Disability in influencer marketing: a complex model of disability representation

ABSTRACT

Disability is one of the largest minority groups, with a spending power of approximately £273bn every year. Consequently, many advertisers are now weaving people with disabilities into brand narratives. These narratives often evoke feelings of pity or portray people with disabilities as inspiring, solely or in part on the basis of their disability. Meanwhile, social media has emerged as a vessel for social change. Through the netnographic study of twelve influencers with visible impairments, complex personhood is proposed as a social ontology by which disabled lives are acknowledged in less confined terms. Our findings illustrate how social media influencers with disabilities may draw on narratives based on empowerment, playfulness, resistance, and responsibility to present themselves as neither victims nor superhuman agents but as complex human beings. We thus bring forward a complex model in market-mediated representations of disability, beyond the misrepresentational narratives based on pity and ‘inspiration porn’.

KEYWORDS:

• Complex personhood
• disability
• influencer marketing
• ‘inspiration porn’
• netnography

People with disabilities end up being either pitied or celebrated as superhumans. (Kiefer, 2016)

Introduction

Research on social media and influencer marketing is on the rise and rise (Drenten et al., 2020; Ge & Gretzel, 2018; Kay et al., 2020). Much attention has been paid to how brands can profit from influencers, including enhanced brand awareness and purchase intentions (Hughes et al., 2019; Martínez-López et al., 2020; Reinikainen et al., 2020; Sánchez-Fernéndez & Jiménez-Castillo, 2021). While social media increases our passion for consumption (Kozinets et al., 2017), it can also be a vessel for democratisation and digital activism (Gurrieri & Drenten, 2019; Matich et al., 2019). Little is known about the empowering ideological role of social media to ‘shape conceptions of social order towards more inclusive consumer cultures by championing consumers with socially devalued characteristics’ (Kearney et al., 2019, p. 562). Social aspects of influencer marketing such as body image, self-esteem, diversity, and possibilities for demarginalisation have been considered in regards to gender (Drenten et al., 2020), age (Veresiu & Parmentier, 2021), race (Abidin, 2019), religion (Sandikci & Ger, 2010), sexuality (Duguay, 2019), and class (Iqani, 2019). An emergent body of research has started to pay attention to disability in influencer marketing (Ellis & Kent, 2017; also Bonilla Del Río et al., 2022; Ellis et al., 2021; Raun & Christensen-Strynø, 2021), yet how influencer marketing may transform extant models of disability representation in consumer culture remains underexplored.

Brands are starting to embrace social media influencers with disabilities to target the ‘purple pound’, i.e. the spending power of disabled households, which is worth approximately £273bn every year (Cassidy, 2021). Such market inclusion is part of a broader cultural trend in which advertisers are weaving people with disabilities into brand narratives (Falchetti et al., 2016; Higgins, 2020; Mason & Pavia, 2006; Södergren & Vallström, 2020). Market-mediated representations of disability often evoke feelings of pity (Garland-Thomson, 2004; Haller, 2010) or portray people with disabilities as inspiring, solely or in part on the basis of their disability (Ellis et al., 2021; Kafer, 2013; Shelton & Waddell, 2021). The latter was coined ‘inspiration porn’ by disability activist Stella Young (2012) to denote how images of people with visible signs of impairment who are performing physically impressive or strenuous activities are often accompanied by a caption that directs the viewer to be inspired by the image in question. Grue (2016) defines ‘inspiration porn’ as the representation of disability as ‘a desirable but undesired characteristic’ (p. 847), usually by showing impairment as a visually or symbolically distinct biophysical deficit in one person, a deficit that can and must be overcome through the display of physical prowess. In addition, the representation of someone who has to fight against his or her impairment to overcome it and achieve unlikely success is considered to perpetuate the ‘supercrip’ stereotype, exposing society’s generally low level of expectations regarding people with disabilities (Kearney et al., 2019). Kiefer (2016) argues that people with disabilities end up being either pitied or celebrated as superhuman. It would seem that our dominant models of disability representation based on pity and ‘inspiration porn’ are ‘too normative, regressive, or uncomplicated to be of value to improving the lives of people with disabilities’ (Schalk, 2016, p. 72).

There is an urgent need for advertisers to outline more complex ways of representing the lives of people with disabilities. To address this, we draw on Avery Gordon’s (2008) formulation of ‘complex personhood’, a term that aims to describe the fluidity and ever-changing properties of the multidimensional identities every person possesses. More precisely, we are interested in the connection between the self-presentation strategies of social media influencers with disabilities and the ontologies and social realities they bring forth around disability. To this end, we raise the following question: How is complex personhood enacted through the self-presentation of social media influencers with disabilities? This research is necessary because it can bring new perspectives on the agency of people with disabilities into marketing theory, which is still dominated by a social view in which disability is perceived as something that results from a lack of social accommodation (e.g. Baker et al., 2001; Kaufman-Scarborough, 2015; Saatcioglu & Ozanne, 2013). We chose this setting because influencer marketing paves the way for more progressive market-mediated representations of disability. Advertisers often misrepresent the lived realities of people with disabilities by drawing on narratives based on either pity or ‘inspiration porn’. Influencers with disabilities can circumvent that. Our findings could thus benefit market-mediated representations of disability to transgress the typical dichotomisation between pity and ‘inspiration porn’ as indicated earlier. We also seek to stimulate debate on influencer marketing and its broader implication for the contemporary world from a sociocultural perspective (Ellis & Goggin, 2015; Ellis & Kent, 2017). This article contributes to theoretical conversations around social media as a vessel for democratisation by highlighting the role of influencers with disabilities in raising subordinate group consciousness, and challenging public discourse and attitudes towards people with disabilities through their market-mediated practices.

The article is organised as follows. We first review the extant literature on disability representation in marketing and consumer research, specifying the particular research gap that we address. We next present the empirical context and the netnographic methods employed for data collection and analysis. The findings are presented around four narratives (empowerment, playfulness, resistance, and responsibility) that extend previous literature on social media influencer strategies (cf., Kozinets et al., 2010; also McQuarrie et al., 2013; Scaraboto & Fischer, 2013). More precisely, by illustrating how complex personhood is enacted through the aforementioned self-presentation strategies, we advance theory on how influencer practices shape cultural ideologies as expressed in the visual representation of people with disabilities. We conclude with practical advice and some suggestions for future research.

Theoretical background

We now highlight some previous models of disability, including its visual representation in marketing based on pity and ‘inspiration porn’, prior to introducing the theoretical underpinnings of complex personhood, which seems promising as we live in a time where disability is more visible than ever before. ‘As disabled people’, Piepzna-Samarasinha (2020, p. 258) writes, ‘we are often both hypervisible and invisible at the same time’. Nevertheless, while representation is essential, there must be more nuance to disability representation in media and marketing communications. Disability is undeniably a heterogeneous category (see Wong, 2020). Disabilities can, for example, be both visible and invisible (Beudaert et al., 2016). That they are so difficult to define indicates that disabled lives are filled with complexity and are never as straightforward as media representations based on pity and ‘inspiration porn’ make us think.

