Rikki Poynter

The phenomenal Rikki Poynter is a deaf activist and YouTuber. She started out as a beauty blogger and now focuses on Deaf awareness, accessibility, and the significance of closed captioning as a lifestyle vlogger. She began her YouTube career as a beauty vlogger in July 2010 and transitioned to more instructional and lifestyle videos in late 2013. Poynter is well-known for her YouTube video “Shit Hearing People Say,” which has had over 530,000 views, as well as her #NoMoreCRAPtions advocacy campaign for adequate closed captioning. She addresses a wide range of themes on YouTube, in writing, and in public speaking, including disability (deafness, chronic pain, and weariness), mental health, child abuse, and more. She also supports the inclusion of intersectionality in feminism, particularly in respect to Deafness and disability.

Poynter started uploading cosmetic tips to her YouTube channel RikkiPoynter shortly after graduating from high school. For the next four years, she continued to make beauty videos, but she eventually chose to use her platform to raise awareness about Deaf concerns. Poynter’s first video on her deafness was uploaded in 2014. Poynter tells her own personal anecdotes about being Deaf in her videos, which employ snark and comedy to highlight issues confronting the deaf/Deaf/Hard of Hearing (d/Deaf/HoH) population and dispel myths.

Poynter founded the ‘Deaf Poynters’ website, which is dedicated to raising Deaf awareness and advocating for Deaf rights. The website contains articles published by members of the d/Deaf/HoH community, as well as personal tales, that provide information on Deaf culture. Other pages on the site provide information to help readers who are unfamiliar with the history of deafness.