The Paris Olympics, beyond the memes on the questionable quality of the Olympic village and the Seine, will be remembered, at least in terms of communication, as the edition of the normalization of failure. Assuming that a fourth place at the most important event in a sports career can be called a failure.
What about the Paralympics? Difficult to say, given the poor coverage of the so-called traditional media, if not completely absent: on the other hand, the Italian delegation won only 71 medals (24 gold, 15 silver and 32 bronze), two more than in the 2021 Tokyo games, placing sixth in the medal table. If you look at the social media, on the other hand, the 17th edition of the Paralympic Games closes in irony.
@paralympics Thank you for the warm welcome, Paris 🥰 #Paralympics #OpeningCeremony #Paris2024 ♬ original sound - paralympics
That it should be possible to joke about disability has not been claimed by the union of stand-up comedians or the keyboard lions against the gag of the politically correct, but the Paralympic committee itself, through its TikTok profile. The long jump of an athlete with one leg, the javelin throw of another or the football match between the national teams of visually impaired, with the right musical background become perfect memes. If you add some sharp captions, virality is assured: above all, the video from 38 million views was a blind triathlon athlete looking for his bike, which seems to play Beethoven on the piano. The purpose of these reels is to reverse the narrative of the athlete with disabilities, too often trapped in the figure of the source of inspiration, so that the athlete is only the embodiment of the virtuous example to follow.
@paralympics Para Triathlon is swim, bike and air piano. 🎹
♬ original sound - paralympics
A strategy that has contributed to increase the follow-up of the Paralympics: numerous comments of appreciation for the media work carried out, although there were also outraged super wokes and haters self-rated to despise athletes.
Irony has thus become the key to normalizing disability, to bring it back to a human dimension, on which one can even joke: too often a Paralympic race is polluted by a squalid pietism, for which it is more focused on imagining the misfortune behind the athlete’s disability than the sporting spectacle. A morbid dynamic that in any other race hardly establishes itself. Take a game of the A series: the viewer is concentrated only to get the secrets behind the mindset of the bomber in the field (example virtuous to follow) and to ask how many and what injuries he suffered, or he also laughs for gaffe and deeds of opponents and favorite? Why should this dimension not also be in a paralympic competition?
@paralympics LEFT…LEFT…LEFT…
♬ Follow The Leader - Rumba Del Sol
Some Italian athletes have also proved to be in line with the social team of the Paralympics. Some people started before the event started, like Bebe Vio: "Without these I do not go. Basic socks!" , comments the champion during the unboxing of the uniform for Paris, in front of the masses of socks provided. Assunta Legnante, the most awarded athlete in the history of Italian athletics, who said in the interview after the gold in the weight throw that she wanted to be there also in Los Angeles 2028: "I have never seen America. I won’t see her this time but I want to go".
True king of the meme became Rigivan Ganeshamoorthy, gold medal and three times world record in the launch of the album: he has surpassed his record three times, in the same race. "Are you beginning to like this world? Yes, little too disabled people perhaps": in an instant dismounts the serious tones of the RAI journalist , entering into the Olympus even of the Italian meme creators.
@saporeditrash 🗿 #olympics #paris2024 #antonellovenditti ♬ suono originale - Sapore di Trash
In short, staying on the topic of memes and iridescent victories: give a medal to the social media manager of Paris 2024.
Illustration by Gloria Dozio - Acrimònia Studios
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