Marymount Student’s Petition Helps Inspire Netflix Change

When Marymount University freshman Ryan Dyck watched the first episode of Netflix’s “Daredevil,” he thought it was a shame that visually impaired people wouldn’t be able to enjoy the series about the blind superhero. So he started an online petition urging the company to add a visual description option for its original programming.

Four days later, Netflix added the option.

“I knew they would take notice and expected the petition to have an effect,” the criminal justice major from Moorpark, California, said. “But I didn’t expect it to happen that quickly.”

Dyck had learned about change.org when someone from the organization spoke in Professor Justin Goodman’s sociology course. Change.org’s stated mission is to “empower people everywhere to create the change they want to see.”

“It just struck me on a personal level,” Dyck said. “I thought this would be the perfect thing to start a petition about.”

Then Dyck contacted the accessible Netflix project, founded by a blind journalist named Robert Kingett. That organization helped spread the word, and within a few days, Dyck’s petition had more than 3,000 signatures.

“‘Daredevil’ is a very inspiring story, not just for blind people but for anyone who might think they can’t change society for the better,” Dyck said.

When it comes to social change, sometimes it just takes one person to get the ball rolling.

“Every little bit helps, whether you’re creating a group on Facebook or starting a petition,” Dyck said. “That one push may just change the world forever.”