I'm hearing, as are my parents and all of my relatives. I got interested in American Sign Language through a high school friend of mine whose mother became an ASL Interpreter. I minored in ASL at Texas Tech and started making videos in class. One day in 2009, AOL PopEater put me on the map and I went viral. I took a break from creating new videos for a few years, then resumed on Patreon following a 2014 concert in Poland.
After a short time back, the Deaf community raised concerns about the cultural sensitivity of my videos. I ultimately decided that what I had been doing (by presenting myself as a competent signer even though my skills were subpar) was out of integrity, so I ceased song-signing.
Please read more about how I came to this decision here:
www.stephentorrence.com/blog/on-the-ethics-of-my-a…
I hope you enjoy my videos, or at least appreciate them as the products of a genuine artistic process by someone earnestly learning and maturing in the world. 🙏