Models of disability representation based on pity and ‘inspiration porn’

One of the marks of our world is that we live according to a generalised image repertoire (Barthes, 1980/2000; Schroeder, 2002; Zhang & Haller, 2013). In modernity, the image mediates how we imagine the world to be. For example, the clinical photograph materialised a ‘medical gaze’ in which the norm is defined by picturing the deviant (Foucault, 1975). Over the last century and a half, clinical photography has contributed substantially to the ‘medicalisation’ of disability through its extensive use in documenting, treating, and pathologising disability. When disability is part of an advertisement, the disabled subject or character is often positioned as someone to cure (Oliver, 1996). In short, the ‘medical gaze’ has institutionalised an ‘ideology of cure’ where disability has been portrayed as a grotesque or taboo subject (Garland-Thomson, 2004). For example, in his famous book The Creatures Time Forgot, photographer David Hevey (1992) examines the representation of disabled people in photography. He notes that disability images and narratives often construct disabled people as creatures, where the term ‘enfreakment’ denotes the discursive practices by which disabled bodies are imbued with grotesque or monstrous meaning. The medical model is closely intertwined with the use of pity in market-mediated representations of disability.

With the rise of consumer culture, however, fashion photography has resymbolised disability, forcing viewers to reconfigure assumptions about what constitutes an attractive, desirable, and livable life (e.g. Kafer, 2013; McBryde Johnson, 2006; Wong, 2020). Consider the iconic ‘Fashion Able?’ cover shoot featuring Aimee Mullins for a 1998 special issue of Dazed & Confused guest-edited by Alexander McQueen. While such images of disabled people as consumer-citizens do the cultural work of integrating a previously excluded group into the dominant order – as inspirational, beautiful, and worthy rather than grotesque, curable, and unworthy – they often fall into the trap of ‘inspiration porn’ (Ellis et al., 2021; Young, 2012) or other forms of selective inclusion (Kaufman-Scarborough, 2015; Kearney et al., 2019; Schroeder et al., 2005). Thus, ‘inspiration porn’ fits into a more social or affirmative model of disability. Swain and French (2000) propose the affirmative model as a non-tragic view of disability and impairment, which encompasses positive social identities, both individual and collective, grounded in the benefits of being impaired and disabled. This paper seeks to complement the medical model based on pity and the ‘inspiration porn’ typically associated with an affirmative model through the theoretical proposition of complex personhood, thus proposing a complex model of disability.

Towards a complex model of disability

We must continue to see disability representation from a wide variety of social backgrounds. Complex personhood (Gordon, 2008) is a meaningful way of understanding the possible transformative consequences following disability aesthetics in light of influencer marketing and current flows of social mediascapes. While intersectionality is helpful to study diversity in terms of lack of representation—Gopaldas and DeRoy (2015) note how the multiply disadvantaged are often completely erased from mainstream media – we suggest that it is less valuable when it comes to debunking harmful stereotypes and other forms of epistemic closure (Schroeder et al., 2005). Epistemic closure means that market-mediated representations are limited to a stereotypical image where people with disabilities are perceived as worse off (Södergren & Vallström, 2020). People who happen to fit into similar intersectional patterns of social identity can still lead heterogeneous lives and have different experiences from one another. Gordon’s (2008) theory of complex personhood offers promise as it sheds light on the diverse and multi-faceted agency of people with disabilities beyond the structural forces that a typical intersectionality framework is limited to in scope.

For this paper, complex personhood is employed as a theoretical framework to understand how public discourse around disability is possibly affected by the cultural and ideological work of social media influencers with disabilities. Thus, we follow Gordon’s (2008) definition of complex personhood as

A way of conceptualising the complicated workings of race, class, and gender, the names we give to the ensemble of social relations that create inequalities, situated interpretive codes, particular kinds of subjects, and the possible and the impossible themselves. (p. 4)

Following Gordon, there are at least two dimensions of the statement that life is complicated: (1) the power relations characterising any historically embedded society are never as transparent as we like to think; and (2) conferring respect on others comes from the acknowledgement that people’s lives are simultaneously straightforward and full of subtle meaning. Thus, Gordon (2008) reminds us that ‘even those who live in the direst circumstances possess a complex and oftentimes contradictory humanity and subjectivity that is never adequately glimpsed by viewing them as victims or, on the other hand, as superhuman agents’ (p. 4).

Self-presentation strategies of influencers with disabilities and the enactment of complex personhood

In their landmark study on early influencers, Kozinets et al. (2010) identified four strategies employed by influencers to acknowledge different types of commercial and communal tension that emerged from their participation in influencer marketing campaigns. In brief, this includes whether the influencers seek to conceal their participation (evaluation), if they acknowledge the campaign (endorsement), even mention it with enthusiasm (embracing), or if they openly discuss their participation and disclose personal conflicts of interests (explanation). However, commercial and communal tension issues are less persistent among influencers with disabilities, where the focus is on advancing social inclusion (Bonilla Del Río et al., 2022). To that end, we pay attention to the self-presentation strategies that influencers use to achieve specific goals, such as challenging public discourse and attitudes towards people with disabilities.

In order to understand the aims and aspirations of different influencer types, it is necessary to study their self-presentation. For example, McQuarrie et al. (2013) illustrate how (non-disabled) fashion bloggers reach their audience through ‘iterated displays of aesthetic discrimination’ (p. 136), and Scaraboto and Fischer (2013) note how the stigmatised group of ‘fatshionistas’ mobilise to seek more choice from mainstream markets. For this paper, we define self-presentation as a type of behaviour that attempts to convey some information about oneself or some image of oneself to other people. In line with Goffman’s (1959) self-presentation theory, it is a way of guiding and controlling the impressions that others form of oneself. For example, influencers may put themselves in a narrative to convey who they are and what they want. These techniques can be visual, but often include textual captions that invoke character, a specific cultural or ideological setting, or sudden epiphanies that have a dramatic impact on their story. Moreover, Van Laer et al. (2018) elaborate that narrative elements can include imaginable plot, climax, and key takeaway(s) that appear in the influencers’ posts. Sometimes, influencers blend first-person narration with reflections on past events and predictions about the future. In other words, the self-presentation strategy adopted to achieve the intended goal reveals something about the influencer and can include both the visual and textual elements in their posts (Schau & Gilly, 2003). In our case, the intended goal is often to demonstrate a more complex model of disability beyond those misrepresentational images based on pity and ‘inspiration porn’ that often appear in mainstream media.

Method

We used netnography as a data collection method to answer our research question. Kozinets (2002) describes netnography as ethnography conducted in an online milieu. After defining the research topic, the first step was to locate relevant fields for gathering data. We decided to use Instagram in our quest for finding social media influencers with disabilities, a social media platform launched in 2010 that allows users to upload and comment on photos and videos (Mahmoud et al., 2021). Unlike other social media applications, Kozinets (2020) points out that people mainly use Instagram to post their highlight reels and follow influencers, making it a wealthy site of information connected to our research focus. Instagram is widely considered the most effective tool for influencer marketing because of the personal connection it fosters between influencers and the target audience. Moreover, social media is increasingly a space for ‘offering identity-oriented narratives’ (Gurrieri & Drenten, 2019, p. 703). Instagram thus provides an ideal site for answering our research question.

