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When Shelby Lynch used popular track “I wanna ride” on TikTok, back came the reply “the only thing you’re riding is your wheelchair”’
It might sound horrific being a disabled TikTok user, but these are the things influencer Shelby can laugh at now.
“I’ll use a humourous sound to show how ableist they are cos I’m having a good but if I’m having a s**t day I will reply quite sassy to try and educate them.”
Lynch, 23 from Leeds, uses her platform to share snippets of living with Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type 2, with 440,000 followers and aims to change the perception of disabled people by talking about sex and fashion.
“I feel like people have a certain view of what disabled looks like and I don’t think I fit that look,” says the self-styled ‘disabled Bratz doll’.
“They’re always so shocked that I dress really well and that I’ve got colourful hair I don’t fit into that little box of frumpy disabled person”
But why do non-disabled people have these stereotypes of disabled people?
“It’s a lack of education, we need better education so people aren’t trolling disabled people online,” Lynch says Instagram influencer Nina Tame, from Essex points to the lack of accurate representation. “When we look at disability in the media, it’s generally either very tragic or were held up as being these kind of inspirational people, despite our disability.”
She also thinks that ableism isn’t always on purpose. “A lot of people don’t even understand ableism is a thing. So much of the insults that we use will tend to basically be comparing somebody to a disabled person,” she says. “But until you actually say that to somebody, and get them to take a look at that language they dont realise.”
For Tame, the online community is a vital tool For challenging people’s perceptions of disability.
“Social media has been such an amazing platform for disabled voices. And just being able to challenge people’s perceptions away from the narrative that they are used to and allowing people to tell their own stories is brilliant.” says Tame.
TikTok has also been great for those with autism, such as Ella Willis, 22, Newcastle, who started making TikTok videos in response to Sia’s film Music. The Australian musician received wide criticism after negatively stereotyping autistic people.
“I didn’t intend it to become what it has. I literally just wanted to talk about Sia’s film and the horrible autism stereotypes that were in it. And from that it led people to asking me questions about my lived experience,” Willis says.
It’s since Willis became known as someone who calls out celebrities that they have to be more cautious on their account now.
“It’s really difficult because people just don’t want to go ‘yeah, okay, my favourite celebrity’s ableist, what are we going to do about it?’,’ Willis says. “They just want to tear you down for calling them out. So I have to be careful what I say and what I do. Because I don’t want to lose my account.”
Has it made Willis more cautious to talk about it? Well, not exactly.
“I maybe check my tone a little bit because people don’t like it when you raise your voice. They say ‘I would have respected you if you weren’t so angry’. And it’s like, I have every right to be angry, actually. People love to tone check disabled people.”
Tame says that despite the fact that she makes a lot of humorous videos, those aren’t the things she gets hate for.
“Nobody ever really sort of brings up the humour. I think it’s more people are surprised that I have a voice that, you know, disabled people are out here going actually, we don’t like that. And people are quite affronted by that.”
For some though, not only has using humour changed people’s minds massively, but it just makes more sense. Tame says: “I found that with my content, the funny ones are what people engage with more, and I think they take more away from it as well. And they can find the humour in something that actually might be quite difficult because it still gets the point across.”
Tame, uses a wheelchair due to Spina Bifida and centres her online videos around other people’s reactions to disability and calling out ableism. One thing she is known for is her quick wit and shutting down people who pity her because she uses a wheelchair. She got so sick of this reaction that she coined her own catchphrase “keep your pity in your pants”.
“I would find myself going, ‘no, you don’t need to be sorry, it’s fine. I’ve got a great life!’ And it just kind of came from that, I don’t need your pity, because it’s so misplaced, you know, have empathy for the fact that I still can’t get into 50% of the shops in my local area and all of those barriers, which you could help fix, but don’t pity my legs that don’t work, because it’s just not a thing that I feel bad about.”
Although she calls out ableism a lot she’s also not going to jump down people’s throats for trying to learn.
“Nobody’s going to want to do any kind of learning, if they are so terrified that they’re going to get shouted out and screened out if they get it wrong. And when it comes to disability, we’re all going to get it wrong. you know, we’re all just out here doing the best we can with the knowledge that we’ve got. You know, once you know better, you do better, hopefully.”
Ultimately more than anything, disabled influencers just want non disabled people to listen to them.
“We are making a difference. But there’s still a long way to go,” says Willis.
Lynch agrees but thinks nondisabled people also need to do more “It’s important to call out ableism because otherwise it’ll just get worse for us in every aspect of our lives, that’s why it’s so important that the more disabled people talk about it and the more abled people are our allies.”
