YouTube… oh where would we be without YouTube.

Without it, we wouldn’t get to replay the controversial Thierry Henry handball over and over, there wouldn’t be pirated clips from America’s Next Top Model just a click away,  and while we still would have heard Barak Obama call Kanye West a jackass, we might not have seen the video.

Without YouTube, we wouldn’t get to see those guys leap miraculously into pairs of jeans, the homemade video of the ninja cat, or the dramatic chipmunk (If that sounded like jibberish to you, then I’m pretty sure I spend too much time surfing random videos online).

But what about the famous videos of Chris Crocker in the “Leave Britney alone” video?  Or the poor little boy talking nonsense while still under the influence of drugs from the dentist?  And what about the cute little girl who surprises her mother by saying she’ll “kick a monster’s a**”?

Those videos don’t really make sense without sound.  So, for videos like these, deaf people will essentially be left out of the joke.

But YouTube will soon be incorporating automatic, machine-generated captions for all English-language videos.  All you’ll have to do is select the option from the video window, and subtitles will appear at the bottom of the screen.  Actually, YouTube does already have this feature - kind of.  Captions have been available for years now, but it’s been up to the video uploader to type it up and put in the times they should appear, etc… it sounds like a big hassle.  And it obviously is, since you rarely see subtitles in youtube videos.

This new system will take that hassle out and will do it all automatically.  Now, Google - who owns YouTube - does admit… the automated system is a little glitchy right now.  For example, in a demonstration video (below), someone is saying “Sim Card”, but the word “Salmon” comes up instead.  But the developers say the system will improve over time.  Uploaders will still be able to put in their own captions if they want - to make it easier, they won’t have to include what point in the video they should show up.  The voice recognition software will figure that out for you.

I’m really happy to hear this is coming, because this will expand YouTube’s audience and let everyone - regardless of hearing capabilities - get in on the fun.  And not only that, what about people that don’t speak English?  Sure, there are international youtube sites, and videos in various languages.  But I’d say most of the viral videos are in English, so captions will let everyone see what the fuss is about.