We used Instagram’s search function to enter keywords and hashtags based on disability. More precisely, we used the search function to enter ‘disability’ as a keyword. Once that was done, Instagram listed the most popular hashtags based on the term ‘disability’ (e.g. #Disability, #Disabled, #DisabilityAwareness, #DisabilityPride, and #DisabilityInclusion). This endeavour aimed not to be comprehensive but to find a broad sample of data to investigate further. Reading through the data from the initial stage of identifying influencers with disabilities, it was clear that this would be challenging. The two most popular hashtags alone—#Disability (1.3mn) and #Disabled (685k)—resulted in almost two million hits. Other popular hashtags included #DisabilityAwareness (503k), #DisabilityRights (113k), #DisabilityPride (78.6k), and #DisabilityInclusion (48.8k) whereas the hashtag #DisabledInfluencer had 854 posts. Now began an iterative process of scouting through this staggering amount of data, which yielded a final sample of twelve influencers with disabilities (Table 1). These were selected based on how many followers they had. For example, we wanted to include both micro (10k—100k followers) and macro-influencers (100k—1mn followers), with the rationale that micro-influencers are often perceived as equally or more influential than macro-influencers (Park et al., 2021).

Table 1. Characteristics of influencers sampled.

Influencer	Code for citation	Date started	Followers	Background
@itskellyknox	KK	February 2017	10.4k	Kelly Knox is a British fashion model born without a left forearm. From the age of seven, she refused to wear a prosthesis. In 2008, she was the winner of the BBC Three Reality TV show, Britain’s Missing Top Model. Since then, she has collaborated with brands such as Primark, Samsung, and Dove. In 2017, she became one of the first models with a disability to star at London Fashion Week.
@mamacax	MC	March 2013	198k	Cacsmy Brutus, known as Mama Cax, was an American-Haitian model and disability rights activist. With her prosthetic right leg, she appeared on the cover of Teen Vogue and walked runways at the White House and at the New York Fashion Week. She passed away in December 2019.
@itslololove	LS	April 2013	35.7k	Actress Lauren “Lolo” Spencer was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for her supporting role in the 2019 comedy-drama Give Me Liberty. She is also an influencer, activist, model, and public speaker.
@annieelainey	AS	June 2012	25.6k	Annie Segarra, also known as Annie Elainey, is an American YouTuber and wheelchair user. She is queer, Latinx, and creator of The Future is Accessible t-shirt.
@rvbyallegra	RA	February 2016	38.8k	Ruby Allegra is an artist who is living with arthrogryposis (multiple joint contractures). NOT A GIRL [they/them].
@crutches_and_spice	IB	November 2012	59.7k	Imani Barbarin is a writer with cerebral palsy. Her presence on Instagram and TikTok often debunks various misconceptions about disability.
@jillianmercado	JM	November 2011	186k	Jilian Mercado is a Dominican-American model, actress, and founder of the digital community Black Disabled Creatives. She received a diagnosis of spastic muscular dystrophy as a child and has used a wheelchair since she was 12. She is also renowned for her recurring role in The L Word: Generation Q.
@makeupartistgorda66	MQ	April 2012	198k	Marimar Quiroa is a Latina beauty YouTube vlogger who lives with cystic hygroma. Posting about the latest makeup trends, she also ensures that her content is accessible by using sign language and subtitles in her videos.
@tess.daly	TD	October 2011	216k	Diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy type 2 as a child, Tess Day has become a makeup artist with a huge following on Instagram.
@kaitlyndobrow	KD	October 2012	135k	Having contracted bacterial meningitis and had all four of her limbs amputated when she was 19, Kaitlyn Dobrow is now a beauty vlogger, Instagrammer, and disability rights advocate. Her content mainly consists of makeup tutorials.
@tae_mckenzie	TM	May 2014	11.1k	Tae McKenzie is an actress and model who describes herself as an epilepsy and stroke survivor making a difference with every role. Among other things, she has been on the catwalk for New York Fashion Week.
@madelinesmodelling_	MS	May 2015	351k	Madeline Stuart has been dubbed the world’s most famous model with Down syndrome. She has modelled in New York Fashion Week and been featured in Vogue and The New York Times.

Moreover, we also considered issues of mainstream media visibility. For example, while KK is the sampled influencer with the lowest social media following, she has nonetheless been featured on British television and at London Fashion Week, making her a valid influencer to sample in our study. In addition, we were careful in selecting influencers that took on the appearance of public figures, thus excluding any content that was directly linked to their private lives.

These twelve influencers with disabilities became the subjects for a more detailed investigation. In line with the Association of Internet Researchers’ (AOIR) guidelines for ethical research on the Internet, the type of data collected fits the ‘Production, Presentation, Performance’ module as it consists of texts (e.g. authored texts, naturally occurring discourse) and images (presented or produced by a user or captured by the researcher). The research site could be seen as a mix of social networking and personal blogs. It is also worth mentioning that the influencers included in our study, themselves claim to have a disabled identity since they have utilised disability-related hashtags in at least one of their posts. Almost all posts from the sampled influencers include one or more empowering disability hashtag, with #DisabledAndCute being a particularly prominent one. Other common hashtags include #AbleismExists, #DisaBodyPosi, #HospitalGlam, #ThingsDisabledPeopleKnow, and #WheelchairLife.

We collected data over six months between October 2020 and March 2021. Content posted prior to the data collection period was included to get as many insights as possible. The initial data set was composed of 15,395 archival images with hundreds of comments on each post. This data set was then filtered based on relevance to this study’s research question, with the final data set from the netnography consisting of 603 images and hundreds of corresponding comments. As part of the netnographic investigation, the first author utilised an immersion journal. Kozinets (2020) defines the immersion journal as

a personal record, a temporal narrative, a wide-ranging diary that can also include dreams, reactions, feelings, readings, as well as ideas and sections of what you hope might become the final text for the document you will write and submit. Indeed, I think that good immersion journal excepts [sic] will make up some of the most compelling data presentations in netnographies of the future. (p. 283)

The immersion journal, written in our native language, contains descriptions of what is seen on screen and what we experience as researchers. In line with Hine (2015), this allows researchers to ‘keep a record of what happens and how it feels’ (p. 74), furthering the documentation of provisional thoughts about what these observations may mean, ideas about what to look at next, and concerns about puzzling aspects. Acting as a ‘reflective, catalytic, and analytic guide’ (Kozinets, 2020, p. 282) through the emanant process of research and decision making, the immersion journal comprised 243 double-spaced pages of texts and images. The final categories in our analysis gradually crystallised and were developed from the continuous writing and (re)reading of immersion journal entries. Provisional themes were constantly revised as the immersion journal progressed and reached conceptual saturation.

For the data analysis, we followed the steps of thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006; Nowell et al., 2017), an iterative and reflective process that develops over time and involves constantly moving backwards and forwards between phases. It was naturally integrated into the emanant process of writing the immersion journal. We were explicitly interested in examining how influencers with disabilities enacted complex personhood through their self-presentation strategies throughout this process. The entire data set consisted of archived texts (e.g. users’ comments to various posts, influencers’ captions to their posts, immersion journal notes) and images (photos posted by the influencers, immersion journal images). We decided to keep emojis such as smileys embedded in the influencers’ captions and the users’ corresponding comments because of their ability to convey emotional cues in the text (Ge & Gretzel, 2018). Emojis are signs and symbols that add to the dramaturgy conveyed in the influencer’s self-presentation narrative, and are therefore relevant to our aim.

We analysed the data following the steps of thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). First, we familiarised ourselves with the data set. This phase involved immersing ourselves in the data by reading and rereading excerpts from the immersion journal. At this point, we would add notes to what we already had written. As Braun and Clarke (2012) point out, ‘note-making helps you start to read the data as data’ (p. 60). The next step involved the generation of initial codes. For example, the following excerpt from the immersion journal – citing a post from MC (11 January 2017)—was coded as a response to market-mediated representations based on pity and the medical model of disability:

NEXT time you see an amputee my hope is that you wont approach them with a ‘I will pray for you’.

