Kaylee DudleyFollow

Date Collected

Winter 11-2017

Place item was collected

Logan Utah

Informant

Kaylee Dudley

Point of Discovery/Informant Bio

Logan, Utah My name is Kaylee Dudley and I am 26 years old. I’m a senior Professional and Technical Writing major at Utah State University, but my academic interests also include social justice, design, and psychology. When not at school, I enjoy playing board games, reading long books, and drinking very large cups of coffee. I was born in Evanston, Wyoming, but I moved a lot as a child, so I wouldn’t say I’m “from” anywhere. I have been living in Logan for the last three years with my husband and two cats. I am currently enrolled in a social justice course so when it came time to collect folklore I decided I would turn to the disability community for my content.

Context

I think it is important to first note that not all viral videos are considered folklore. What makes this type of video both viral and folklore is the number of people participating in telling the same story in the same way. In this case if you search “seeing for the first time” on YouTube, which is where I found this video, you will get 6,810,000 video results. This video was uploaded by user jessica sinclair on June 8, 2015. The video at the time of discovery has 2,429,595 views, 6,000 likes, and 230 comments. This video is 35 seconds long. The video was filmed at a restaurant called FlipDaddy’s which has location in Ohio, Kentucky, and Alabama. The baby in the video is named Piper and she is ten months old at the time she receives these glasses. I’m assuming the woman’s voice we here is Piper’s mother though she never appears to be on camera. I’m also guessing that the person filming is Piper’s father. Piper was referred to an eye doctor by her pediatrician after she was having difficulties crawling. It turns out that Piper was extremely farsighted. After she received her glasses her parents say that they have noticed big developmental changes in her and that she has begun crawling since receiving the glasses.

Text

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA0UpPeUAto

The video opens with Piper and in a highchair at a restaurant. Piper is chewing on a paper coaster when her mom begins putting the glasses onto Piper. While still holding the coaster Piper struggles against her mom’s attempts bring her hands up to either side of her face and swaying away. Her mom gets the pink frames on pretty quickly though and says, “Hi!” to Piper in a high voice. “Hi Piper,” she says again. Piper smiles a big smile then looks over at the camera. “How are you?” mom asks and with this Piper smiles even wider and almost looks surprised with how open-mouthed she is and her dad giggles. “Hi can you see?” she asks, “Can you see?” Piper’s head swivels back to her mom at the questions.

Piper closes her mouth and stares at her mom. Her dad then says, “Piper,” and she turns to look at him smiling, “Hi!” She turns back to mom as she says, “Hi honey.” Piper’s mouth opens again in surprise and her dad laughs again. She glances back and forth between them. Piper seems to be reaching toward the temple of the glasses when a waiter comes up and the dad stops filming.

Texture

Everyone in the video seems excited and intrigued by the new glasses, especially Piper. The interactions in the comments are nearly all positive. This video was picked up as a feel-good story by CNN about a week after it was posted. During that interview her father explained that it did take quite a lot to hold back “a tear” when he saw Piper’s reaction to seeing clearly.

Course

Introduction to Folklore, ENGL 2210

Instructor

Dr. Lynne McNeil

Semester and year

Fall 2017

Theme

G9: Xerox

EAD Number

1.5.0.15

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