Special Olympics: Insensitive Memes on the Internet

Special Olympics are meant to encourage athletes with intellectual challenges to embrace their disability and get involved in mainstream society with confidence. These games are meant for sensitizing people about intellectual disabilities. Ironically, the internet is full of mean and insensitive memes about the Special Olympics – an event that is based on the concept of sensitivity and compassion. Some of these memes that are supposed to be jokes are so mean that they make us wonder whether we are living in a civilized society.

Here we give you a glimpse of insensitive memes about Special Olympics that are frequently circulated on various social media channels. Let us evaluate how civilized are we in this 21st century world.

Arguing on Social Media is like Competing in the Special Olympics. Even if you win, you are still retarded. There are many versions of this meme and all of them sound equally mean. However, we believe that not all people sharing this type of meme are insensitive at heart; they may simply be unaware or ignorant. If you are one of them, we would like to inform you that the term retarded is offensive whether you use it for a person with or without intellectual disability. Further, this type of comparison is humiliating for participants of Special Olympics i.e. persons with intellectual disabilities.

Special Olympics – Warming our hearts as hell warms our bodies. Comparing the events of the Special Olympics with the hellfire… can we be more insensitive? The events might not be heart-warming for you individually but then no one forces anyone to be a viewer of those events. There are lots of people who feel good by seeing smiles on the faces of their loved ones who happen to have an intellectual disability. There are millions of proud parents who love seeing their kids participate in the Special Olympics and learn the values of sportsmanship.

What’s better than winning a Gold Medal at Special Olympics? Not being a Retard! … Let us repeat again… retard is a humiliating word. Maybe not being intellectually challenged is better than winning a gold medal in Special Olympics. But don’t you think being intellectually challenged is much better than being an insensitive person who intentionally hurts someone? Disability, of any form, does not gives choices but being a sensitive person is always a matter of choice.

I once volunteered to help out in the Special Olympics for a day off work. I signed the registration form and went into a porta-john and slept until time to get my participation certificate. There are several memes like this indicating that there’s no hard work in the Special Olympics. Before sharing such memes you should at least visit a single event of Special Olympics and see how much effort goes into such events. Thousands of volunteers, athletes and their families put lots of effort into organizing such events. If you cannot encourage, you certainly should not discourage those efforts by sharing such insensitive memes.

This picture tries to depict differences between the Olympics, Paralympics and Special Olympics. We don’t think there’s anything to explain why this image is insensitive towards Special Olympics and persons with intellectual disabilities. It’s time to evaluate your sensitivity if you find this image funny.

Founder of the Special Olympics. As if it was not enough to make fun of Special Olympics and the participants, the meme creator decided to make fun of the founder of Special Olympics. You should know that Special Olympics was founded by Eunice Kennedy, an American philanthropist, who was a well-acclaimed person. And, she was wholeheartedly supported by her brother, John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States.

One may or may not support the concept of Special Olympics but we all must maintain a basic level of decency and sensitiveness towards fellow human beings.