Then began our analysis as we shifted from codes to themes. The aforementioned code denoting a response to pity, for example, was shifted into the theme of empowerment. A theme ‘captures something important about the data in relation to the research question, and represents some level of patterned response or meaning within the data set’ (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 82). This phase involved reviewing the coded data to identify areas of similarity and overlap between codes and was followed by a recursive process where the developing themes were reviewed based on the coded data and entire data set, after which themes were defined and named. Following Braun and Clarke (2012), we sought to find themes that had a singular focus, were related but did not overlap, and directly addressed the research question. This coding occurred concurrently with the writing of this journal article. When disagreements emerged, we discussed those until a resolution was reached. Lastly, we revised the themes through dialectical tackling between theory and data (Spiggle, 1994). In the final part of the analysis, when developing the themes, we discovered that these themes resembled, but at the same time differed from, the social media strategies employed by early influencers discovered by Kozinets et al. (2010). We, therefore, adopted a similar way to present our findings (see Figure 1). For the write up of the analysis, we chose to couple each thematic outcome (i.e. each self-presentation strategy) with some of the influencers’ individual stories that we regard as exemplary for the main themes and characteristics; the underlying rationale is that we wanted to present the findings in a simple yet comprehensive fashion.

Figure 1. Self-presentation strategies of influencers with disabilities.

Each self-presentation strategy is presented and visualised in Figure 2(a–d) in the shape of four illustrations of specific Instagram posts (cf., Rokka & Canniford, 2016; also Gurrieri & Drenten, 2019). We want to point out that these illustrations were inspired by specific Instagram posts. The main difference between these illustrations and the original Instagram posts is that only what is of visual importance in illuminating the influencers’ digital narratives has been included in the illustrations. In other words, the visual clutter that the Instagram posts originally included is omitted in the illustrations to make the influencers’ digital narratives as explicit as possible.

Figure 2a. Empowerment.

Fragility allows influencers with disabilities to embrace their status as vulnerable consumers (MC, 14 April 2017).

Illustration by Evelina Johansson.

Findings

Our study identifies and describes four self-presentation strategies employed by influencers with disabilities – empowerment, playfulness, resistance, and responsibility. These emerged from our thematic analysis and could be described as strategies used by the influencers to generate affective responses beyond pity and ‘inspiration porn’, thus raising subordinate group consciousness and challenging public discourse and attitudes towards people with disabilities through their market-mediated practices. Figure 1 captures the range of elements in the influencers’ social media strategies (we go on to introduce and discuss each of these self-presentation strategies). The axis related to the influencers’ ‘interpersonal orientation of communication’ captures the continuum of relational coping and self-care. In short, relational coping involves strategies directed towards improving the lives of others in the disability community, whereas self-care is directed towards the self. In turn, the axis related to the ‘intrapersonal orientation of communication’ ranges from vulnerability to confidence. These axes help map out the self-presentation strategies employed by influencers with disabilities to enact complex personhood. Each self-presentation strategy (e.g. responsibility) is presented around three digital narratives (e.g. privilege, protest, solidarity) that fit into the theme.

Empowerment

First, influencers with disabilities often embrace their vulnerability, which is congruent with a more general evocation of pity that dominates the majority of misrepresentational traditions (Baker et al., 2005; Kearney et al., 2019). However, Gordon (2008) indicates that complex personhood does not mean that disabled lives are devoid of imperatives to feel pity, it means only that their lives are more complicated than that. The ability to feel pity is fundamental for the empathic faculty. The risk is what Schroeder et al. (2005) refer to as epistemic closure. Our knowledge is unable to go beyond the misconception that their lives would be more worthy if only they were cured of their disabilities (e.g. ‘with a look of pity my friend said “I wouldn’t want to be blind, it must be sad not to see the world” to which I replied “do you think this world deserves to be seen, don’t you think that maybe a blind person sees it better than a pair of eyes could”;’ MC, 11 January 2017). In other words, the problem is not that someone feels pity for another, but when the other’s ontological status is bereft of its many complexities.

As part of the self-presentation strategy of empowerment, our findings suggest that fragility allows influencers with disabilities to be autonomous in their status as vulnerable consumers. More precisely, fragility can be a vessel for empowerment through positive identification and community. Consider the following heartfelt message from a follower that MC re-posted alongside an image of a puppy next to her cyborg leg (Figure 2(a)).

I lost my legs 14 yrs ago. I can’t say I accepted my self image immediately. I spent the past 10 yrs dragging around a realistic leg w/a very heavy silicone skin cover. I did everything in my power to blend in & get back to the way I had looked before. Recently, I became very ill and needed to have 5 surgeries in 2 yrs time. That meant lots of free time in bed, scouring the internet/social media. One day I came upon this beautiful creature named @mamacaxx [sic] I spent 3 hours that day examining every detail of her pictures. Who was this person?! self assured, so comfortable in her own skin, so majestic and regal?! (Follower of MC, 14 April 2017)

The pillar of consumer identities crafted through fragility is precisely the vulnerability and the growing sense of self-care that is communicated here. As indicated by the vignette, the amputee initially tried to pass as able-bodied (e.g. spending a decade carrying a ‘realistic’ leg). The emphasis on words like ‘heavy’ and ‘dragging around’ strengthens the fragility narrative. However, one day it was too much. The person in question became ‘very ill’ and had to go through multiple surgeries. It was in this vulnerable state that MC appeared to lighten the beacon. By identifying with MC as some role model or inspiration, the follower became comfortable in their own skin.

I remember saying to myself, I wish I could be like her & then laughing with delight when I realised I could, IN FACT, be just like her! We were the same. It was the first time in my life that I had come across another amp I could identify with. I was used to seeing amazing superhero types, you know, the ones that can jump over the Grand Canyon on a flaming motorcycle blindfolded. More power to all the superhero amps though! I wish I could be more like that but I just want to drink bourbon and relax! Its either that or they feature us looking sad & pitiful. It was new to me to see another a person living with a disability & not only just living life with no apologies but doing it as fabulously as possible. I loved it, it empowered me. (Follower of MC, 14 April 2017)

Through community and positive identification with MC (e.g. ‘I could, IN FACT, be just like her! We were the same’), the amputee felt empowered. Instead of the misrepresentational ‘supercrip’ narrative referred to in the vivid image of ‘amazing superhero types’ who can ‘jump over the Grand Canyon on a flaming motorcycle blindfolded’, the follower felt empowered because it was okay just to want to ‘drink bourbon’ and ‘relax’. After fragility, humility is the second theme we found in the digital self-presentation strategy of empowerment. In our framework, humility does not necessarily mean that people think less of themselves or that they are unworthy, but that they add a layer of humour to their vulnerability (e.g. ‘its either that or […] looking sad & pitiful’). Vulnerable followers like this feel empowered when they regain control (e.g. ‘I realised I could…’) and can enjoy a set of relatively humble consumption processes (e.g. drink bourbon and relax).

