🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Here are an article, a couple of blogs dealing with it.
The Shaya story was originally written by Rabbi Paysach Krohn in his 1999 book Echoes Of The Maggid. He says it is true and that he is friends with Shay's father.
Be that as it may, it's still no reason to put it into a chain letter and tear-jerk people into re-sharing it all over the net again and again.
1. The boy's name is Shaya, not Shay.
2. The story is copyrighted material.
Though I'm one of the last to harp incessantly on copyright, it does provide a good reason to oppose the sending around of writings ripped off their authors and passed around in memes.
3. Not only was it put into a manipulative chain letter, but in 2006, a coda, (not written by the author of the story,) was tacked on in an attempt to add more heart-wrenching manipulation of the emotions via meme.
The coda? Claims "Shay" died the next year, of course!
I hope that isn't true. But if it is, could we please, out of respect for Shaya's friends and family, stop sharing the memes?
Personally, I find the "Shay" story anything but inspirational, since it seems to be more of a put-down than a real acceptance and uplifting of people and their abilities or limitations.
What good is it pretending to lose a game to make Shaya believe he won because he was so super at it when he really wasn't, next to other kids who were his age, because of his limitation/disability/challenge/handicap etc. whatever PC term you'd like to insertt there?
We engage in this sort of mock amazement behavior with very tiny children sometimes, to encourage communication, interaction, and to make them laugh.
But that period of time is extremely short in the whole grand scheme of life.
Shaya is/was a boy who was old enough to play baseball, not a baby or toddler, and cheating him out of an honest game is as bad as cheating to win a game.
"But he's disabled so this isn't cheating, it's giving him a fair shot."
Sorry, but I disagree.
If that wasn't enough, the coda at the end was not in the book, but put there by someone else who really wanted to get us spreading the meme.
Truth Or Fiction. doesn't say if Shaya really died or not. But if that turns out to be untrue, I hope the person who added that bit is ashamed of themself!
If it is true, why continue spreading the story?
Because Shaya, or his fictionalized counterpart Shay, is/was a disabled boy who died?
That is no excuse to make a chain letter out of it.
That's the same mindset at work which keeps the false story about "The room" and the one about the fictional Edith Burns circulating. All you have to do is be disabled, be a Christian, die, or any combination of the above to become the next thing to a saint in internet viral stories.
I'm sick of this treatment, and what I'm trying to convey in this and other meme-mangling is this:
Instead of pitying, or admiring people as some special oddity that's part subhuman and part angel for some disability or disfigurement, please remember we are all human, and the best we can do is help one another to thrive, not just survive on misguided pity or unwanted and, and in at least some cases, unwarranted adoration that makes some of us feel as if we stick out among the human race like sore thumbs.
Now, I've given my opinion of the story and why it shouldn't be passed on in a meme.
if you still really like the story, do something good for the author and Shaya and his family and friends, buy the book instead.
Why Many People With Disabilities Do Not Want To Be Considered Inspirational by Carola finch is an excellent read!
So let's tackle the manipulation part of this meme.
🤦🏽♀️BP: All right, this one's going down! A lot of people would tiptoe around this because of its particular 'heart-wrenching' tactic, but not I! I shall obliterate it like every other meme that crosses my path.
And I have a little extra venom for this one. Before I got to this one, I found an e-mail from a good friend saying that since she hadn't checked her e-mail in a while, she had a ton of e-mails. She didn't much like e-mailing anymore because of the time it took to sit down and answer all the e-mails.
The next e-mail I opened was the following meme.
So you don't see the point in answering my hand-written e-mails, but you'll send me a stupid meme? AAAAAAGGGH! NO MERCY!
From: a forward-addict
To: long list of email addresses
Subject: FWD: FWD: FWD: FWD: FWD: etc.
The best email ever read!
Home Run!
(anything baseballish or that screams "READ THIS MOST BEST MONUMENTALLY GREAT MEME!)
More tons of header info and signatures, complete with email addresses, workplace location info and street addresses
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Yeah, real smart, that's how spammers and identity thieves get your info, please, stop spreading chain letters and for goodness sake, don't use work computers to spread this junk!
😈Meme: A wonderful story that may or may not be true - - the message is love
🤦🏽♀️BP: Uh, no the message is stupid manipulation by preying on people's fears of being called intolerant, etc. There is no love in this.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: I have no doubt shaya was/is loved. But this story and the utterly conniving chain letter don't put love in the foreground of my thoughts.
