The newest conspiracy theory conspired by Gen-Z is the idea that Helen Keller never existed or did not accomplish what she did living her life as deaf and blind. While older generations never thought twice about her accomplishments, Gen-Z has felt the need to cancel Helen and claim she is a fraud. Let’s explore why Gen-Z has this belief.
Helens Life
Helen Keller was from Tuscumbia, AL. When Helen was 19 months old, she was affected by a sickness that was believed to be scarlet fever which left her deaf and blind. Anne Sullivan then taught her at the Perkins Institute for Blind in Boston, where she learned to feel objects and associate words by signals on her palms. She also learned to read sentences, master braille, lip-syncing, and started the slow process of learning to speak. Throughout her life, she wrote several books, co-founded the American Civil Liberties Union, and aided in promoting the organization of commissions for the blind in 30 states. At the age of 87, Helen died as an author, activist, and inspiration for so many…until Gen-Z.
While it may seem that this conspiracy theory started as a joke due to Gen Z’s believing anything they see on the internet, this theory has spiraled into making thousands of people feel her accomplishments or her disabilities were not accurate. Users on TikTok have come out with their public opinions on Helen’s life, calling her a phony. On one TikTok, someone can be heard saying, “Helen Keller was the blind and deaf person who was faked. She didn’t exist, but everyone believes she was deaf and blind.” Another with someone getting frustrated in seeing her handwriting and saying she could not have been a profound author because she wrote 12 books, which is unrealistic for someone with all of their senses. Someone else also described her as “cooking up lies” and expressed that he would go back and save generations upon generations of her lies if he had a time machine. In the comments of all of these videos, hundreds of people make jokes about her disabilities, and people agree she could not have been real or was only deaf or blind but certainly not both.
Weirdly enough these videos are making people question their own ideas and second guessing textbooks that all contain information about Helen’s life and journey overcoming her disabilities. Many people attribute this to the lapses in Gen Z’s education and their ability to find information online and solely believe it. Remarks from Gen-Z about Helen Keller’s accomplishments as a disabled person can come across as ableist and insensitive to what disabled people are capable of.