When I had bad days & I couldn’t see the end in sight, I found comfort in her Instagram. I saved so many pictures. (stalker status, sorry not sorry!) I showed them to all my friends & family. I planned my rebirth. I felt a fire inside of me that had never been there before. I knew that not only did I need to put myself out there for myself but for others who are struggling with their body image & are afraid to be different & to be SEEN. Because of Caxmee, I found my power again. I’m sure when she started her Insta, she had no idea of the impact she could have on others. I started thinking about the ripple effect & how one small act (as simple as posting a picture) can change the course of another’s life. Because she was fearless, I can be fearless too. (Follower of MC, 14 April 2017)

Lastly, awareness completes the digital self-presentation strategy of empowerment. It creates opportunities for emotional catharsis (Higgins, 2020; Södergren et al., in press). Initially, the amputee could not ‘see the end in sight’, but as they started to find comfort in MC’s Instagram posts, the ‘lost object’ could gradually be internalised. The follower planned their ‘rebirth’ and was no longer afraid to be different, indicating a sense of acceptance and internalisation. Consequently, the follower found their power again (‘I started thinking about the ripple effect & how one small act [as simple as posting a picture] can change the course of another’s life’). It would seem that as a response to awareness, followers often feel inspired, as indicated by the following comment, ‘You know what I was laying in bed and feeling guilty of my weakness and incapibilities [sic] trying to make my mind forget everything and sleep I saw your post. I saw a beautiful strong woman living her life to the fullest against all odds. You gave me courage to start all over again to my life and I thought you should know it ” (Follower of MC, 16 September 2019) (see Appendix). Influencers with disabilities raise awareness and make other people in the disability community feel empowered.

In total, our findings suggest that influencers with disabilities may draw on digital narratives based on fragility, humility, and awareness to enact complex personhood through the self-presentation strategy of empowerment. On the ‘intrapersonal orientation of communication’ axis (Figure 1), it would seem that empowerment signifies a gradual movement from vulnerability towards confidence. Meanwhile, on the ‘interpersonal orientation of communication’ axis, we perceive empowerment as a form of self-care. The posts are often directed towards signifying self-acceptance or enhancing the inner well-being of the influencers themselves (even though such body positivity is contagious and can affect their audience too). Nonetheless, it is worth acknowledging that the empowerment narratives inherent in their complex personhood are sometimes congruent with the misrepresentational tradition of pity.

Playfulness

The second self-presentation strategy that emerged from our data is playfulness (Figure 2b). Playfulness is, for example, expressed through posture, a form of attention-seeking that some scholars have suggested is fuelled by the Internet (Holbrook, 2001). Extant literature has demonstrated how digital content offers opportunities for consumers to disseminate digital identities through associations with signs and symbols (Belk, 2013; Schau & Gilly, 2003). To an audience consisting of their Instagram followers, the influencers in this study share real-life events in combination with fictitious elements used as a stylistic or rhetorical device that provides a playful sense of drama to their digital narratives. For example, it is usual that influencers with disabilities edit themselves into playful or hyperreal environments to signify prominence (Figure 2(b); also KD, 26 September 2020; RA, 1 1 March 2021).

It’s #NationalSelfLoveDay so I’m sending out besitos to all your hearts and brains wishing you all the empowerment and healing that you need! I hope you are filled with self love and/or peace! I hope you just feel peaceful in who you are and feel secure in the space you inhabit in this world, and if you don’t, and if this is something you aspire to, I wish you all the luck on your journey! (AS, 14 February 2020)

Figure 2b. Playfulness.

It is usual that influencers with disabilities pose or edit themselves into hyperreal environments to signify prominence (AS, 14 February 2020).

Illustration by Evelina Johansson.

We found that influencers with disabilities sometimes stress their prominence by sharing information that increases their social status. These posts could involve images of them attending a prestigious event such as a festival or a conference (AS, 16 November 2018) or hanging out with celebrities like Lady Gaga (JM, 24 June 2015) or other prominent influencers (JM, 2 9 August 2018). For example, in one post, JM shared a photo of her and MC in a Calvin Klein campaign with the following caption.

Surround yourself with the most positive light you can find. Not only will it uplift you but everyone around you. It’s contagious, it’s the best kind. Thanks to CK for shining your light on so many shooting stars with the brand new perfume for the Calvin Klein Women in you! If possible I would swim in this scent. #IAMWOMEN (JM, 29 August 2018)

Contrary to the non-disabled fashion bloggers in McQuarrie et al. (2013) who seek to distinguish their prominence through the authority of their taste, it would seem that the influencers in this study use Instagram to a greater extent as a means to seek communal affiliation as a form of relational coping (e.g. ‘not only will it uplift you but everyone around you’). In this context, social capital is inherently more inclusive and less discriminatory as they often seek to foster solidarity rather than institutional authority or taste leadership. We will elaborate further on solidarity in the responsibility self-presentation strategy. In short, it includes standing in unity with other people who belong to the same or another marginalised group (Raun & Christensen-Strynø, 2021). Audience responses include, ‘It was your “20 disabled youtubers” video that introduced me […] It was like my gateway into realising that disability was something that makes me part of a community’ (Follower of AS, 10 September 2018) (see Appendix).

Scaraboto and Fischer (2013) argue that marginalised ‘consumers’ ability to appropriate […] further fuels their mobilisation” (p. 1236). The ability of appropriation to fuel mobilisation leads us to the final digital narrative of playfulness: our findings highlight the performativity (i.e. that language and written text can function as a form of social action and have the effect of change) of influencer-generated content (Thompson & Üstüner, 2015). Consider the following post.

#TheFutureIsAccessible apparel is available to order again! I’m incredibly touched by all the support this campaign has received since its creation in 2017; almost 3500 people have purchased a piece since then, and even more counting purchases from my TeePublic store of the same name (which has more sizes and merchandise)! Thank you all so much for coming on this journey with me and for making accessibility and disability rights a priority in your activism! (AS, 17 March 2019)

AS launched her own The Future is Accessible T-shirt in 2017, which continues to have social effects. As illustrated in the Appendix, one of her followers commented:

I went on a weekend with people from the students union for my university and I got so many compliments for your ‘the future is accessible’ jumper I wore x had to let someone gently down who wanted it printed on the uniform (Follower of AS, 10 September 2018)

In total, our findings suggest that influencers with disabilities enact their complex personhood in different ways. For example, through the self-presentation strategy of playfulness, they may draw on digital narratives based on posture, prominence, and performativity to transcend misrepresentational traditions based on ‘inspiration porn’. Playfulness could thus be seen as an act of confidence. In terms of the ‘interpersonal orientation of communication’ axis (Figure 1), we perceive playfulness as a form of relational coping as it is mainly oriented towards others (whether it is affiliation with others in the disability community, as is the case with prominence; or for their ‘speech acts’ to have effects on social reality, as in performativity).

Resistance

The third self-presentation strategy is resistance (Figure 2(c)). Our findings suggest that influencers with disabilities often stress perseverance, ability, and resiliency to signify resistance in their enactment of complex personhood. Contrary to more relational forms of coping (e.g. playfulness), the self-presentation strategy of resistance is a self-care practice (Downey & Catterall, 2006). In short, relational coping denotes activities that seek to improve the status of people with disabilities as a collective, whereas self-care activities are more individually oriented.

Figure 2c. Resistance.

Perseverance denotes the ability to bounce back with courage, resilience, and fearlessness when getting knocked down (KK, 9 August 2018).

Illustration by Evelina Johansson.

‘I could’ve easily given up… but that was never an option’ (KK, 28 February 2018). Perseverance, ‘the ability to bounce back with courage, resilience and fearlessness when getting knocked down’ (KK, 8 July 2018), is part of the self-presentation strategy of resistance. Consider the following message in which KK draws on spiritual elements to not let herself be defined by her body (Figure 2(c)).

