Disabled influencer is viciously trolled after posting light-hearted video of why he didn’t enter the Olympics: ‘Leave him under there’

A disabled social media influencer has spoken out about nasty comments he received after an Instagram post in which he joked about not qualifying for the Olympics.

Shane Burcaw, who runs a successful YouTube channel with his wife Hannah, was born with spinal muscular atrophy, according to his Tumblr page.

This genetic disease weakens the muscles in the shoulders, hips, thighs and upper back, leaving many patients with difficulty moving.

On their various social media platforms, Shane and Hannah post videos about their life as a couple and promotional videos, trying to create acceptance for relationships like theirs.

One of them latest videosClearly intended as a joke, the photo shows Hannah pushing Shane into a pool, with the caption reading: ‘I regret to announce that I have not qualified for the US Diving Team for the 2024 Olympics.’

Instead of making his 594,000 Instagram followers laugh, Shane was met with a barrage of hateful comments, many of which were about why Hannah decided to be with him.

“What does she get out of this relationship? I’m curious because there is no way anyone would be attracted to him,” one person wrote.

“If he can pull, I’m screwed,” another remarked.

Someone else suggested that he could only attract her if he had a lot of money.

Another commentator came to the opposite conclusion: she used his disability to get a tax deduction.

Shane and Hannah have been married for three years and together for eight, according to a profile of the influencer couple in Company Insider.

There were also comments that were much more intense in tone.

“Just leave him there,” someone wrote.

Shane posted the video on Saturday and on Thursday he made another message to deal with the hatred he and his wife experienced.

The post included a black-and-white photo of him and Hannah, alongside images with a lengthy explanation.

“It hurts to write this, but it has to be done,” Shane began.

‘There’s a silly video going viral right now that should be cause for celebration. Instead, it’s forced me to face the painful fact that literally hundreds of thousands of people hate me and think I’m worthless because of my disability.’

He explains that he and Hannah posted the video because they saw people online pointing out their lack of athleticism, only to ironically say they didn’t make it to the Olympics.

These videos often feature a remix of the Star Spangled banner playing while the person on screen does something like belly-diving into a pool or failing miserably at a gymnastics trick.

Shane wrote: ‘This kind of self-deprecating humor is totally our thing, so we joined the trend and posted a short video of me ‘diving’ into a pool. Only my dive is clearly a video of Hannah gently lowering me into the water.’

He then shared some of the most popular reactions to the original video, calling it “blatantly ignorant and aggressively hateful.”

“The very top comment says “It’s always important to wash your vegetables” and refers to me as the vegetable. It has over 97,000 likes. That means almost a hundred thousand real people on this planet agree with this degrading insult!⁣⁣,” he wrote.

Shane also shared some criticisms of his relationship, one of which read: ‘Dating him is like doing charity work.’

“There are thousands more like this. Thousands.⁣⁣ I’m tired, guys,” he wrote.

‘I’m tired of devoting my career to educating people about the real experience of people with disabilities, only to be reminded – EVERYDAY, by hundreds of thousands of people – that I’m still widely viewed as a ‘vegetable’ who, in their opinion, would be better off dead.’

Shane’s comment received more than 82,000 likes and thousands of positive comments as of Friday morning.

Many of the couple’s followers subsequently rewatched the original video, attempting to hide the insults and cruel jokes about his disability.

“You guys do realize that disabled people are still people and deserve to be loved the same way. His wife clearly loves him just for who he is and I think that’s amazing,” one person wrote in a comment that has since garnered over 20,000 likes.

Shane, who was hurt by what people said about him, still ended his statement with determination. He said he would not stop because of this.

“But I won’t give up. It’s too important to me and the stakes are too high. Until disabled people are embraced as equals by our world, I will be here, sharing the life with a disability that I so deeply enjoy and cherish,” he wrote.