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While making my way alone through London’s Finsbury Park station in my electric wheelchair, I suddenly found myself surrounded by commuters and a group of men who began mocking me. “Stop them!” I shouted, but despite my pleas, no one stepped in to help. It was a chilling moment, made worse by the fact that I was targeted in a public space yet felt utterly powerless and isolated.
The incident started when I was checking my route home in a passageway. I looked up to see a man standing mere inches from my face, staring directly at me. He didn’t move but smirked, stuck his tongue out, and put on a vacant expression. I soon realized someone was filming the encounter from behind, and as more people from their group entered through the turnstiles, the situation grew even more hostile. I gave chase, hoping to get them to delete the video, but they escaped by running up a nearby stairwell, leaving me feeling both frustrated and vulnerable. This episode was part of the “tongue-out” TikTok prank, where people stick their tongues out at strangers and record their reactions, but here, it had been cruelly adapted to mock my disability.
This wasn’t the first time I had experienced such harassment inspired by social media trends. About a year ago, I faced abuse from schoolchildren shouting “Timmy” at me—a reference to a disabled character from the show *South Park* whose name has become a mocking chant on TikTok. Back then, I tried to challenge the kids directly, hoping to open a conversation and counter their prejudice. This time, however, I chose to report the incident as a hate crime, which under UK law includes acts perceived as hostile toward protected characteristics like disability. The British Transport Police connected my report to a series of similar incidents apparently fueled by the same TikTok craze. Experts like Ciaran O’Connor of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue have expressed concern over how social media algorithms prioritize shock and confrontation over empathy, driving these harmful encounters offline.
The original tongue-out TikTok prank emerged as a somewhat lighthearted, if annoying, trend popularized by influencers such as Pink Cardigan in the US, who recorded themselves sticking out their tongues at unsuspecting passersby through shop and diner windows. Aidan Walker, a content creator who explores internet culture, explains that it began as a prank designed to irritate and confuse those “not in on the joke,” rather than with malicious intent. Unfortunately, the men who targeted me used the trend in a deliberately hostile way, twisting it into a form of disability mockery in an attempt to attract more attention online. Although I have yet to find any footage of this in circulation, the intent was clear. TikTok maintains that most tongue-out videos are not hateful and do not violate its community guidelines, which strictly forbid hate speech or discrimination, including against disabled individuals. Yet, when similar hateful content is reported, such as videos targeting people with Down’s syndrome through the same prank, moderators have removed them.
Reporting disability hate crime remains challenging due to underreporting and doubts about whether authorities will take incidents seriously. Despite a recent decrease in recorded disability hate crimes according to official statistics, disability charities warn this may not reflect a true reduction in hostility but rather a lack of confidence in the reporting process. Ali Gunn from United Response highlights that only about 30% of disabled people report crimes against them, and convictions for public order offences are the lowest among minority groups. I encountered this firsthand when my complaint was initially dismissed because there was no recorded audio or offensive language on CCTV footage. I insisted on a closer review, emphasizing the intimidation I felt while being surrounded in my wheelchair. Subsequently, the case was reopened, still under investigation, and Transport for London (TfL) apologized for both the incident and the initial handling by the police, with commissioner Andy Lord expressing disgust and reaffirming a commitment to improving disability hate crime awareness and reporting.
The urgent need to address hate crimes on public transport was underscored by a recent attack on comedians Rosie Jones and Lee Peart, who faced verbal abuse and had wine thrown at them on a train in what Jones described as an “
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