Laurence Clark’s show, as we know, is about inspiration – particularly why disabled people are so often seen as inspirational when they undertake rather mundane things.

He’s not the only one out there wondering about this. A recent blog by Stella Young from The Australia Broadcasting Corporation focuses on the growing phenomenon she refers to as ‘inspiration porn’.

Inspiration porn is an image of a person with a disability, often a kid, doing something completely ordinary – like playing, or talking, or running, or drawing a picture, or hitting a tennis ball – carrying a caption like “your excuse is invalid” or “before you quit, try”. Increasingly, they feature the Hamilton quote [‘the only disability in life is a bad attitude’].

It’s a really interesting post – exploring the complexities of image, identification and inspiration and encouraging the reader to think hard about what they allow themselves to be triggered by. She ends by looking at the impact of such material on disabled people themselves, suggesting that:

Inspiration porn shames people with disabilities. It says that if we fail to be happy, to smile and to live lives that make those around us feel good, it’s because we’re not trying hard enough. Our attitude is just not positive enough. It’s our fault. Not to mention what it means for people whose disabilities are not visible, like people with chronic or mental illness, who often battle the assumption that it’s all about attitude. And we’re not allowed to be angry and upset, because then we’d be “bad” disabled people.

The amount of comment the article has drawn (93 comments to date) indicates the interest in the field and show a fierce defense of such images being made.

I’m sitting here watching the tennis with the subtitles on and a Pimms in my hand. I can’t find too much inspirational in that. Want to argue?

You can read Stella Young’s post in full here.