Our Love Letter to the TV & Film Industry

14th February 2022

This Valentine's Day, we have joined forces with organisations around the world to send out a love letter to the TV and film industry promoting petitions calling for better representation on TV and film. 

Organisations in the USA, Canada, Australia, Chile, Peru, Columbia, Ghana, India, Israel and Finland have all set up petitions which link to our No Diversity Without Disfluency petition, calling on the media to include those who stammer.

*Update: Read how the day went in our Campaigns section.

1 MILLION SIGNATURES

We hope to collectively reach a million signatures on these petitions by 22nd October. Help us get there. Now it isn't just us in the UK pushing this message, it's people and organisations around the world too.

THE LETTER

The letter starts "We love you. We love how your films and shows make us laugh, cry, and how they have the power to educate and inspire. But we don't see us on screen, people who stammer…". Read our love letter in full at the bottom of the page.

This is an extension of our No Diversity Without Disfluency campaign, launched on October 22nd 2021, International Stammering Awareness Day. 

Join us in urging broadcasters like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV and the BBC to include people who stammer in front of and behind the camera. So that stammering is normalised and fluent speakers learn how to respond.

Get involved

Today on Valentine's Day, send a message of love on social media to the TV, streaming and film industry asking them to include stammering and promote the petition.

It can be a post or a video, via Twitter, Instagram or TikTok. Please:

1. Include the hashtags #LoveULoveUsToo #NoDiversityWithoutDisfluency #IStammerToo 
2. Tag the relevant TV/film company, we've included some below.  
3. Add this link to the petition 👉 https://bit.ly/3BTn4Gw 
4. Copy us in — @stammauk on Instagram and @stammer on Twitter — so that we see and share your post. 

examples

Tweets

If you want to post on Twitter, do something like this:

Videos

If you want to make a video of yourself talking, keep these concise, saying 5 to 10 short sentences. Watch this video below as an example:

Add this text to your post:
  
Dear @Netflix. I love you, love us too. Include us. #NoDiversityWithoutDisfluency #LoveULoveUsToo @stammer If you agree, sign at 👉 www.stamma.org/petition 

Video Recording Tips 

• Go ahead and stammer.
• Find somewhere sunny, close to a window, or with lots of indoor lighting.  
• Put yourself facing the source of light or window, not behind you. 
• Record your video as a selfie in portrait mode.  
• Choose somewhere quiet, with no background noise: traffic, music, other people. 
• Keep your background free from distractions, windows, other people, posters. 
• Put your phone or laptop on a solid surface, so it doesn't wobble. 
• Have the camera at eye level — so we aren't looking up your nose or down on you. 
• Smile. This is a love letter :) 

Join in too and help us get our petition out there and signed by as many people as possible.

Our love letter