45. i’m no inspiration

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hi hello hey, we’ve got a juicy one today!

We’ve talked about “inspiration porn” before way back in episode 4, but it’s been a while and we always feel it’s a relevant topic in the age of social media. The late, great Stella Young coined the term in her famous Ted talk, “I’m not your inspiration, thank you very much,” describing how able-bodied people unintentionally exploit people with disabilities to inspire and pity them. Although people have good intentions, it assumes that people with disabilities can’t achieve much due to their disabilities. In this episode, we give examples from our own lives and what it means to be inspiring. We also talk about social media’s role in spreading these attitudes and why it’s problematic.

We hope you enjoy, and we’ll see you in two weeks!