Not everyone is laughing at the controversial Paralympic TikTok account

The Paris 2024 Paralympic Games are still over a month away, but their official TikTok account has been generating plenty of interest - and controversy - for almost a year.

The account has more than 4 million followers, growing by the day, and highlights various Paralympic sporting events, from sitting volleyball and wheelchair fencing to Para Taekwondo and blind football.

But some of its videos have been going viral for all the wrong reasons, prompting outrage from users who say the account's use of popular memes and audio, coupled with footage of athletes, appears to mock the Paralympians.

One video with more than 40 million views shows single-leg cyclist Darren Hick pedalling to the finish line, with audio saying "left, left, left" playing overtop.

Another shows Andre Ramos, who has cerebral palsy, using his left foot to play with a viral sound of someone saying, "Hey, what?" during a game of boccia.

Both athletes have said they weren't offended. Ramos said that making fun "is a sign that we accept ourselves as we are and that others do not see the disability as a difference".

But others aren't all that enthused; earlier this year, amputee soccer player Sean Jackson told the BBC that he was disappointed the account focused so much on the 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.

The Paralympic Games were a multisport event, hosting world-class athletes with physical disabilities or intellectual impairments that fall into 10 categories, including limb deficiency, vision impairment, leg length difference, and short stature.

Jess Quinn, an Auckland-based content creator and disability awareness advocate, said she didn't know what to make of the videos.

"I've had mixed emotions, one of my emotions is disappointment, I don't know if it's my first emotion, but it's definitely one of them.

"I think to showcase these videos that are putting exceptional talent in a joking way, bodies that are different, is just a bit wrong I think and a bit against the message. These people work incredibly hard, are incredible athletes, and are defying some pretty insane odds to achieve what they achieve, and then we're kind of making light of it."

But Quinn was conflicted. As a content creator, she knew how hard engagement could be, and she wanted for the Paralympics social accounts to be successful.

"I've worked in social media for eight years, I totally get the need to break through the noise because it's really hard to gain traction, and I know the Paralympics doesn't get as much noise as the Olympics.

"I'm stoked it's getting eyes, but reading through some of the comments on the posts, I think a lot of the eyes are unfortunately people finding it funny and laughing, not saying, 'Oh wow, how talented is that person'."

The videos have cast a wide net, attracting a mainstream audience online who might not have otherwise engaged with the Paralympic Games before. But as Amy Dunn knows, not all online attention is good.

"I'm personally short statured and there's a couple of shot-putters on there, and the shotputs they're using are green, and the comments are like, 'Are they using peas?' It's like, no, peas are tiny. Dame Valerie Adams doesn't throw peas, she throws the same shots we do."

Dunn was Halberg's youth coordinator and an athlete herself; she went to the World Dwarf Games in Germany last year and has represented New Zealand at the Oceania Track and Field Championships, even being selected for the 2021 Para World Champs but deciding not to go.

She said the Paralympics TikTok account, which was a product of the International Paralympics Committee or IPC, came across as "very unprofessional".

"It's attracting the wrong kind of audience in the comments ... surely if you were the IPC, you'd look into like, okay these comments aren't what we're trying to achieve, let's change what we're putting or respond to these comments to make this correction."

Earlier this year, a spokesperson for the IPC made a statement to NBC News, saying the posts were closely monitored and that the account was run by a Paralympian.

"We have created a strong following through edgy and unique content that allows us to educate an audience who might be less aware of Paralympic sport and the achievements of our athletes," it read.

"We appreciate that not everyone will like the content and sometimes we don't always get it right, but we do closely monitor posts and always converse in reactions to them. Importantly, we find that the account allows us to positively engage with younger fans about the power of Para sports as a tool for driving social inclusion."

But Dylan Lloyd wasn't entirely sure the account was achieving its intended purpose.

The 18-year-old is a wheelchair rugby athlete for the Otago Wheel Landers and manages New Zealand Wheelchair Rugby's social accounts.

"I get what they're trying to do in terms of, 'let's make it funny so we get more of a wide reach', but you read the comments and it's not really ... I don't know, I'm on the fence about it.

"It's cool it gets exposure but I don't think those people are gonna then go watch a Para sport because they've seen that video. There's no real growth outside of the social media platform, and if anything it's feeding into those stereotypes around disability."

Lloyd said there were other ways to make engaging social content, without perpetuating harmful stereotypes.

"You can still make sort of Gen Z, young person, short-form content in a more professional way, I guess by getting the actual athletes perspectives, doing interview-based content."

Quinn agreed, adding that humour shouldn't be off-limits either.

"I think there's a way that you could bring humour to it without laughing at them. You could do behind-the-scenes videos with the athletes. On my channel, I'll do me taking off my leg and maybe my partner running off with my leg.

"When I was on Dancing with the Stars, we did some really funny content I wasn't involved in, the other contestants would steal my leg and get it dressed up in different props, to me that's really funny and really tasteful and laughing with me, not laughing at something I've worked four years to achieve."

Dunn said it could sometimes be tricky to know what's okay to laugh at and what's not, especially when there are such diverse opinions within the disability communities.

"In the short statured community, people on social media might use the term m*****, which we don't try use anymore, but it's the whole thing like, OK they're doing that, they're fine with it, but then they're portraying that it's fine for everyone else, cause it's this person who's a public figure doing it. It's a whole different kettle of fish."

RNZ reached out to the IPC, asking if the Paralympians had consented to their footage being used with in this way, but was yet to hear back.

What was clear is that the response to it varies.

"There might be some people who think it's fine, who cares? And some people who sort of think, maybe not," Lloyd says. "I wouldn't be surprised if they've encountered people reaching out saying, 'I'm not okay with that sort of stuff being posted'.

"Some of the videos are fine and some of them are really pushing limitations and boundaries. It kind of depends on how far they take it."

Dunn said the account had become "purely a meme page, and it's not meant to be".

"They need to take the time to educate people from a wider disabilities perspective, as well as the sports and what's coming up, what it's all about, and how hard these athletes work to get to the same level of competition that the Olympics do."

For Quinn, it's all about changing the narrative around how people perceive disabled communities - and that means levelling the playing field.

"Disabled people in society, whether people consciously think they think this or not, they're often looked down upon, as less than ... like we're not as happy or fulfilled as other people because we live with limitations. I think this narrative has been around for a really long time, which is a huge part of why I do what I do, which is to break that down a little bit.

"I take my situation quite lightly, I throw out jokes about having one leg all the time and I open space for other people to do that around me within reason, and I know some people living with disabilities don't do that. It's not a one-size-fits-all about how people with disabilities like to be spoken to or about, but I don't know, it does just feel a little bit icky."

She said the Paralympics TikTok strategy would be "fair game" if the Olympics TikTok account was also poking the same fun at its able-bodied contestants, but that's not the case.

"We put the Olympics on such a pedestal, you can hear this triumphant sound they put behind these videos, and then they're putting mockery sounds behind the Paralympics one which doesn't sound fair.

"I just think it's probably missed the mark a little bit, like I'm not angry, I'm not offended, I'm just like, I don't think this is quite right or fair to these amazing athletes."