While caring about disabilities is something humans have been doing for centuries, and it’s certainly uncontroversial, the online spoonie phenomenon became a subculture with a certain quasi-political zeal that seemed to characterize all the subcultures in the Tumblr identity-politics milieu. Young women, very often also identifying as intersectional feminists and radicals, displayed their spoonie identity and lashed out at anyone for not reacting appropriately to their under-recognized, undiagnosed or undiagnosable invisible illnesses or for lacking sensitivity to their other identities.