😈Meme: Two Choices
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: I'll determine and make my own choices, thank you!
😈Meme: What would you do?....you make the choice. Don't look for a punch line, there isn't one.
🤦🏽♀️BP: Heh! Oh, but there IS a punchline. This whole thing is a joke, and one in bad taste.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: There is a punchline, it tells people to cheat to lose and dole out pity and pretend game-wins and then pass on chain letters about it!
My choice is to cut through this condescension and promotion of cheap sympathy and mangle this meme!
😈Meme: Read it anyway.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: I read it before, was not impressed by it and would prefer not to read it again.
🤦🏽♀️BP: I don't take orders from you, punk. I'm reading this to destroy it!
😈Meme: My question is: Would you have made the same choice?
🤦🏽♀️BP: So is this some 'food for thought' speil before you try to get me with a cheesy drip that is sure to pull at my heart-strings? Oh, blah, blah, blah. Tryin' to sound profound? You fail. *yawn* Pass.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: I just told you, I made the choice to neutralize this thing. And no, I wouldn't cheat to lose a game to give someone less abled a pretend victory. There are other ways of evenning things up so someone in Shay's situation can get a real victory, have him play with players who are at the same capability of playing the game as him...
Chain, hijacking the Shaya story: At a fundraising dinner for a school that serves children with learning disabilities, the father of one of the students delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: *cut rest, but that is how Shaya's story opens.
And endless forwarding will insure that nobody forgets it, right? Look, seen it before, I don't care to see it again.
🤦🏽♀️BP: Well, I wouldn't forget a pathetic blob of sap like this either. Personally, I think this is a particularly rotten forward. As soon as you mention 'learning disabilities', people jump on the forward button like starving animals on a fresh kill. At least, that's what you want to happen. Because what horrible, insensitive, unfeeling, terribly intolerant and awful person wouldn't pass on this touching story about an oh so precious boy with a learning disability? *glares*
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: In addition, I have news for you. God doesn't confuse false pity with perfection. I'm not sure why God lets some people have disabilities, but I'm pretty sure it isn't so the rest can bolster their own egoes and count their blessings by looking at how many blessings they think the disabled person lacks.
Beth, right, the "Shay" story.
Pointless and cliche story snipped out because if it isn't vastly reworded from the book, it's copyrighted material. All it basically says is pretty much the following:
Little Shay made everyone better because he was so wonderful and awesome that he brought out the best in everyone and we should all be like him, blah, blah, blah.
*sigh!* Oh, and the violins are just pouring it out. Do you want a cupcake for your pity party? *sigh* Perhaps I should thoroughly explain this so my points will be understood better.
No, I don't have some inexplicable hatred of people with disabilities. I've known plenty of great people who have some kind or another. I just vehemently resent people thinking that people with disabilities are some kind of wonderful angel we should all venerate and tiptoe around because they're so beautiful and innocent and-SHUT UP ALREADY! I get it, I get it. You OBVIOUSLY fail to grasp that ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL. Every. Last. One. Some people chose to mess that up, but that's not the point here. If you're born with some kind of disability, be it a physical one, a mental one, whatever, you have the same right and chance to rise to an honest success as every other human being. We all have that God given right. Y'know, the whole "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" thing?
Now, before someone lynches me for daring to stand up to this problem, for yes, it IS a problem, people, deal with that, I would like to make a final point. I don't give a flamin' crap if a ton of people come after me for not falling right on the bandwagon and gushing over this. I'm going to do what I think is right, and if you want to try and stop me, I welcome the challenge. *ahem* Now, back to thrashing.
The meme goes on with More story and expounding on who's considered perfect and who isn't, and how society is judged by the way it treats its weakest yet most perfect members basically.
*shakes head* See, that's something that you have merely twisted to your purpose. We all have challenges in life, whether that challenge is actually having the disability, or raising a child with the disability, etc. But the way you use it makes it sound like disabled people are already perfect, and we all need to be just wonderful like they are, because we obviously screwed something up because we need to learn how to be perfect from them. Two words: SHUT. UP.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: The chain letter also paints a pretty fatalistic, gloomy picture of society's view of people who are a bit different, as somehow being not quite human and needing fake pats on the back rather than true acceptance and encouragement to work with what they have and thrive. If you have limitations, you are to be pitied, not accepted, so the rest of the "undamaged" can feel good about themselves for patting you on the back because you are disabled and they are not, and so they can look at you and go "That poor boy/girl, I'm so glad I have it better than them! So good I could do something good for these poor people!" and of course, let's not for get the "Pass it on!" thing...