People may ask ‘how do you manage with one hand?’, ‘What is it like missing a forearm?’ Etc etc Firstly, I am not ‘missing’ anything. I am a whole and complete person. Do not define my existence by my body. I am more than a body. In previous lifetimes, in a galaxy far away – I didn’t even have a body. My body is not who I am. See my Soul. I have memories of being pure light, connected directly to Source. This is why I never felt ‘disabled’ From ever since I was a little girl, I innately knew my soul holds all the power, magic, beauty, wisdom and force. (KK, 9 August 2018)

Through their perseverance, influencers with disabilities resist dominant body narratives (e.g. ‘Do not define my existence by my body’). Some scholars believe there is a relation between self-care and spirituality as manifested in the ongoing search for meaning and a sense of purpose (Williams-Nickleson, 2006). As indicated by the previous vignette, this allows influencers to resist hegemonic assumptions about disability and what counts as normal and deviant (Goffman, 1963). Hence, the self-presentation strategy of resistance also includes digital narratives of ability.

I remember a few years back a journalist was questioning me about childhood growing up… Told her how I never identified with the word ‘disabled’ - I never even realised I was disabled Said how I won numerous story writing and poetry competitions at school, science awards, got all my swimming badges, rode a bike, loved to skate (Bauer Turbos), I was in school netball team and danced. […] she replied ‘Did your arm join in?’ Mega LOLZ! Like my arm is something separate to me?! Like I am missing a piece and I am not whole and complete. These are the kind of views and ignorance society has about bodies like mine. These are the stereotypes I challenge. These are the barriers I break. I am not your perception of disability. (KK, 21 May 2018)

In ‘supercrip’ narratives, people with disabilities are portrayed as worthy of celebration when they defeat their disabilities. In contrast, the digital narrative of ability shows that just because someone is living with a disability does not necessarily mean that they should feel incomplete, that they are not able, or that they are missing something (e.g. ‘Like my arm is something separate to me?! Like I am missing a piece and I am not whole and complete’). In other words, ability resembles the affirmative model of disability (Swain & French, 2000).

Lastly, the self-presentation strategy of resistance includes resiliency. Resilience designates ‘a positive adaptation to adversity’ (Martina, 2016, p. 235). Extant research has examined how vulnerable consumers strive to reframe their relationship with the market via resilient pathways (Baker & Mason, 2012; Baker, 2009; Martina, 2016). As they gain confidence from each other, there seems to be an affective dimension to resiliency as manifested in their social media following. For example, whilst starring in a campaign feature for Primark, KK writes, ‘I do not have to change anything about my body. Society has to change the way it views my body’ (KK, 3 August 2018). Such a statement is indicative of resiliency. Consider also the following message in which KK reflects upon the marginalisation of models with disabilities.

So strange – when you’re physically different, whether that’s a limb or two ‘missing’ (not really missing thou coz we’re whole – just like every other human being), using a wheelchair, being a shorter person, having scar etc. We are so VISIBLE, yet so INVISIBLE in the fashion industry. Our beauty does not fit in with the ideals in the world today… but change is happening. I’ve never wanted to fit in to be honest – why would I want to look, sound, be, feel, act or want to be like everybody else? The more unique the more beautiful and interesting in my eyes. The other morning on route to my son’s nursery, I noticed paving stones with and without cracks. the ones with cracks felt and looked more beautiful, unique mysterious. Perfection is not something to aspire to. It’s boring and unfulfilling. Authenticity is the most truthful beautiful, empowering thing anybody can be. (KK, 18 September 2018)

Audience reactions to the digital narrative above often include encouraging comments like, ‘I look forward to your posts everyday at the moment, feel like I’m always learning something new when I read them ’ (Follower of KK, 9 August 2018) (see Appendix). In total, our findings suggest that influencers with disabilities enact complex personhood through the self-presentation strategy of resistance by tending to stress narratives of perseverance, ability, and resiliency. In practical terms, it is worth acknowledging the resemblance between resistance and ‘supercrip’ narratives in market-mediated representations of disability. However, this self-presentation strategy is related to confidence to resist ableist market ideologies. In addition, on the ‘interpersonal orientation of communication’ axis (Figure 1), resistance needs to be seen as a self-care practice due to its emphasis on mainly individual traits and characteristics.

Responsibility

Lastly, the fourth self-presentation strategy to emerge from our findings is responsibility. With the privileged status as bona fide members of the disability community comes great responsibility. Influencers with disabilities may, for example, call out institutional ableism in the marketplace. While enacting complex personhood through the self-presentation strategy of responsibility, the influencers in this study often seek to utilise their privilege. In this narrative context, complex personhood is signified by an ambiguity between privilege and vulnerability. In one Instagram post, RA uses their privilege to attract followers interested in being part of a new zine fair focusing on ‘disabled, deaf/HOH, Blak, POC and/or trans artists’ (RA, 13 March 2021). Indeed, it is through their very privilege that influencers attain the field-specific capital and legitimacy to induce influence.

Related to privilege in the context of responsibility is the notion of protest. Consider, for example, an Instagram post in which RA looks exasperatedly at the camera, resting their tired head on their hand (Figure 2(d)). They are wearing a baby blue t-shirt which reads ‘No more. Know more’. The caption reads,

Figure 2d. Responsibility.

Influencers with disabilities show solidarity with other oppressed minorities and confront stigma deliberately (RA, 1 March 2021).

Illustration by Evelina Johansson.

I fucking love women, but I am NOT one Do not tag me in your #InternationalWomensDay posts. Just don’t. Not all women have tiddies and not all tiddy havers are women thanks for attending this tedtalk if you have any questions save them for google xo. (RA, 1 March 2021)

From our theoretical perspective based on complex personhood, it would seem that RA tries to educate their audience about transgressive and non-binary gender identities as a form of protest. Furthermore, some disability activists use the term disabled to confront stigma deliberately. Scaraboto and Fischer (2013) refer to this as the ‘logic of visibility’ (p. 1245). Hence, influencers with disabilities show solidarity with other oppressed minorities. It would seem that the self-presentation strategy of responsibility thus includes digital narratives of solidarity as a form of relational coping. Consider the following poetic love letter:

Disabled love is deep and far reaching; it is as exquisitely painful as our bones settling at the end of a long day. Disabled love is more powerful and more sacred than I can even begin to describe with words. Your existence is earth shattering and home building and loud even in silence, and I’m humbled to exist in the same space and time as so many of you. The absence of those we’ve loved and lost, those who’ve fought before us does not go unnoticed. We’re here because of disabled kin before us. We assert our existence and our power in every moment of joint pain, washing out hair, forgetting medication, working in bed, in every microaggression we experience, every inaccessible building we encounter, every time we aren’t any captions. We celebrate ourselves every time we feel deaf and disabled joy in the face of Abled and Hearing sympathy and pity, every time we adorn our bodies and every time we kiss our lovers. Disability justice is racial justice is trans rights is Land Back is abolition is solidarity is Black Lives Matter is fighting capitalism is collective and community care. (RA, 1 March 2021, italics added)

Emphasising ‘joint pain’, the I of the subject is exchanged with a collective We, which through the use of phrases like ‘disabled kin before us’ points towards solidarity across ‘space and time’. The strategy of showing solidarity fits into a complex personhood framework of addressing racial justice, trans rights, and anti-capitalism. One follower commented, ‘Thank you. My daughter […] passed away 2 years ago in December. I miss everything about her. I miss her wild, untamed body, and barely tethered spirit. I love your words and I feel this too’. In line with Butler (2016), it demonstrates that disabled lives are grievable – and in their production of content, influencers with disabilities may contribute to transformative change, for example by disseminating a social ontology of complex personhood.

