ABSTRACT
Introduction While the disabled body has long been a source of curiosity for the nondisabled, whether it is casual stares on the street or organised exhibitionism at freak shows, a more recent cultural imagination of disability has been as a source of inspiration to the non-disabled. Both online and off, countless stories and images circulate depicting the struggles faced by those (often children) with disabilities and the courage of those strong enough to ‘overcome’ their inadequacies and strive to be ‘normal’. These fantasies of survival have exploded with the advent of social media, with personal stories from disabled people touching the non-disabled user deeply, motivating them to share these tropes on Facebook and Twitter. These tropes are perceived as quiet celebrations of human strength and promises of human resilience, but they serve to objectify the disabled individuals caricatured within. This chapter seeks to reveal the ways disability manifests on social media as the memetic trend known as ‘inspiration porn’, which marks the disabled subject as a source of inspiration for the non-disabled, an imagination of disability commonly promoted in events such as the Paralympic Games. In addition, this chapter will look at how social media allows disabled people to fi ght back, engaging in what Kalle Lasn dubs ‘memetic jujitsu’ (Vaske, 2009), to resist inspiration porn memes through their own harnessing of social media spaces.
