Do Captions Matter On Your Videos?

The answer may surprise you.

As someone who meets with dozens of comedians each month, a question I always get when onboarding new clients is some variation of, “What captions should I use?”.

Not be confused with the video description, the “captions” in reference are the subtitles that mirror whatever the comic is saying, like closed captioning on a TV.

Here is an example of a recent Matt Rife video that implements “captions”:

mattrife

A post shared by @mattrife

The widespread adoption of in-video captions on comedian’s social media posts started in 2020.

This was primarily because at the time, there were not yet sufficient built-in accessibility features within TikTok, an app that was not expecting to be China’s second-most viral export that Spring.

Short-form, live video content wasn’t really a “thing” yet for stand-ups.

The two main ways comics expressed funny ideas at scale online back then was either on Twitter, which was already a text-based platform, or through an audio-based medium like a podcast, which were not yet getting clipped up for social.

Meanwhile, the well-intentioned, predominantly Gen-Z TikTok userbase took it upon themselves to manually add captions to their own videos, all the while chiding the app for its inaccessibility.

This was an effective instance of collective action, and TikTok eventually added an editable Captions feature that displays text in a small font in the lower left hand corner of all videos, if you turn this accessibility feature on:

Highlighted in red, above.

Problem solved, right? Now any individuals with hearing challenges would theoretically be able to enjoy a TikTok just as well as they might a YouTube video or Netflix series, and TikTok creators wouldn’t be burdened with painstakingly ensuring every single post they make was as accessible to as many people as possible.

Not necessarily.

You see, in the interim, many enterprising grifters in other verticals discovered these in-video captions were a great way to increase retention with an otherwise uninterested audience.

I’m hesitant to link any individual comedian implementing this, but they’re the kind of clips littered with flashy .GIFs, emojis, or where each word is highlighted in a vibrant color as its uttered. Here’s some guy in real estate who does it:

firas_al_msaddi

A post shared by @firas_al_msaddi

As someone with a severe visual impairment, I understand firsthand the importance of accessibility.

Yet, the reliance on captions for engagement on TikTok has since ballooned into a trend that, while inclusive, may not serve the long-term interests of comedians seeking to grow their true, IRL audience.

Not to mention the obvious - in-video captions are distracting, clunky, routinely spoil the delivery / timing of punchlines that might have taken years to craft, draw your attention away from the performer, and generally cheapen the artistic merit of the clip.

But because the industry is extremely mimetic when it comes to digital marketing strategy (see: LinkTree), this method has somehow become a best practice.

My perspective on captions evolved significantly when I discovered how many people – not only those who are hard of hearing or have verbal processing issues – use subtitles to help them pay attention to TV and movies from the comfort of their own home.

Unlike a movie theater or a concert hall, these subtitles enable a more casual, “two-screen” viewing experience that is far less focused than how I personally watch anything artful.

This revelation came unexpectedly through Hinge, of all places, where 30 minutes of browsing will show you at least five responses like this:

You’ll also see a lot of “We’ll get along if… you like to look up the menu before going to the restaurant”, as if this isn’t an app entirely consisted of people looking up the menu before going to the nightclub, but I digress…

The allure of these visual aids is undeniable. They promise increased engagement, higher view counts, and perhaps a fleeting moment of virality.

Yet, it's crucial to question the quality of the mobilization these methods foster.

This approach, rather than being a ladder to growing your audience, could be a slide down to attracting a crowd fundamentally misaligned with the essence of live stand-up comedy.

For decades, live stand-up has thrived without the need for retention crutches.

By relying heavily on these tactics, you risk attracting followers who are unprepared for, even unreceptive to, the unique rhythms of, say, a mixed-bill comedy show.

The audience drawn in by the rapid-fire, visually-intensive content might not have the patience for the nuanced, paced delivery of a live stand-up performance.

And the audience drawn in because you made your social media posts accessible will be similarly let down, because let’s face it – live shows aren’t accessible.

Speaking as someone with a significant visual impairment, if I’m not in the very first row of a show, it’s effectively an auditory experience for the evening. When I don’t get to sit that close, I choose to focus my eyeballs on other things, like how its being received by certain audience members. Or how people in the front row don’t have to crane their necks to see what’s happening right in front of them. Or how an older woman in the back might whisper-read the text on stage to her squinting husband.

One of the things I often notice when I’m seated further back is the walk-outs.

The most common reasons – besides needing to use the toilet or being offended by the material – are often related to accessibility. The music or microphone was too loud, and so a man with hearing complications left the show with his wife because it distressed his hearing aid. A visiting couple from Portugal didn’t think there would be so much English, as they were led to think it’d be more of a physical show.

On TikTok, these people would have simply lowered the volume, or swiped to the next video. At a live show, the only option is to walk out, putting yourself at risk of being called out by the performer, adding further shame to your condition.

Unless you have a wheelchair-accessible venue, guarantee preferential seating, hire an ASL interpreter, and offer LARGE PRINT translated copies of the text in every other language within the playbill, live comedy shows will never be completely accessible to every single person in the world.

But this is not the fault of the performer.

It’s at fault of the embedded systemic issues of the medium through which they’re expressing themselves, just like those TikTokers making videos in early 2020.

The birth of TikTok captions was a response to necessity, a commendable effort by the community to make content accessible when the platform itself was lagging.

However, this practice has morphed into a standard that doesn’t align with the overarching goal of most comedians posting on TikTok.

If you are making money through YouTube or Facebook or TikTok Creator Rewards Programs, or are primarily a digitally based enterprise like a podcaster or Twitch streamer, where you are only mobilizing towards another digital medium, then I think it makes sense to use them.

But I am specifically referring to using short-form video as a way of organically driving ticket sales to live shows.

Your goal should be selling the experience of seeing you live (“wouldn’t this be so fun to go to?”), not getting an individual joke in front of as many eyeballs as possible.

If you have a thick accent, or talk really fast, or want us to catch a clever turn of phrase because you play with text in a unique way, by all means, incorporate them.

Just don’t let your captions speak louder than your words.

David Zucker is a digital marketing consultant based in New York City. A former analyst at TikTok, his unique, data-driven approach has catapulted the growth of his clients’ audiences all over the world. He also happens to have oculocutaneous albinism, a rare genetic disorder which effectively renders him legally blind. This condition offers him a unique perspective on both live and digital comedy, especially with respect to accessibility.