In total, our findings suggest that influencers with disabilities enact complex personhood through the self-presentation strategy of responsibility by stressing privilege, protest, and solidarity to transcend the misrepresentational tradition of pity. Through its emphasis on protest and solidarity, responsibility is a form of relational coping as it seeks to improve the status of people with disabilities as a collective. Meanwhile, on the ‘intrapersonal orientation of communication’ axis (Figure 1), it would seem that the narrative is still rooted in vulnerability given its aim to confront stigma and call out institutional ableism in the marketplace.

Discussion

This study has focused on the self-presentation strategies that social media influencers with disabilities employ to enact complex personhood. We advance marketing theory in multiple ways. First, the self-presentation strategies and digital narratives discussed earlier extend previous literature on social media strategies in influencer marketing. For example, Kozinets et al. (2010) suggested four types of social media strategies employed by early influencers (evaluation, embracing, endorsement, and explanation). These strategies are often underpinned by ‘fear of “selling out”’ (p. 76), ‘a goal of gaining genuine human contact’ (p. 77), ‘ostensible exhibitionism’ (p. 79), and do not encapsulate such activist and consciousness-raising activities that shape many of the practices among influencers with disabilities. Likewise, findings from McQuarrie et al. (2013) and Scaraboto and Fischer (2013) in the context of fashion bloggers and ‘fatshionistas’ seem to indicate that influencers demand market accommodation rather than ideological disruption. However, the digital narratives employed by the influencers in this study to enact complex personhood involve efforts to create a space for self-care and relational coping (Figure 1). As such, this article contributes to theoretical conversations around social media as a vessel for democratisation by highlighting the role of influencers with disabilities in raising subordinate group consciousness and challenging public discourse and attitudes towards people with disabilities through their market-mediated practices. It also highlights the notion that people with disabilities are not vulnerable all the time (Baker & Gentry, 2006).

Second, Gordon’s (2008) concept of complex personhood is introduced as a useful theoretical lens to study diversity in marketing communications. While intersectionality is a valuable framework for understanding how aspects of a person’s social and political identities create different modes of discrimination and privilege, complex personhood shows how subjectivity is not adequately glimpsed if it is confined to either discrimination or privilege. For example, people with disabilities can have very different experiences even if other aspects of their social and political identities intersect in seemingly identical ways. The effect of our adaptation of complex personhood is to broaden the scope of research on influencer marketing and disability representation. Complex personhood, we believe, will continue to have implications for consumer research on diversity as a complement to the intersectionality framework (Gopaldas & DeRoy, 2015), specifically when the aim is to debunk stereotypes rather than expose underrepresentation or market exclusion. Complex personhood also contributes to disability studies and theory on market-mediated representations of disability by suggesting a complex model of disability beyond pity and ‘inspiration porn’. Indeed, complex personhood indicates that disabled lives are never glimpsed adequately ‘by viewing them as victims or […] as superhuman agents’ (Gordon, 2008, p. 4). The complex model of disability representation proposed in this paper can have a transformative impact on contemporary advertising practices (cf. Bonilla Del Río et al., 2022; Ellis et al., 2021; Raun & Christensen-Strynø, 2021), which still tend to rely on narratives based on pity and ‘inspiration porn’ (Kearney et al., 2019).

Managerial implications

This research underscores the potential of marketised imagery to promote change in social behaviours. Brands are starting to embrace social media influencers with disabilities to target the ‘purple pound’, which is part of a broader cultural trend in which advertisers are weaving people with disabilities into brand narratives. However, these narratives often evoke feelings of pity or portray people with disabilities as inspiring, solely or in part on the basis of their disability. By acknowledging the complex personhood of people with disabilities in their marketing communications, brands can show awareness and contribute to transformative change by raising disability consciousness. In turn, this can contribute to the perceived authenticity and social responsibility of the brand (Södergren, 2021).

Learning from the influencers in this study, brands can acknowledge the complex personhood of people with disabilities by invoking narratives in which they are not seen as victims or superhuman agents. For example, Pixar consulted a director of Crip Camp before featuring a character born without an arm in their film Luca (Zornosa, 2021). The film was praised for taking the rare step of portraying a character with a limb difference without making it a defining characteristic. Brands can learn from this mode of representation when seeking to include people with disabilities in their advertising. Disability representation is becoming more prominent in popular culture; a recent study reported that significant depictions of disability in films and television have nearly tripled over the past decade compared to the ten years before that (Bahr, 2021). Some other films that have recently portrayed the complex personhood of people with disabilities include Rust and Bone, The Peanut Butter Falcon, and Sound of Metal.

Furthermore, as influencers with disabilities begin to be assimilated into the established market system, they can transgress notions of pity and ‘inspiration porn’, which are typically associated with ‘criploitative’ narratives (Kearney et al., 2019). The argument is that hegemonic market forces often dominate standards of beauty. This study shows that firms can benefit from knowing how marginalised consumer segments are fighting to change society. In light of recent literature on brand activism, this presents an opportunity for firms to be a part of an important cause. Social media contributes to the emerging stream of democratisation by allowing influencers with disabilities to temporarily take over the megaphone from the margins (McQuarrie et al., 2013), for example by fuelling mobilisation and raising subordinate group consciousness. Social media thus provides influencers with disabilities with a transformative opportunity to set the terms for their representation and commodification without having to worry about ‘selling out’ (Gurrieri & Drenten, 2019).

Lastly, we noted that while influencers with disabilities do the cultural work of calling out institutional ableism (e.g. by debunking ideal body type myths), it is often the case that they do this to an audience that is already familiar with the many complexities of disabled life experiences. However, through the collaboration with brands, they can reach a wider audience. For example, the singer Rihanna (who posted a touching tribute on her own Instagram feed when MC passed away) regularly cast models with disabilities in her Fenty campaigns. Similarly, many of the sampled influencers (e.g. KK, MC, MS) have featured in London and New York Fashion Week (KK, 28 February 2018).

Limitations and suggestions for future research

The project examines the self-presentation strategies used by social media influencers who claim a disabled identity. What should be acknowledged is that this approach focuses by definition on specific disabilities but excludes those who, for example, are visually impaired or blind (Baker & Kaufman-Scarborough, 2001; Beudaert et al., 2016). Furthermore, the choice of platform (i.e. Instagram) focuses on visible disabilities (e.g. a missing limb), while other non-visible disabilities (e.g. deafness, mental disabilities) may be less likely to use this platform. Thus, while the platform is prominent, it also introduces certain limitations. Further research could examine the role of social media for those who live with disabilities that are less visible to the naked eye (e.g. bipolar disorder, diabetes, and other chronic illnesses).

This study has not considered how influencers with disabilities attain legitimacy (Scaraboto & Fischer, 2013). Not all people with disabilities gain a following to call themselves influencers. Further research may wish to examine the processes by which marginalised consumers gain a voice on social media. Future research could also examine if the digital narratives we found in our analysis of influencers with disabilities apply to other types of social awareness influencers, such as sustainable influencers or eco-friendly influencers.

