PARIS — Hands in the air, ecstatic look on his face, seated comfortably in a typical airplane seat, Chuck Aoki stares right into the TV in front of him only to see himself staring back. The Instagram reel was captioned “Getting hyped for Paris for eight hours straight by staring at MYSELF LETS GO.”
Thanks to his skills in jumping on social media trends such as “raw dogging” flights, where passengers spend hours doing nothing but staying in their seats and looking straight ahead, Aoki has added “influencer” to his title as a rugby wheelchair athlete. He is the only active summer Paralympian on Team USA’s content creation team, a crew of 10 personalities selected by the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee to drive views for the 10 days of the Paralympics.
“(My goal is) to develop an understanding and awareness of Paralympic sport and really teach people about what it is,” said Aoki, a three-time medalist who has scored nearly half his team’s tries so far. “I think there’s a serious lack of understanding across the board, and I think the reality is that it’s not really present in mainstream media, but the beauty of social media is you can take your message directly to people.”
Some of these are star athletes, like Olympic gold medalist Tara Davis-Woodhall, whose husband is competing in Paris, and three-time para snowboarding medalist Mike Schultz, but others are from the world of entertainment. Their goal—and those of each team’s own social media users—is not only to entertain their fans but to expose the next generation of people with disabilities to the excitement and opportunities that can be found in adaptive sports.
“We can chime in and we can educate, but we want people to ask questions and be curious,” said Dani Aravich, two-time summer and winter Paralympian. “Curiosity leads to interest and interest leads to viewership and hopefully that snowball effect just happens.”
Team USA has decided to go all in on content for the Paris Paralympics. For the creators, there is unlimited freedom in the content they can produce to capitalize on the momentum that these mediums are creating.
“We saw such cool things with influencers, art, music and fashion at the Olympics, and I think we’re just trying to get the Paralympics to reflect that as well,” said Aravich.
Aravich was one of the five Paralympians selected to be a part of the project. She said her favorite part about the project is the diverse personalities of the creators. With content ranging from short humorous TikToks to longer Instagram reels breaking down an athlete’s classification, she said that as a group, the creators can cover all angles.
Each creator has individual objectives for the content they want to produce, but the overarching goal for all is to spotlight disability visibility.
Influencers have been using social media to show people careers, lifestyles and activities they might not have known about or thought possible.
Craig Conover, star of Bravo’s reality show “Southern Charm,” is one of the five influencers selected to partake in the project.
“I think the exposure is becoming greater for the Paralympics, but obviously it didn’t have the same air-time in the past as the Olympics,” said Conover. “With the power of social media and everything to really add to that it’s going to be great.”
Conover is joined by influencers Erin Azar, Menecis Garriga, Matt James and Jesi Stracham.
In adaptive sports, Paralympians beyond the content creator group are specifically trying to reach young people with disabilities to open up new worlds of opportunities for them.
“For me, a big part of it is reaching the next generation of Paralympians,” said Kaleo Kanahele Maclay, a three-time sitting volleyball Paralympic medalist. “I think all of us has had young girls in our DM’s. After seeing a video they come and try the sport and are now in our pipeline.”
Standing next to her, teammate Bethany Zummo blurted out, “oh, it just gives me chills.”
Aoki says he’s received a number of direct messages about how his account has empowered those with physical disabilities who didn’t even think they could play sports.
“You meet people every day who don’t realize they have the ability to play adaptive sports and you know, I hate that,” Aoki said. “If my social media can be the conduit for even one person to find out that they have the ability to be active and have a community of people, I’ve done my job.”
Ana Escamilla is a student in the undergraduate certificate program in the Carmical Sports Media Institute at the University of Georgia.