I can feel the anger rising. How will I encounter this abuse again after 20 years?

My name is Alex. But more and more young people are shouting “Timmy” at me on the street. This is not mistaken identity; I was ridiculed for using a wheelchair.

I should ignore it but this time I react. I see a group of young boys grinning in front of me. “I heard you,” I tell them. “I know exactly who Timmy is.”

I know this because even though we don’t share the same name, I’ve felt Timmy’s shadow since I was a kid; It was never my own choice.

A disabled character from the darkly humorous satirical animated series South Park, he uses a wheelchair and can only shout his name loudly and uncontrollably.

Growing up at the show’s initial peak at the turn of the millennium, Timmy followed me around school hallways, classrooms, and playgrounds, regardless of my friends, sociability, or relatively good grades.

Now it’s back in my 30s. For the third time in a year, as I head to my local train station, this time in my wheelchair, I hear that familiar, relentless voice: “Timmaaah.”

A laugh. A smile. An assumption that I either can’t hear or understand.

When I confront a group of boys, one feigns innocence, claiming he is talking to his friend.

“It wasn’t you,” I say. “I was watching the show before you were born.”

At first, I was surprised at how this phenomenon was returning to a new younger generation, 24 years after the character first appeared.

The answer lies on social media, particularly TikTok, where hundreds of short user-edited clips of Timmy and audio of him saying his name have sparked a resurgence.

TikTok users often take part in trends by using audio from popular videos and overlaying their own clips.

That’s what a lot of people do to Timmy; using the name as a punchline or playing over irrelevant clips of wheelchair users, reinforcing harmful and inhumane stereotypes.

The irony is that the character of Timmy is presented with warmth in South Park and is given character depth by co-creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker.

Equal to the show’s fearless satire, his disability doesn’t have to be the brunt of the joke.

Timmy is an accepted member of the class: He fails to complete his homework, faces difficulties, and causes trouble with his disabled best friend Jimmy. His personality is conveyed through the different intonations he uses when saying his name.

In an episode called Timmy 2000, we see him win the battle between the bands as the lead singer of a metal band. Adult characters are shown to react in an overprotective and condescending manner; This is a striking critique of how society often treats people with disabilities.

About 20 years ago Ouch! – Former name of the BBC’s disabled department – Crowned Timmy as the disabled department most popular disabled TV character.

Jeff Shannon, the late disabled critic of the Seattle Times, described Timmy as “The most progressive, provocative and socially relevant disability humor ever offered on American television.”.

“South Park challenges (viewers’) fears and vulnerabilities about disability without telling viewers what to think, and Timmy emerges victorious,” he wrote in 2005.

In interviews, Stone and Parker explained how this happened. careful and purposeful they integrated it into the show.

But twenty years later, the fact remains that many who met Timmy found him extremely offensive, certainly at first glance.

South Park has always worked on multiple levels; it offered crackling satire aimed at adults, while also offering extremely forbidden shock value for schoolchildren.

None of this nuance is reflected in the TikTok trend that reduces Timmy, and by extension wheelchair users and disability, to a one-dimensional mockery.

This distorted revival parallels the following situation: Joey DeaconHis appearance in Blue Peter in the 1980s backfired, causing him to be ridiculed on the playground, with children shouting “you’re a Joey!” and a man with cerebral palsy to whom he yells, “Make your Joey face.”

TikTok says its community guidelines strictly prohibit hate speech and content that promotes discrimination, violence or disability-based harm.

Videos flagged by the BBC for violating this policy have been removed. However, he did not remove the Timmy voice used in some other videos; This means it can be reused.

TikTok did not respond to a specific question about removing offensive sounds.

Ciaran O’Connor of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a think tank focused on online hate, says audio is “a blind spot in TikTok’s content moderation practices.”

Even if a video with “original audio” is removed by the platform, the audio usually isn’t, he says.

This makes it a common way to bypass TikTok’s content moderation rules, including harassment and abuse.

Bullying and trolling of people with disabilities is still common online. In a survey of 4,000 disabled people by the charity Scope, three in 10 said they had this experience.

My recent experience of having names thrown at me on the street didn’t shock me so much about the name calling, but the absolute lack of remorse shown even when challenged did.

This echoed an experience last year when teenagers who had also mocked me walked away yelling, “Timmy’s going to crush us.”

Wheelchair user and Liverpool fan Ross Hovey recently posted on LinkedIn about an almost identical experience.

The 79-year-old was on his way to a Liverpool match with his father and his carer’s assistant when a group of teenagers shouted “Timmy” at him. They tried to claim innocence when Ross challenged them, saying, “I heard you.”

The abuse raises questions about what role platforms should play in providing context to young users.

“Short, context-free clips and participatory trends are at the heart of TikTok’s popularity,” says O’Connor.

“This is normally fine, positive, and funny… but when these dynamics are used to demean, mock, or stigmatize others, it raises the question of whether TikTok should be doing more to inform or educate users.”

Alison Kerry, head of communications at Periscope, told the BBC: “These kinds of uninhibited trends are extremely harmful. They don’t exist in a vacuum, so a social media trend can quickly turn into someone facing abuse in everyday life.”

Its real-world impact is definitely becoming more evident.

TikTok users with disabilities have been posting about their experiences, and one teacher recently wrote a thread on Reddit titled “I’m really sick of this Timmy trend,” voicing her frustration with students’ lack of awareness.

That’s why I challenged the young people at the station; I felt a duty not only to my 12-year-old self, who was once helpless to tears in the face of similar taunts, but also to disabled students today.

As I turned to leave, the kids called out “Timmy” again and I turned back a second time.

“From where?” I asked. Silence. Someone in the group eventually acknowledged that the behavior was wrong and apologized.

“Talk to your friends,” I pleaded, feeling a glimmer of hope. “Maybe then they’ll listen.”