Netflix knows how to deliver binge-worthy reality series that dominate WhatsApp group chats, Twitter feeds and morning meeting discussions. 

Just look at Queer Eye, Cheer, Tiger King, The Last Dance and Selling Sunset. From the light-hearted and feel good to the unbelievable and downright bizarre (we’re looking at you, Joe Exotic) – most of us probably binged on at least one of Netflix’s reality series during lockdown and loved every second of it. 

That’s why we can’t wait for the platform’s new series, Deaf U. 

Produced by America’s Next Top Model winner Nyle DiMarco, Deaf U follows the lives of students at Gallaudet University – America’s renowned college for the education of the deaf and hard of hearing. DiMarco, who is a Gallaudet alumni, said he created the series because “I wanted to see diversity and layers in the community.”

Watch the trailer for Netflix’s Deaf U

Viewers get to see the highs and lows of university life through the eyes of a tight-knit group of deaf students – Daequan Taylor, Cheyanna Clearbrook, Renate Rose and Rodney Buford. And as Rose asserts in the opening to the show’s trailer: “Social pressure, worries about the future… college is a lot to handle.” 

While the series follows the usual college antics (hookups, disagreements, lots of laughs), it also explores how the students want to identify themselves as being in the world. 

Although this shouldn’t be considered as groundbreaking, it’s hard to think of another series that has put the spotlight on what it means for each of them to be deaf or have hearing difficulties in 2020.

That’s why this looks like such an interesting, and entertaining, series to get stuck into.

There are six episodes in the Deaf U series, which starts on Friday 9 October. 

Images: Netflix