Someone called me brave last week.
I was at a small gathering with a few people I knew. Nothing dramatic. Nothing particularly difficult. I was sitting at the table, listening to everyone talk, occasionally joining in, and mostly doing what I always do in situations like that: keeping track of the noise, the conversations happening around me, how long I’d been there, and how much longer I could comfortably stay.
At some point, I mentioned that I was getting tired and might head home soon.
One of the people there looked at me and said, “Honestly, you’re so brave.”
I knew what she meant.
She knew I was autistic. Knew social situations could be exhausting for me. She probably thought she was being encouraging. And I didn’t want to make her feel bad for trying to say something kind, so I smiled and said thank you.
But I kept thinking about it afterward.
Because I hadn’t done anything brave.
I hadn’t overcome some enormous obstacle. I hadn’t achieved something extraordinary. Just gone to a gathering, sat with people I knew, talked when I felt like talking, and left when I was tired.
That’s it.
And yet, somewhere along the way, my being autistic had turned an ordinary Tuesday-evening decision into something worthy of admiration.
That is the part I want to talk about.
Because being called brave might sound harmless. Sometimes it even feels nice in the moment. But when disabled and neurodivergent people are constantly praised for doing ordinary things, there is a message hiding underneath the compliment:
I didn’t expect someone like you to be able to do this.
And that message is worth examining.
I wasn’t brave.
I was just there.
What Inspiration Porn Actually Is
The term was coined by Stella Young, a disability activist and comedian who died in 2014 and who I wish were still here to see how much her work still needs to be said, over and over, because it hasn’t fully landed yet.
Inspiration porn, as Young defined it, is the objectification of disabled people for the benefit of non-disabled people.It’s the image of a person with a disability doing some everyday task with an inspirational quote underneath it. It’s the video of the autistic kid going to prom that gets shared by a million people who are not autistic and will never think about that kid again after the share. It’s the “what’s your excuse?” meme featuring an amputee athlete, as if disabled people exist to make non-disabled people feel guilty about skipping the gym.
In inspiration porn, people with disabilities are generally praised for commonplace activities — like getting dressed, or going to school, or buying yogurt — making it seem as though disabled people are not capable of the same level of achievements as their non-disabled peers.
And here is the thing that makes it sting in a very specific way: it implies that disabled lives aren’t worth living. Statements like “you’re so brave, I don’t know how you do it” send the idea that people with disabilities have it so bad that simply existing is an achievement.
Think about what that means. Think about what you’re actually saying when you call someone brave for existing. You’re saying: your life seems so terrible to me that surviving it requires courage. You are telling them that their life — the one they’re living, the one they presumably would like to keep living — reads to you as a tragedy so severe that getting through a Tuesday is remarkable.
That’s not a compliment. That’s a very polite way of saying you can’t imagine wanting to be them.
The Specific Way It Shows Up in Autism Spaces
I want to go somewhere that makes people uncomfortable, because I think the inspiration porn conversation mostly focuses on physical disability and lets neurodivergent people off the hook from examining how this operates in our own community.
So let me say it plainly.
There is an entire genre of autism content online that exists for the consumption and emotional benefit of non-autistic people. The heartwarming video of the autistic child making a friend that gets 2 million views from people who will cry briefly and move on with their day. The “my autistic son said ‘I love you’ for the first time” posts that get turned into shareable content without the child’s consent. The “autism family” channels where an autistic person is the central character of a narrative about everyone’s feelings except theirs.
These are not being shared because they help autistic people. They are being shared because they make non-autistic people feel something — hope, warmth, relief, inspiration — and the autistic person in the center of them is incidental to that purpose.
Splashing bravery across a disability canvas with a broad brush. All disabled folks in your Sunday supplement are superheroes. Math geniuses. Paralympic warriors. Disability isn’t a superpower. It’s just an obstacle to thriving in a society that wasn’t built for you.
There are two lanes of autism content that get massive engagement online: the tragedy lane and the triumph lane. Both are for the non-autistic audience. The tragedy lane says autism is a devastating loss — usually told by parents, about their children, often without the autistic person’s input. The triumph lane says autism is an inspiring superpower — the autistic genius, the savant, the person who overcame their autism to do a normal thing.
The autistic person who is just… a person? Living a complicated, ordinary, sometimes difficult, sometimes joyful life without either tragedy or triumph to offer? Doesn’t go viral, doesn’t get shared, and doesn’t get the inspirational music.
Because that person can’t be used to make anyone feel anything convenient.
Why Even Good People Do This
I want to be careful here, because I don’t think the vast majority of people sharing this content are bad people. I think they’re people operating in a culture that has taught them a particular way of relating to disabled people — and that way of relating was not designed with disabled people’s humanity in mind.
Society mostly promotes the idea that having a disability is inherently bad and that disabled people’s existence elicits feelings of pity and sympathy. If that’s the water you’ve been swimming in your whole life, the inspiration porn framework feels like progress. It feels like positivity. It feels like you’re celebrating disabled people rather than pitying them.
