Gallery
Imagine going about your everyday errands and being the subject of everyone’s pity. On her podcast, Kayla Kingston with the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education says, “Inspirational depictions of people with disabilities in the media are called ‘inspiration porn,’ a term coined by Australian disability rights activist Stella Young… Young’s point in creating this term is to draw attention to the fact that these stories aren’t shared to support disabled people. These stories instead are shared to make nondisabled people feel good about themselves, thus exploiting those with disabilities.”
So the next time you’re on Facebook and see a viral video involving a person with a disability making the rounds, think before you automatically click “Share”: is what I’m sharing inspiration porn?
Inspiration porn is the objectification of people as inspirations to non-disabled people on the basis of their life circumstances. The term is by analogy with , in that the material is perceived as disabled people for the benefit or gratification of the non-disabled. Inspiration porn may be seen as a form of . An example of inspiration porn might be a photo of a child with a disability taking part in an ordinary activity, with captions targeted towards non-disabled people such as “your excuse is invalid”, “before you quit, try” or “they didn’t let their disability stop them”.
The term was coined in 2012 by activist in an editorial in ‘s and further explored in her Talk. About her decisions in naming inspiration porn, Young stated: “I use the term porn deliberately because of the objectification of one group of people for the benefit of another group of people.” She rejected the idea that disabled people’s otherwise ordinary activities should be considered extraordinary solely because of disability.
Criticisms of inspiration porn include that it “” disabled people, that it portrays disability as a burden (as opposed to focusing on the that disabled people face), and that reducing disabled people to inspirations dehumanizes them, and makes them examples. Inspiration porn itself reinforces the stereotypes society has given disabled individuals: that they are “unable” and “less competent” than those who do not have disabilities. After watching a 2016 advertisement titled from the , which showed a variety of disabled people accomplishing tasks in athletics, music, the household and more, alongside the repeated message of “Yes I can”, a response group of disabled viewers felt it generally exploited disabled people for the pleasure and comfort of the non-disabled.
