The Internet has been a marvelous thing for the visually impaired. It has allowed a relatively small group of people who are spread out across the globe to connect, offer advice, and pull resources. It’s also caused new heights of soap opera-esque drama to unfold, as any variety of social interaction online is apt to do. (see FaceBook.com, Twitter, or any online chat room or forum, really.)
Because of these great new vistas of opportunity, the visually impaired community, (including all of us here at BlindSpots), have gotten rather carried away. Now it seems that the overwhelming majority of web sites, blogs, resources, etc, on the Internet set up by blind people are strictly for blind people. We have, not to put too fine a point on it, become the unwitting victims of a stealthy form of narcissism.
Enter BlindSpots.
BlindSpots is a place set up by members of the visually impaired community, with members of the visually impaired community contributing content in a variety of formats for all. That means, implicitly, that while the content creators themselves on this site are visually impaired, the content is not about being blind, advice on solving blindness related problems, or anything else related to our lack of vision, as a well-known emperor might put it. (That was a stealthy Star Wars reference. See?)
There’s a lot more to us than just our fancy canes and strange gismos, many of which look like they came from Radio Shack cerca 1989. Our goal is to explore all the various topics we find interesting in a fun and entertaining way. Something anyone and everyone might like to read.
Will it work? Who knows. We think so. There have been far worse ideas on the Internet.
Enjoy!