The birth of new social media platforms over the last decade brought many changes for adults, teenagers, and children. Suddenly, we were all more connected than ever before, which has its ups and downs; platforms like TikTok can be a fantastic place to have fun and learn something, but can also be places where mockery, torment, and humiliation co-exist.
Recommended VideosIn just 13 words, TikTok user @Letty shut down the mocking of disabled people. Reading those words might have given you a shock to the system, just as writing them did, because how are we, as a people, not already aware that it’s wrong to mock anyone? However, I digress.
Instead of getting angry, Letty simply showcased how the mocking video wasn’t funny; they brought up the incredible point of people not laughing when they had to walk and questioning why it becomes funny when it’s an abled person making fun of someone not so.
#stitch with @Liv I HAVE NOT STITCHED THE ORIGINAL CREATOR AS THEY HAVE THEIR STITCHES TURNED OFF! (Also this is how i walk – i am not making fun of anyones walking in this video) – VD: letty is a young white person with short blonde hair and a curtain fringe. Letty is stitching a video which shows a woman leaving her car and walking with knees turned in and feet outwards so she is walking on the inside of her foot/ ankle. She is laughing and the video is captioned: “POV: parking at a handicap ♿️ “. This creator is pretending to be disabled so she can park in a disabled parking space. In the stitch to this video letty (who is disabled) uses a walker to stand up from their wheelchair and uses the walker to move towards the camera. Because of lettys disability this is hard work and takes a bit of time. When letty reaches the camera they talk to the camera whilst holding onto the walker for support. There are captions transcribing what letty says in the top left hand corner. End VD. Hashtags: #disabledparking #bluebadge #disability #disabledactivist #disabledadvocate #disabilityrights #wheelchairuser
♬ original sound – Letty 🤙The video inspired us to spend some time scrolling Letty’s TikTok this afternoon, and we recommend you do the same. It’s not just a learning experience, as they share information regarding everything from tone tags to wheelchair add-ons; they’re absolutely hilarious. They’ve nailed sarcasm in several videos, been open and vulnerable in others, and despite coming across situations online that obviously hurt and frustrate them online, they’ve created a space for themselves and others, too.
You never know what someone is struggling with, you never know what communities the person sitting next to you in class, or on the bus, or in your office belongs to — and you also can’t fathom what someone with a visible disability is experiencing either, even if you “see” it for yourself.
Abled people won’t ever be able to understand what it feels like to walk through life with a disability, and also may not understand that the healthcare system in the U.S. works against disabled people far more often than it works with them.
AmericanProgress.org shares the following statements regarding disabled Americans, and the information supporting each statement can be found on the website:
“U.S. society is highly ableist, and the country has a fragmented, costly, and inequitable health care system. The combination of these factors results in disabled people being more than twice as likely as nondisabled people to live below the poverty line. Programs meant to address these disparities require disabled people to constantly prove they are disabled enough to receive benefits, and some politicians have sought to undermine these programs and reduce government spending on low-income households by creating convoluted evaluation and reporting requirements that weed out many individuals who should be eligible. The system is so complicated that a whole legal industry exists to help disabled people apply for programs and appeal disability insurance decisions.”
Yes, you read that right — people who need assistance have to “prove they’re disabled enough” to get the necessary means for survival, and even when providing any “proof” they have, it can still be deemed not enough.
Some types of disabilities are visible, while others are invisible, and it rocks me to my core that we’re still having conversations about this. People deserve to live their lives, chase their dreams, fall in love, be genuinely happy, and more than that — they deserve to live without anyone else going out of their way to make it more challenging than it already can be.
Letty could not properly “stitch” the video, as the account that posted it doesn’t allow those videos to be stitched together with other users, but we do not doubt they’ll run across it. Here’s hoping they find a different approach to humor next time and maybe do something positive with their platform instead.
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