Viral truths: How disability memes exposed the myths of stable embodiment during COVID-19

This article performs a critical disability analysis of disability memes that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, examining how they functioned as significant counternarratives to dominant cultural representations. The pandemic disrupted the perceived stability of able-bodiedness, forcing many non-disabled people to experience forms of social isolation, bodily vulnerability and environmental limitations that are routine for people with disability. As digital media became central to communication, disability communities used memes – a popular and participatory form of communication – to expose the myth of stable embodiment and offer valuable insights. Drawing on Rosemarie Garland-Thomson’s framework of disability as a relationship between bodies and environments, we identify three categories of disability memes from the pandemic era: experiential, environmental and expectation subversion. These memes, created and shared widely, leveraged disability humour to challenge ableist stereotypes by positioning people with disability as ‘oracles’ and experts in navigating bodily instability and inaccessibility. The experiential memes foregrounded insider knowledge, performing a pedagogical function for a new audience. Environmental memes used humour to critique socially constructed barriers and institutional failures that were suddenly exposed as arbitrary. Finally, expectation-subversion memes challenged the pressures of productivity culture, validating rest and fluctuating capacity while embodying ‘crip time’ as a form of resistance. By analysing these new meme genres, this article argues that the shared experiences of the pandemic fostered a unique cultural moment where disability memes could effectively challenge long-standing, problematic representations – such as those centred on charity, inspiration or faking disability – and offer authentic counternarratives that legitimized the voices and experiences of people with disability.