Let's Make TV News

I didn't see suicides as more than a 1 second LARGE plug to let people know this is how bad it gets for those with tinnitus. It's critical because like being deaf, no one sees it and the public is likely oblivious to it. In a news segment, the producers/directors would be in charge of it.

On this forum, a number of people have considered and/or tried committing suicide because you can't turn off the noise. We're in a small forum and there have been a number of us who have considered it.

 

As it happens, the ATA has already produced a good quality video, I feel...



www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/the-2014-ata-walk-to-silence-tinnitus-donate.4669/#post-50115

@marqualler does daily news tweets to raise awareness too (and a fine job at that). See:

https://twitter.com/tinnitustalk
https://www.facebook.com/TinnitusHub
https://www.facebook.com/TinnitusTalk

The above video could be spread via social platforms (a 2nd/3rd time round).

The following news article was written by www.tinnitustalk.com/members/caroline-o.3792/

www.elonpendulum.com/2014/07/sacred-silence-tinnitus-noise-never-stops/

See her introduction here:

www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/researcher-reporter.4227/

I wouldn't waste time trying to engage the members of the forum. Response is essentially non-existent.

attheedgeofscience
16/APR/2015.

 

It's not a matter of, "If it's too loud you're too old," is totally totally wrong (I don't stutter . It's a disease that can strike anyone at any age. We laugh here at tinnitus to keep us relatively sane. If we laugh at garbage outside this forum, it turns this disease into a joke. (My opinion, of course.)

 

Awareness has purpose and use all by itself, even if it's not at the level to go viral or fund the cure. No, it will not convince everyone who sees it to wear earplugs to the club, but it may convince someone - a cautious person who just didn't know. I would have been that person. I got T because I wasn't aware, not because I knew and wasn't careful.

I recently went to a class with a piece of design work that focused around the experience of time and trauma from my noise induced T. Anyway, before I could even get through presenting the piece, everyone was asking me questions all at once "What's that? Can you hear it right now? You really got it from just one concert? Which one? Is listening to headphones bad? Oh yeah, my friend who is a DJ has that and told me about it once...he said x amount of decibels are really bad. What's a decibel? How loud is 85 decibels? So noise damage is cumulative?!"

It just went on and on and on. I was surprised at how interested each and every person in this group became. We had to cut off the conversation because we were running out of time for the actual coursework. I presented this piece two weeks ago and a student contacted me yesterday asking me about tinnitus again. He said he wears earplugs to clubs now, even though people think it's lame. He also said he used to feel embarrassed plugging his ears when the subway or sirens went by, but now he doesn't care. Double score.

I think I learned a couple of things from this experience vs. other experiences of my many in which I told people about T (I am a walking public service announcement). Maybe it will be useful to someone here as they spread the word, big or small scale:

• A PSA that looks like a sad PSA that you saw in health class in high school might get someone to look, but people are habituated to that (ha). It's more likely to be glanced over. Present information in an unexpected place or way, and passers by may be more likely to take note. You have to sneak that information into something that doesn't feel sad and threatening if you want it to spread (take the much mentioned ice bucket challenge).

• Telling people about T from a POV of suffering and fear may not always the best way to start an open conversation. If you're really suffering, it might make people feel more uncomfortable or bad about asking you big or open questions. I know not everyone is habituated and chill about their T, but even just finding a moment of inner calm while you're talking about it will let people feel comfortable asking you about it.

 

Although this video is neat and very factual, it is also too sober IMO. It wouldn't faze me at all. Fair, there's T, which is 'a ringing in the ear'. Mainly soldiers, musicians, music lovers, and teenagers that listen too much to mp3 music (earplugs) may get it. Moreover, there are most effective treatments available. So no big deal.

What about all the other causes of T ? What about debilitating T ? What about the fact that people commit suicide due to T ? Honstly, the T-noise they played are a bad joke compared to what I hear 24/7 !!!

I know, I'm very picky here. Still, I agree with you the video should be spread via social platforms (a 2nd/3rd time round). Better than nothing.

