YouTuber and Disability Advocate Shane Burcaw's Olympics Video Led to Outpouring of Vile Comments

A trend began going around on social media amid the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris, where folks would post a funny video — typically showing themselves failing at a sport — with a joking caption about how they sadly didn't make the Olympic team.

Even some Olympians have gotten in on the viral craze, with gymnast Suni Lee posting a video of when she fell during the balance beam final on Aug. 5, writing her own take on the trend: "Unfortunately I was selected for the Olympics."

So when a writer and disability advocate named Shane Burcaw — who runs a YouTube channel called Squirmy and Grubs alongside his wife, Hannah, and shares his experiences living with spinal muscular atrophy — participated in the fun trend alongside his other half, it should've been just that: fun. Instead, the hateful comments poured in, leading Shane to speak out about it.

"Sorry to announce I did not qualify for the 2024 U.S. Olympic diving team," Shane wrote on his now-viral video, which shows Hannah holding him in a swimming pool and gently lowering him into the water.

Shane made the post in early August, but five days later, he posted a follow-up message about it, saying that people have been leaving "brutally ignorant and aggressively hateful" comments on his video.

"The very top comment says, 'It’s always important to wash your vegetables,' referring to me as the vegetable. It has 97,000+ likes. That means almost one hundred thousand real humans on this earth agree with this humiliating insult!⁣⁣" Shane wrote.

Shane — who grew popular as a blogger and then started a nonprofit called Laughing at My Nightmare, which works to "improve the quality of life for people living with disabilities by providing free adaptive and medical equipment and assistive technology to people in need," per its website — said in his post that he doesn't want to be told to "simply ignore" the hateful messages.

"These are real, actual people, with families and jobs, with influence and votes, who are out there in the world every day harboring these absolutely disgusting ideas about disabled people. It’s sickening," he said of the vile comments.

"We’ve worked passionately and tirelessly to show people that a disabled life is just as valid, worthy, meaningful, and joyous as any other," he wrote, "and yet, hatred fills every comment section we create.⁣"

Shane said that despite wanting to give up in moments like these, he will continue sharing his life in the hopes of inspiring change.

"Until disabled people are embraced by our world as equals, I’ll be here, sharing my disabled life that I so deeply enjoy and cherish, and hoping (maybe against reason) that it’s making a difference," he wrote.