Video Of The Week - Why An Entire Turkish Neighborhood Secretly Learned Sign Language
The day began like any other. Muharrem, a hearing-impaired young man and his sister, who reside in Istanbul's Bağcılar neighborhood, headed out to complete some chores. Along the way, Muharrem noticed a strange phenomenon. Everyone, from the pedestrian that accidently bumped into him, to the person who sold him bagels, to even the taxi driver, communicated with him using sign language.
It was only when Muharrem's sister led the bemused young man to the town center that he realized the enormity of everything he has just witnessed. Turns out that each and every member of the community had spent a month learning sign language just so that they could communicate with Muharrem.
The well-orchestrated event that took place on December 28th, 2014, was a marketing campaign for Samsung. Called "Hearing Hands," it was the brainchild of advertising agency Leo Burnett, to showcase the opening of a new Samsung Turkey call center for the hearing-impaired. While the advertisement will be a short-term memory for most, Muharrem and his neighbors will never forget the magical day!
Resources: buzzfeed.com,time.com
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255 Comments
grimreeper13Thursday, March 7, 2019 at 2:52 pmthis is so darn sweet , I almost cried. And i almost never cry. I support Muharrem and the people of his community . #def people are still awesome people- AmyTuesday, November 20, 2018 at 1:25 pmAwesome 👏
pakistanfanTuesday, May 16, 2017 at 6:56 pmWow. I thought no-one did that anymore
elisabethyTuesday, November 29, 2016 at 9:18 amThis is touching.
ceciliakMonday, November 28, 2016 at 9:17 amI personally thought that this article would be more about how the community learned sign language to talk without the government knowing what they were saying.- grimreeper13Thursday, March 7, 2019 at 2:48 pmme too at one point then i started reading and it is really sweet and heart warming
christianriberaMonday, November 28, 2016 at 9:55 amyou must be so edgy
- ceciliakMonday, November 21, 2016 at 9:18 amWow
schoolloverSunday, November 20, 2016 at 8:36 amOmg!!!!!
ajg16Saturday, November 19, 2016 at 12:47 pmThat is so nice!
rebeccaoctober2Wednesday, November 16, 2016 at 1:34 pmthat was so sad!!! i couldn't help but get tears in my eyes! why don't people do that for people anymore?
hoodini12345Wednesday, November 16, 2016 at 1:15 pmwow