Thanks for sharing.

 

It's a matter of keeping it realistic, really. Example...

Team Trobalt has just finished running a 48-hour campaign alerting both TinnitusTalk-members and non-members to the recently released material on Prof. Moore's research initiatives...



...and asking anyone who wishes to, to either rate or share the material on the social platforms (there are already links to the material on Twitter and Facebook). Despite the post about Prof. Moore being the most successful post ever produced on TinnitusTalk (it has 47 positive ratings, currently) and despite it requiring just one click to rate a post on the social media, only two* people actually did so as a result of the campaign (and the campaign has easily been viewed by +500 people in the 48 hours)...

So if you cannot even get a tinnitus sufferer to do a simple click with a button, how on Earth are you going to get a high-quality video with novel content produced? Where are you going to get the money; where are you going to get the novel story line that will leave you fazed; where are you going to find the folks who will produce it; how are you going to get the message spread?

So going back to my first sentence of this post: It's a matter of keeping it realistic, really. When you find that TV crew, story line, and money to pay for production and air-time, let me know.

attheedgeofscience
17/APR/2015.


[* Some people may notice that there were several more ratings on the social platforms - relatively many in fact - but these were the result of the staff of TinnitusTalk paying for a sponsored campaign earlier on and hence had nothing to do with members actively contributing to spreading and/or rating the content].

 

@attheedgeofscience I just liked the facebook page what else can I do to help?

 

I do agree that it isn't hard to simply click "like" on a post (I liked them).

That said, the Trobalt post is not terribly "share-able" generally speaking. It's not something that I see and think "yes, my friends will find interest in this" or even "sharing this will get someone to talk about tinnitus/protect themselves." It's an update geared towards tinnitus sufferers and TT users, which is great - and it is a great update which is why it got a lot of likes here - it's fantastic, dedicated work, but not something that would get someone who doesn't know anything about T curious. Another thing to consider - a lot of people do not share anything T related on their social platforms, and a lot of people don't tell those around them about T. I'm not sure many people would want the Team Trobalt update to serve as that announcement. Again, I am not making excuses for not engaging in a like, or even in a starting a dialogue about what does work, just offering some potential insight.

Maybe saying what getting to 500 likes on a facebook post like this would mean for TT and the Team Trobalt initiatives might help get people "off the couch" so to speak, so there is some feeling of reward for having reached a certain goal as a community.

Otherwise, I think it's not the best approach to shame people on here for not clicking "like." It doesn't engender any fondness for TT and this is, after all, first and foremost this is a community of people suffering. This is not to say that there aren't a lot of people here who can engage in simple acts of support, but I think giving people reasons behind requests for actions and what changes these might bring about might help.

Thank you all for the work you're doing, it is always appreciated.

 

All terrific points, awbw8. I personally see the Team Trobalt update as something that is extremely shareable amongst "in-the-know" type members of TT (which, the proof is in the pudding by the number of positive ratings the post has already received). But as far as engaging "outsiders", you're right that it's not exactly "compelling" or a way to "out youreslf" as a tinnitus sufferer.

As it happens, today I shared this link on my personal Facebook account: http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-04-...vors-deal-lingering-invisible-injury-tinnitus with a short note about how I have tinnitus myself:



It's stories like this that can serve as a good "gateway" to raise awareness to people who don't know anything about tinnitus. I still marvel at the fact that I didn't know ANYTHING about tinnitus before I got it, and yet it is such a common condition.

And even with that, I only have one "Like" on the post so far. If I had posted some anecdote about my son, it would have 10 likes by now.

 

Hi @marqualler, I completely agree with what you wrote re: that being a good gate-way kind of thing to share. That's something I would share on my feed. It's relevant and accessible for many people and timely in the US given the anniversary. Maybe TT could share your post on their page and others could share it from there?

Thanks for putting it all out there, sometimes sharing we have T with our friends isn't easy, especially when the level of suffering isn't always understood.