So, the title of this one doesn't sound like a barrel of laughs. I know, I know, stigma and diabetes gets more airtime than Phillip Schofield and a full hour of it? Relax! Unless you're really slow at reading, this blog post will not take an hour to get through.
We're all good now, aren't we? Cool.
A few weeks ago, I asked a question on Twitter along the lines of "Have you ever searched 'Diabetes' on Twitter?" A simple question. Some of you actually did that, some of you knew what I was getting at - It's horrendous.
Stigma comes in many forms, of course. Some of it is well meaning "advice", some of it is terrible, upsetting, bullying, stigma breeding trash that really has no place on any platform. Yet, it's 2023 and here we are, social media is a heaving cesspit of diabetes stigma. A wall to wall misinformed, Facebook researching, pile of turd.
I'm not happy about this, can you tell?
So, to fuel my fires further, I performed the Twitter search for "diabetes" once again, yesterday. I decided to check the latest tweets, the tweets from the last hour. Of course, you might perform this search after reading this blog post and find entirely different results. However, for the purposes for this blog, I'm going to show you nine tweets which were sent in that hour. On average, that's a tweet every 6 and a half minutes.
Ready? Deep breaths. Let's start with this cracker:
Looks like diabetes. Nope, it doesn't.
All Y'all diabetics, y'all. Fortunately, he clarified that cookies giving people diabetes was just a joke. All fine and not be blind at all... y'all.
So sweet! Diabetes stigma bingo is back with this classic. I don't know what was so sweet. Maybe it was an ableist piece of trash falling down some stairs into a pile of horse manure?
Diabetes. Great try, DJ! You're wrong, but for trying so, so, hard to be funny you win a Donut. Oh, wait!...
Type Socks. I think this is my favourite one. Veinexes keeps those socks on despite it meaning getting diabetes. I like warm feet in bed, but i'd probably pass on toe comfort to be diabetes free. Still, now we all know the true cause of diabetes. Scientists, you can work on something else.
*Update. This looks like a typo/autocorrect of the word because or cos. The reply makes more sense when read that way.
Cosmic Diabetes. Far out, dude. Diabetes from across the galaxy. Alien diabetes is probably easily managed with a ketogenic diet, lots of cinnamon, praying and an anal probe.
DiAmazonetes. Bernard, here, absolutely soiling himself laughing at his own gag. Ah, Bernie you old rogue! You cheeky, ableist, stigma breeding, piece of... IBS kicking in again.
Alright, that's enough. Most of these idiots probably didn't mean any harm, they're just... idiots? Although, I'm not sure about the socks person - that's really freaked me out. I love socks. I should really end this post with a serious point. I think you've understood my point. That's a lot of stigma in a short space of time from various different idiots.
Can it be stopped? No. At least not until there is proper regulation of social media (one person, one account, verified with ID, additional accounts listed openly). That would reduce the other horrible hate tweets, too. It would also reduce tweet impressions and hurt the income stream of the platform. Hmm, a tough one. Reduce harm and revenue or continue with the status quo. How important is money over human well being? Over to you, Elon.
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