‘Thank you all for following my journey’: Disability Self-Narratives on TikTok (Currently in Under Review)

Social media has changed how disability is represented in public culture. TikTok, in particular, has become a stage where disabled creators share their own stories — mixing humor, resilience, daily routines, and advocacy.

Unlike traditional media portrayals that often reduce disability to stereotypes of pity or “supercrip” heroism, TikTok allows disabled individuals to author their own narratives, reaching audiences far beyond their immediate communities.

In this project, we analyzed 1,469 TikTok videos from creators using hashtags like #disabled and #disability. Using computational text analysis, topic modeling, and computer vision, we uncovered eight major storytelling themes — from everyday life and specific conditions, to pets, gratitude, comedy, and assistive technologies. We also studied how TikTok’s design features (short-form video, trending audio, interactive tools) empower creators to combine words, visuals, and sounds into multimodal self-narratives.

Our findings show that tone matters: content infused with humor and gratitude significantly boosted engagement (likes, shares, and comments), while routine or condition-specific content drew less attention.

Visual strategies — like high-contrast colors, filming in intimate home settings, or featuring assistive devices — made videos more accessible and helped signal identity. In short, disabled TikTok creators are not only storytellers but also community builders, shaping how disability is understood in digital spaces.

• Presented at the Communication & Technology Division, ICA 2025, Denver

Stay tuned for publication!