On the 6th of December 2014, Stella Young died suddenly. Her death was unexpected and not related to any pre-existing condition. It left her friends in the comedy world devastated, as well as those she advocated so brilliantly for in the disability community. And her family too.

Her TED talk, ‘I’m not your inspiration, thank you very much’ is one of the really memorable examples of these types of speeches, and it’s had 1.3 million views at the time of writing.

It has the TED calling card of challenging assumptions, sharing personal stories, smatterings of humour and inventing a phrase that is now part of the disability lexicon — ‘inspiration porn’.

You may have seen images like this one: "The only disability in life is a bad attitude." Or this one: "Your excuse is invalid." Indeed. Or this one: "Before you quit, try!" These are just a couple of examples, but there are a lot of these images out there. You know, you might have seen the one, the little girl with no hands drawing a picture with a pencil held in her mouth. You might have seen a child running on carbon fiber prosthetic legs. And these images, there are lots of them out there, they are what we call inspiration porn. (Laughter) And I use the term porn deliberately, because they objectify one group of people for the benefit of another group of people. So in this case, we're objectifying disabled people for the benefit of nondisabled people. The purpose of these images is to inspire you, to motivate you, so that we can look at them and think, "Well, however bad my life is, it could be worse. I could be that person.

It’s a brilliant speech, with so many original flourishes. Inspiration and the misuse of inspiration is the theme of it, and it begins with this funny little anecdote:

Years later, I was on my second teaching round in a Melbourne high school, and I was about 20 minutes into a year 11 legal studies class when this boy put up his hand and said, "Hey miss, when are you going to start doing your speech?" And I said, "What speech?" You know, I'd been talking them about defamation law for a good 20 minutes. And he said, "You know, like, your motivational speaking. You know, when people in wheelchairs come to school, they usually say, like, inspirational stuff?" (Laughter) "It's usually in the big hall."

And that's when it dawned on me: This kid had only ever experienced disabled people as objects of inspiration. We are not, to this kid -- and it's not his fault, I mean, that's true for many of us, for lots of us, disabled people are not our teachers or our doctors or our manicurists. We're not real people. We are there to inspire. And in fact, I am sitting on this stage looking like I do in this wheelchair, and you are probably kind of expecting me to inspire you. Right? (Laughter) Yeah.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I'm afraid I'm going to disappoint you dramatically. I am not here to inspire you. I am here to tell you that we have been lied to about disability. Yeah, we've been sold the lie that disability is a Bad Thing, capital B, capital T. It's a bad thing, and to live with a disability makes you exceptional. It's not a bad thing, and it doesn't make you exceptional.

For her memorial service at the Melbourne Town Hall, there was a beautiful speech by fellow disability activist and year nine student Stella Barton,

The final eulogy was one that knocked it out of the park. Stella Young’s friend, fellow comedian and stand up producer, Nelly Thomas, penned a speech which drew on a beautiful article Stella had written, 'Letter to My Eighty Year Old Self' . Because Stella died so young, at just 32, Nelly launches into a projection of what might have happened in the years that have been denied us. And it’s funny and rollicking in parts, but then it settles into the devastating and tear soaked last lines.

By the time Stella dies, at the age of 85, she is our most famous Australian. Ever.

She leaves world a better, brighter, fairer and far more beautiful place.

And, by the way, if you think I’m joking about the most famous Australian ever part, you are wrong. That girl was on a rocket to the moon. She was going there very fast and I have absolutely no doubt that she was about to explode globally.

In the truest sense of the word, she was special.

I know, “Piss off Nelzies!!!”

Stel wherever you are, I will always try to think of you on that rocket – charging around, abusing people who move too fricken slow and ramming into their ankles “accidentally”.

My darling Stella, you were out of this world.

I just so wish you were still in it.

I highly recommend both the podcast episode with Nelly and the transcript and video of the speech.

Nelly’s new podcast is on a rocket ship to the moon itself, it’s called The Single Life of Us (with Kate Mulholland).

The Speakola podcast has had more than 100,000 downloads.

The next episode will be about writing a TED talk with Melbourne author and speaker Ruth Clare. it’ll be out before Christmas. Ruth wrote the book ‘Enemy — Bringing the War Back Home’ about the domestic violence inflicted on her and her family by her father, after he returned from Vietnam. She’s done three TED talks now, one of which has over 100,000 views.

Subscribe to the podcast.

Thanks to everyone who has upgraded to ‘paid subscriber’ (see blue button below). It’s only $5 a month. If you prefer Patreon or straight donation that is very much appreciated too, and you get a comp ‘paid subscription’ on this page.

Here are seventeen things Stella Young wanted people to know, published on her ABC Ramp Up page:

Thanks to recent subscribers

⭐Dean Munns, Laura O’Shea, Ian McKay, Theresa Bradley, Ian Church, Judith Trotman, Ed Nixon, Mark Whiting, Terry Chadwick⭐

Share