But the same assumption is underneath both. The pity says: your life is terrible and I feel bad for you. The inspiration says: your life is terrible and you’re amazing for surviving it. The assumption in the middle — that the disabled life is lesser, harder, worth less — is never examined. It’s just dressed differently.
There’s also this: inspiration porn is emotionally convenient. “You’re so brave” is an atta girl offered instead of genuine engagement or assistance. It’s a way of acknowledging someone’s existence, feeling good about that acknowledgment, and not having to do anything else. No structural change required. No examining of the systems that make disabled lives harder. Just a feeling of warmth that comes from the interaction and dissolves by the time you get to your car.
Real support — actually helping, actually changing things, actually listening — is harder. Inspiration is a substitute for it.
The Part About Toxic Positivity in Disability Spaces
Here’s the other edge of this that doesn’t get named: toxic positivity isn’t something that only non-disabled people do to disabled people. It also lives inside disability and neurodivergent communities, and it does damage there too.
People with invisible illnesses or disabilities are scared of acting too positive because then people won’t believe that they’re sick. They’re afraid of being too negative because then they aren’t being strong or fighting hard enough. They can’t win.
This is so real I want to sit with it for a minute.
There is a pressure inside advocacy spaces to frame your experience in particular ways. To be inspiring rather than just honest. To find the silver lining. Learning to turn the hard thing into a lesson. To conclude with hope, because if you don’t conclude with hope people get uncomfortable and sometimes they tell you you’re being negative as though that’s the actual problem.
You can’t be too broken or people won’t believe you need help. You can’t be too functional or people will say you’re not really disabled. Can’t be too angry or you’ll alienate the people whose support you need. You can’t be too sad or you’re not fighting hard enough. You can’t be too okay or the point of your story disappears.
The performance of disability is exhausting in multiple directions simultaneously. And the inspiration porn framework is one of the walls of that cage — it sets up an expectation for how disabled people are supposed to present themselves that has nothing to do with how disabled people actually feel, and everything to do with what makes everyone else comfortable.
What We Actually Need Instead of Inspiration
This is the part I care about most, so I’m going to be direct.
Stop calling us brave for existing. If you find yourself moved by a disabled person doing a completely ordinary thing, sit with that response for a second before you share it. Ask yourself what assumption underneath your reaction is doing the work. Ask yourself whether you would find it equally remarkable if a non-disabled person did the same thing. If the answer is no, that’s information.
Stop sharing content about autistic people — especially autistic children — without asking whether the person at the center of it consented to be content. The kid in the heartwarming video didn’t agree to be your moment of inspiration. Their parent made that choice. That matters.
Stop treating the presence of a disabled person in a normal space as a triumph of the human spirit. We are allowed to be at the grocery store. We are allowed to be at the restaurant and the movie theater and the office and the conference and the family dinner. Our presence in ordinary spaces is not an achievement. It’s just life. The fact that it reads as an achievement is actually the thing worth examining — because what it reveals is that some part of you didn’t expect us to be there.
Stop consuming disability content as a way to feel better about your own life. That is literally the definition of using disabled people as objects rather than knowing them as subjects.
And start — genuinely start — engaging with disabled people as full human beings with complicated inner lives who sometimes have bad days without there being a lesson in it, who sometimes need practical help rather than inspirational words, who are sometimes fine and sometimes not and don’t owe you either the triumph or the tragedy.
We were at Walgreens in our sweatpants buying Cheetos and gummy bears. Not being brave. We were just there.
A Note on What This Means for Advocacy
There’s a reason why I’m bringing this to an advocacy page and not just a blog about feelings.
Inspiration porn is not politically neutral. It actively works against the kind of social change that actually improves disabled people’s lives, because it replaces systemic change with emotional catharsis. You feel the feeling, you share the content, you cry a little, and the systems that make disabled lives harder stay exactly as they are. The Medicaid cuts still happen. The Olmstead protections still get threatened. The schools still deny accommodations. The workplaces still don’t accommodate. But you had your moment of inspiration, so it felt like something changed.
It didn’t change.
Real advocacy for disabled people is not inspirational. It’s unglamorous. It’s IEP meetings and denied insurance claims and letters to senators and showing up to town halls. That’s also fighting for the Olmstead decision that the DOJ is currently trying to gut. It’s making sure disabled people have actual community services and actual employment support and actual housing access — not a video of a disabled person that went viral and made everyone feel good for a Tuesday.
Disabled people are not here to inspire you. We are here, full stop. And what we actually need from you is not your inspiration. It’s your advocacy, your vote, your phone call to your representative, your attention to the things that are actually being decided about our lives right now.
The inspiration is a distraction. The work is what matters.
I’m going to need you to put down the feel-good video and pick up the phone.
Keep reading: → No Kings Then, No Kings Now: What America’s 250th Birthday Means When You’re the Person They’re Legislating Against → Dear Autism Parents: The Autistic Adults You’re Arguing With Online Are Your Child’s Future → You Can Be Surrounded By People Who Love You and Still Feel Completely Alone → Who Were You Before You Learned to Disappear?
