Edgy or insensitive? The Paralympics TikTok account sparks a debate
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Jonas Oliveira, head of content for the IPC, asks whether those critics would be asking the same questions if the subject of the videos were Olympic rather than Paralympic athletes.
"There shouldn't be a difference in the way that you treat athletes, be it Olympians, able-bodied athletes or athletes with disabilities," he said.
Wang He / Getty Images for International Paralympic Committee
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Getty Images for International Paralympic Committee
The flame is lowered during the closing ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Winter Paralympics. The next Paralympic Games will be held in Paris in August 2024.
Some athletes are defending the account
The few Para athletes who have spoken publicly about the account offer varying perspectives, though many agree it's a delicate balance to strike.
Amputee soccer player Sean Jackson told the BBC that he's disappointed the account is focusing so much on athletes' mistakes instead of their skills.
"They just choose to sort of mock them and turn them into memes and try and use their sport to entertain people from a comedic point of view," he said.
Several athletes who have been featured on the account told news outlets that they didn't take offense.
Hicks, the cyclist, told NBC News he wasn't aware of the viral Barstool tweet that featured his video and had no issues with the original.
"I don't feel like they are mocking me, rather just using a song which uses the word left, and I happen to be pedaling with only my left leg," he said.
Andr Ramos, a bronze medalist in boccia who was also the subject of a TikTok, told the outlet that "making fun with our handicaps is a sign that we accept ourselves as we are and that others do not see the disability as a difference."
Other athletes agree that humor can help raise awareness and normalize differences.
Parasurfer Liv Stone told
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that she appreciates the account isn't "pushing awareness ... in your face," while wheelchair basketball player Jess Whyte told the BBC that "if we're going to celebrate the great things, we can also laugh at the funny things."
Brad Snyder, a six-time Paralympic gold medalist most recently in paratriathlon who was blinded by an IED in Afghanistan, was also fine with the video he appeared in last year.
It shows him being led from the water to his bike by a guide and reaching carefully for it a gesture that the TikTok described as "air piano" and scored accordingly.
Snyder told CNN that he found the video funny and reposted it at the time. But he also acknowledges that there's a fine line between cheeky and disrespectful, and that no one person can "fully understand the gamut of disability."
That said, he appreciates that the account is using sports and humor to try to bridge that gap.
"And now let's have a conversation about what my experience might be like and what my challenges might be, and how you as an able-bodied person, might be able to understand and accommodate me in various ways or help me cross the street or help me without pitying me and those sorts of things," Snyder said.
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Monday, April 24, 2023 at 9:00 am