Finally, this paper has focused on the self-presentation strategies influencers with disabilities use on Instagram. However, many influencers also have a strong following on other social media platforms such as TikTok (e.g. IB, MG) and YouTube (e.g. AS, KD). Due to the scope of this paper, we have not considered these. They likely offer different opportunities for ideological disruption and market change. TikTok allows users to share short video clips. For example, in one video (IB, 9 February 2021), the influencer re-enacts a fictitious job interview to highlight how difficult it is for people with disabilities to land a job. It seems to offer opportunities for comedy that are not present in our current data. Meanwhile, YouTube enables more lengthy elaborations of the complexities of disability experiences. Hence, one of the sampled influencers (KD, 27 October 2016) uploaded a thirty minutes long video blog (vlog) about what it is like to live with no limbs, which, as of November 2022, is seen by approximately ten million viewers.

Conclusion

Market-mediated representations of disability often evoke pity or ‘inspiration porn’. Despite becoming more visible than ever in advertising and mainstream media, people with disabilities tend to be seen either as victims or celebrated as superhuman. Our findings illustrate how social media influencers with disabilities may draw on four alternative narratives (empowerment, playfulness, resistance, and responsibility) to present themselves as neither victims nor superhuman agents but as complex human beings. We thus bring forward a complex model in market-mediated representations of disability, beyond misrepresentational narratives based on pity and ‘inspiration porn’.

Acknowledgements

In addition to the editors and the three anonymous reviewers, the authors thank Meltem Türe, Nil Özçağlar-Toulouse, Anthony Beudaert, Jean-Philippe Nau, Hans van Dijk, Zeynep Arsel, Maria Carolina Zanette, and Jacob Östberg for discussing earlier versions of this paper. We are also grateful to Evelina Johansson who drew the illustrations and gave permission to reuse them in this publication.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jonatan Södergren

Jonatan Södergren holds a Ph.D. in business administration from Stockholm University and has worked previously in the music industry. His research, which addresses the aesthetic side of advertising, brands and consumer culture, has been published in Arts and the Market, Consumption, Markets & Culture, and the International Journal of Consumer Studies.

Niklas Vallström

Niklas Vallström is currently a senior lecturer in marketing at Kristianstad University. His eclectic research interests lie in consumer culture theory, critical marketing, and service marketing.

Appendix

Influencers’ posts and corresponding user comments

Table

Influencer post	Influencer caption	Hashtags	User comment(s)
LS (21 June 2018)	Sitting Pretty x Apesh*t . Camera & MUA: @LoreneJanae Stylist: @disabilityfashionstylist Hair: @kellywxxd & @ep_brotherhood23.	#sittingpretty #cur8able #lorenejanae #disabledandstylish #disabledandcute #disability #melaninpoppin #blackgirlmagic #disabledyoutuber #disabledmodel #disabilityawareness #youtube #disabilitypride #wheelchairwoman #clicklinkinbio #lolosittingpretty #womensfashion #karmanwheelchair #moodforever #photoshootfresh #girlboss #bossstatus #businesswoman #mood2018 #thecutlife #vidcon #theshaderoom #balleralert #highfashion	Slay queen. I have cerebral palsy and someone forwarded your video. You are an inspiration. You go girl!
MC(16 September 2019)^1	“This model has a genius perspective on how to love your body even when you don’t feel like it”. I worked on an amazing project with @iamwellandgood and @athleta a couple of months ago, and it’s finally live! When I first started sharing my story with you all, I mentioned that it wasn’t one with a sad ending nor a happy one, it was simply the story of my life in the making – similarly, that’s how I want people to think about learning to love their bodies. This is not a linear journey with an end point, there will be good days and bad ones. What matters is what you do to improve the bad ones and learn to appreciate the good. Check out the full video through the link in my bio where I share some tips on how to better love your body.	#wellnesscollective #ad #powerofshe	You know what I was laying in bed and feeling guilty of my weakness and incapibilities trying to make my mind forget everything and sleep I saw your post. I saw a beautiful strong woman living her life to the fullest against all odds. you gave me courage to start all over again to my life and I thought you should know it
MC (4 October 2019)	Powerful women, may we know them, May we be them, may we hug them. Ouf to be in the presence of these wonderful women @noor @jameelajamilofficial and have such a honest and beautiful and transparent conversation about empowerment, self acceptance and power dressing.	#TommyXZendaya #PowerDressing #TommyPartner #mamacax	Squad goals!
AS (10 September 2018)^2	Thank you so much to @itslea and @cometoaffect for having me and creating such a safe, welcoming, accessible space. What an incredible conference, I feel absolutely nourished with knowledge, love, and hope for the future! May we take everything we learned here and continue to implement them in our own activist circles!	#AffectConf	It was your ‘20 disabled youtubers’ video that introduced me… It was like my gateway into realising that disability was something that makes me part of a community i went on a weekend with people from the students union for my university and I got so many compliments for your ‘the future is accessible’ jumper I wore x had to let someone gently down who wanted it printed on the uniform
KK (8 October 2018)	When your body is an artistic masterpiece . Vine Arm designed by @thealternativelimbproject @dani_clode @jaytaylor87. @omkaar. Vine Arm on permanent exhibition at @nationalmuseumsscotlant	#alternativelimb #prosthetics #prostheticarm #fauna #flora #exoticplants #tentacle #vine #botanicalgardens #botanical #flower #spaceflower #space #art #beauty #fashion	It’s normal to be perfect? A real inspiration
KK (9 August 2018)	My strong East End roots go back generation. My Soul goes back millions of light-years across thousands of dimensions, galaxies, plantes + existences. People may ask “how do you manage with one hand?”, “What is it like missing a forearm?” Etc etc Firstly, I am not “missing” anything. I am a whole and complete person. Do not define my existence by my body. I am more than a body. In previous lifetimes, in a galaxy far away – I didn’t even have a body. My body is not who I am. See my Soul. I have memories of being pure light, connected directly to Source. This is why I never felt “disabled” From ever since I was a little girl, I innately knew my soul holds all the power, magic, beauty, wisdom and force. @jakub_koz @milkmodelmanagement	#starseed #higherconsciousness #newearth #raisingthevibration #highvibes #soul #force #sirius #sourceenergy #light #alien	I look forward to your posts everyday at the moment, feel like I’m always learning something new when I read them
MC (21 November 2021)^2	Last week @oprahmagazine and @danskinapparel Invited me to speak on a panel on self-care and afterwards I got to lead a body positive workshop. I’m at a point in my life where I’m dealing with severe pain so when An audience member asked me why was self-care important to me the answer was simple “if I don’t make time for self care, I will have to make time for medical care” - self- care is not just a fancy term I thrown around, it’s important that we listen to our bodies and act accordingly. I did something a little different during my workshop. instead of talking about what body positive is I focused on story telling and recounting the different times in my life I too drastic measures to appeal to others my conclusion was that body positivity was not only embracing yourself and your body’s journey but learning that if your embracement of bodies does not include ALL BODIES it is not body positive. I read somewhere that pretty is not the price you pay to exist on this earth and when I talk about body positive it’s more than the surface, I always remind my audience that their bodies allowed them to get to work and at the end of the day it will take them home to their loved ones, isn’t that enough to appreciate it. And whoever you are if you’re not ready to love your body for how it looks, admire it for how far it’s gotten you.	#mamacax	we all so need to hear this & be reminded- we do so need to love and take better care of ourselves- we do forget to refill our own cup, count our blessings and so often take our health & wellness for granted! Thank you for your inspiration & these wonderful words-just beautiful!

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²One of a series of images in a swipeable post.