Stella Jane Young (24 February 1982 – 6 December 2014) was an Australian comedian, journalist and disability rights activist.
Several years ago, when working at a local community college, I participated in “The Soapbox Sisters”. I chose to read a speech by Stella Young. One of the many things this disability activist accomplished in her short yet impactful life, was coining the phrase “inspiration porn”. At least, Stella was the first one credited with the phrase.
In the beginning, “inspiration porn” was defined as: “an analogy with pornography, in that the material is perceived as objectifying disabled people for the benefit or gratification of the able-bodied.[2][3] Inspiration porn may be seen as a form of ableism“(2023, “Inspiration Porn”, para. 1).
Through the years, however, the phrase has changed to mean much more. This post talks about one of those forms of “inspiration porn”.
I love watching captioned “shorts” (shorter videos) about service dogs, people with disabilities, cooking, dog training, and more! I’m not nearly geeky enough to understand how or even why when you watch a certain kind of video, more of the same will show up in your queue to enjoy. This is how I happened on this user and popular videos. See below for an example:
I won’t flood you with more videos showing similar situations, but if you search for “social experiment” or “helping the disabled” you will get your “fix”, trust me. As a psychologist, I am fine with social experiments used in a scientific way to promote research in disability studies. I do understand that videos of this sort are used to inspire people in noting the good in humanity. However, it has become “inspiration porn”. An article in Forbes (Pulrang, 2019) best explained the evolution of the term in my opinion; “portrayals and uses of disability that share one or more of the following: sentimentality and/or pity, an uplifting moral message, primarily aimed at non-disabled viewers, and Disabled people anonymously objectified, even when they are named” (para. 4).
If a person with disability chose to participate in a social experiment, I’m “all in”. Yet these videos rarely focus on a REAL person with disability, and the emphasis is on “how great humanity” is in assisting the fake actor. The celebration is all about how “kind” that abled person who assisted is and how great are we as humans? “Hope for Humanity”. Ugh.
Just UGH.
A true focus of inspirational disability videos should be how abled folks can support true activism and advocacy. How about backing universal design and making ALL spaces, accessible spaces? What would be really wonderful is if people with mobility challenges had a way to see the Lincoln Memorial without crawling up the steps. Or if people could visit a park and actually walk the same trails everyone else does. How about making straws and utensils that can be used by all people no matter what their fine motor skill function is?
How about being inspired and impressed by a person with disability who does their job really well? How about putting a thumbtack in the epiphany that you have forgotten your friend with a disability even has a disability because they are so NORMAL?
L. Denise Portis, Ph.D.
©2023 Personal Hearing Loss Journal
“Inspiration Porn”. (2023, July 19). In Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspiration_porn
Pulrang, A. (2019, November 29). How to avoid inspiration porn. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewpulrang/2019/11/29/how-to-avoid-inspiration-porn/?sh=70ac6b725b3d
Hearing Elmo 