying nice things about me,” he says.
Matii explains that he often presents as feminine, i.e. wearing a dress and makeup, when he goes out and the men were commenting on how he was dressed in depth. According to Matii, they were talking about how it’s not okay for men to dress that way. “It was crazy,” Matii says, “but obviously they didn’t think I could understand them because they’re signing.”
Matii confronts the men
Matii claims that he was quite drunk and feeling very much “over-confident” by that point and so he decided to march over to the men’s table. “I walk straight over to them. Wave at them and go, ‘you’re both signing BSL right?’” signing out the last part in BSL to show he could understand them.
The two men were obviously shocked that the subject of their mockery just so happened to be a CODA who could understand them perfectly. “I actually watched the color disappear from their faces,” Matii says. The two men tried to backtrack but by that point it was already too late. “It honestly just baffles me how comfortable people are saying things about another individual, especially when they don’t think they can be understood.”
Commenters on TikTok commended Matii for confronting the two men with one viewer calling him a “legend” for walking up to them. “This has to be an original experience,” another commented. Matii says he hopes the two men still think about that experience and cringe, hopefully they’ve learnt a valuable lesson about degrading others when they think nobody else can understand.
(Featured images Matii Cripps, TikTok)
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