My friend was telling me recently she went on holiday with friends and a fun pre holiday activity they all did is buy each other silly phone cases to use while abroad.

As she was telling me some of the phone cases were traditional flip phones, another was a big car shape, another was from a movie. But one of the phone cases she found so funny was a picture of Susan Boyle on it.

For those who don’t know Susan Boyle is/was a UK singer who took part on the X factor. She isn’t conventionally attractive and looks stereotypically “weird” however when she started singing people were shocked and blown away by her talent. During her time on the show and afterwards she was hounded by the press and bullied so severely she ended up in a mental health hospital. She was later diagnosed with Asperger’s. Shes mainly had a career out of the public eye since then.

I was instantly upset by this phone case especially knowing about Susan’s story. I read it as people mocking and laughing at weird/disabled people. My friend said they all had good intentions and it was just a bit of fun and they like Susan Boyle because she represents part of them. And they had no idea she was bullied by the press, had mental health issues or is disabled.

I feel like my pattern recognition picked up on a much bigger trend that it is common in comedy to mock people who are less than us and we joke about people who are “below” us. I got really upset and said to my friend having a disabled woman be the butt of a joke I didn’t find funny at all. She didn’t see it from my point of view and said I was being too sensitive and they were just having a laugh and it was harmless and doesn’t affect me. To me it is so black and white, mocking disabled people (even unintentionally and with good intentions) is never funny. I can’t fathom putting a photo of anyone on a phone case and laughing at it, let alone someone who’s seen publicly as “weird”.

Am I overreacting?