😈Meme: Shay didn't make it to another summer. He died that winter, having never forgotten being the hero and making me so happy, and coming home and seeing his Mother tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!
Beth and 🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Again with the tears!
🤦🏽♀️BP: Oh, let me just cry a river, however will I be the same after reading that touching story?.....AAAAAAAAGAGGGGGGGGGHHHH! *Scowl*
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: After making sure to either embellish or include the father tearing up when recounting the story, now in this made-up coda, you expound on the mother tearing up, you chain letter originators absolutely thrive on dreaming, writing about, watching and making people cry so they'll be softened up and ripe for manipulation by you into passing on junk you wrote, or copyrighted stuff you didn't but ripped off their true authors to be put into your "PASS IT ON!" schemes! Shame on you!
🤦🏽♀️BP: Right, make good and sure to include in every forward a spelling out every time someone is so overwhelmed that tears roll down their cheeks so I'll get into the same condition so that I'll be softened up enough to make that all important right "choice" of the two you harp on about all through this chain - to bring a little love and humanity into the world by passing this forward on, no thanks!
Sorry, but I don't consider cheating to lose a game to give a learning disabled chap an honorary victory, and passing on chain letters, to be bringing humanity to the world... How about showing me some true humanity by shutting up!
I kid you not, if I ever receive another chain of this sort, heads will roll!
😈Meme: AND, NOW A LITTLE FOOTNOTE TO THIS STORY:
🤦🏽♀️BP: What, you're not done yet!?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Sheesh! And turn off the caplock!
😈Meme: We all send thousands of jokes through the e-mail without a second thought, but when it comes to sending messages about life choices, people think twice about sharing.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: WRONG! And yes, I have good reason to caplock every once in a while…
🤦🏽♀️BP: *rolls eyes* Oh, give me a break! People pass this on just as readily, if not more so, than the joke chains because it gives them some pathetic sense of having done something important in the world.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Of the forwards I receive, this type is by far the most numerous! If it's supposedly inspirational, pseudo-religious, cute animal pictures and kids sayings, viral videos, and jokes, they all go around just as much! I am so sick of these religious chain letters whining out the big lie that says nobody wants to pass on religious chain letters! They are among the most common, and that is why Christians have such a terrible reputation for annoyance on the net!
😈Meme: The crude, vulgar, and often obscene pass freely through cyberspace,
🤦🏽♀️BP: Gimme a bucket, this trash is making me nauseus.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: *Sigh* This whinge has been going around at least a decade! It's part of that sniveling "Funny how everybody hates God" viral. Anyway, vulgarity etc. does fly around the net, but so does this kind of stuff!
😈Meme: but public discussion about decency is too often suppressed in our schools and workplaces.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: What the heck planet are you on!? Look, there is no vulgarity at my work place, there is a lot of decency, and there was decency taught at school when I was growing up! The real problem today isn't lack of decency in schools, it is bullying! And passing on this chain letter will not ABRA-CADABRA suddenly fill the world with decency and zap out vulgarity! in fact, it might even increase vulgarity if you annoy someone who swears like a trooper!
Oh, and, the original blithering forward used the word "Jesus" instead of "decency" but it's still the same old crap.
😈Meme: If you're thinking about forwarding this message,
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: No! I'm discouraging its spread instead!
🤦🏽♀️BP: Uh, no, I'm thinking about why my friend chose to send me this instead of replying to my hand-written e-mails!
😈Meme: chances are that you're probably sorting out the people on your address list that aren't the "appropriate" ones to receive this type of message.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: That would be no one.
Anyway, you'd rather I just spammed absolutely every address I could possibly send it to, and that is not going to happen!
😈Meme: Well, the person who sent you this believes that we all can make a difference.
🤦🏽♀️BP: *dark laugh* Oh, if only you knew! I know precisely why my friend sent me this. YOU are not deserving of being privvy to that information, though.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: So if I don't forward it, that means I don't believe in making a difference? Well, that's exactly what you are implying in your manipulative little speech, and it doesn't wash!
