British Youtube Sensation, Saffron Barker, releases her first-ever documentary.
You may know Saffron from her wildly loved viral youtube videos or Strictly Come Dancing, now back with the intention of educating her younger audience about the UK deaf community and British Sign Language, Saffron tells a deeply personal story on why she choose to raise more awareness.
We chatted to Saffron last week about her Youtube Spotlight documentary and how to deal with trolls in lockdown.
Tell us a little bit more about your documentary for Youtube Original’s upcoming Spotlight Series. How do you think your audience can keep the conversation going?
Youtube approached me about making a documentary and said I could do it on anything I wanted. This was something that I wanted my audience to learn more about, I always try to create awareness like when I signed on Strictly and we got such amazing feedback from the deaf community.
What’s one thing you learnt during this experience?
I think one of the things I’ve actually learnt is that I didn’t actually know that much about it and obviously I had my own personal journey but I didn’t know there are different types of deafness and I really was able to educate myself. It was really interesting to learn about, and I loved meeting different people in the deaf community who had completely different experiences who struggled with it in their own way.
Do you think BSL should be a part of the curriculum?
I think it personally should! I think the majority of people know someone who is deaf or hard of hearing so I think it would be amazing if people were taught this from a young age. it’s so important, I would of rather of learnt sign language than another language.
I know you’re still learning BSL over lockdown. Has it been difficult to pick up?
It is hard to pick up at first like any other language it’s going to be hard and how fast people do it is just amazing.
I know with such a large following you get negative comments from time to time, How do you deal with this?
I think for me, and I know it sounds very cliche, but the biggest thing for me is to ignore it. Anyone that is writing that wants a response and I think ignoring it is better. I get so many other positive messages that always outweigh the bad ones.
We’d love to see you do more documentaries in the future… Maybe the next Stacey Dooley. Is this something we could see you doing in the future?
Love this question! I obviously would love to do more documentaries in the future as this was a big growing experience for me. Especially when it’s to do with educating not only other people but also myself. Anything that spreads a message would be great to work on.
What’s the first thing you’re gonna do when the lockdown is lifted?
I think I’m honestly looking forward to hugging my grandparents! Spending time with my family more as I think we’ve all learned to appreciate it a little bit more. I’m excited to spend more time with my Boyfriend and to also travel more when we can!
What’s your life Moto?
Hard question! Taste the dream, not the competition!
What’s next for you? Have you got any new projects that we can look forward to?
I’ve just launched a podcast with my mum! it’s gone down really well.