You have no idea what the person who forwards this believes, other than the fact he/she/they have been totally blindsided by a huge emotional wallop from this chain enough to spread it! I believe people can make a difference, which is one of the reasons I started this site! Let's make a difference and stop the spread of chain letters!
😈Meme: We all have thousands of opportunities every single day to help realize the "natural order of things."
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: So?
🤦🏽♀️BP: Funny you should mention that...from where I'm standing, the natural order of things is for friends to send each other proper e-mails, not made-up, sappy, impersonal spiels that may or may not have more or less true stories attached for the sake of delivering an incapacitating emotional wallop sure to send many recipients into forwarding overdrive!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Look, I can find "natural order" in the way my pets play, the way I have seemingly boundless energy on a warm sunny day and want to hibernate on a cool cloudy one.
I can find more than just a spark of love and humanity in my day to day interactions with my family, on the job, and whenever I can actually manage to do something a little special for someone or they do something special for me.
That beats your chain letter by an infinite distance, in light years!
😈Meme: So many seemingly trivial interactions between two people present us with a choice: Do we pass along a little spark of love and humanity
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Which this chain letter is not!
😈Meme: or do we pass up that opportunity to brighten the day of those with us the least able,
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: I'm not going to make anybody's day brighter by passing on this chain letter! It does nothing for those you call "less able"
😈Meme: and leave the world a little bit colder in the process?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: You have cornered the market right there, with this chain letter! Warm some hearts in a real, honest, personal way, and don't spread that forward!
🤦🏽♀️BP: You wanna leave the world a bit colder? You just did! This thing has put me in a foul mood, and I was quite content before I set about destroying it!
😈Meme: A wise man once said
🤦🏽♀️BP: Again, your attempt at sounding profound has failed. Miserably.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Oh, here we go with that wise man again. Which wise man, exactly?
😈Meme: every society is judged by how it treats it's least fortunate amongst them.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Oh, not this again! I've seen animal rights zealots attribute that quote to the vegetarian Gandhi.
This sentiment in so many of its variations are attributed to many others so you see, there IS no one wise man saying all these things.
And just like the animal rights movement, this chain letter is using this quote as part of a manipulation to achieve an agenda - being, to spread the chain far and wide. That is the real goal of this thing, however much it waxes on about how we must "make a difference" and "brighten somebody's day" and "lift up the disabled" and all that.
So don't give me this bit about society being judged. Especially after promoting the actions of a team that cheats to lose a game and another team that works to give Shaya only an honorary victory instead of a real one.
And if I ever run for government, don't you dare vote for me because I am a woman with a visual impairment! Vote for me because you agree with my policies and like my campaign! If I want to play a sport, don't cheat yourselves or me out of an honest victory or loss out of sympathy for me!
Shaya may not have been insulted by this pity chain, but I am!
And I've got a great deal to say about it and others like it!
😈Meme: You now have two choices:
🤦🏽♀️BP: Or, the ever shunned by the public, Third Option: pulverize this thing to smithereens.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: No, you have tried to give me an ultimatum, not "choices" as you call it. You try through coercive language to not even let me choose not to forward this thing along with the big lie about how not forwarding would make the world colder etc and how forwarding it would somehow do some great good for mankind! This devious junk is so cunningly worded that it actually dupes many people into believing they are making a choice when in actuality they have been manipulated into doing the bidding of whatever entity actually started this chain letter!
Guess what? I'm not playing that!
In fact, I have several choices. Adding to your list is also the choice to mangle this meme, and to vent my annoyance. That gives me four in total, and I'm choosing to thrash and vent...
😈Meme: 1. Delete
2. Forward
May your day, be a Shay Day,sunny today tomorrow and always!"
🤦🏽♀️BP: May you fall off a cliff and brake all the bones in your body, then be eaten by a pack of rattle snakes and wild rats.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Everyday I wake up as me, it's a me-day, whether it's sunny or not. By the way, your meme did not produce a sunny day or a sunny disposition here!
Instead of spreading memes that confuse real caring with cheap sympathy, more needs to actually be done to make things more accessible to meet the needs of disabled people, helping them to live more independently, - without costing a fortune for them and their families.
Accessibility in the mainstream world, not all sectioned off so that this entrance is for the handicapped and that one is for the able-bodied, or this game is for the blind, that one is for the sighted. Wherever absolutely possible, things need to be accessible to everyone.
This meme doesn't even begin to touch on that issue.
OVER - AND - OUT!
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