Narrative laundering is when lived experience is rewritten to be more palatable, less critical, or more commercially viable. These terms describe how stories are sanitized, reframed, or stolen — all under the guise of awareness or inclusion.
Pretending to Educate While Erasing
Using vague awareness campaigns that avoid systemic issues, prioritising feel-good messaging over real change — often without involving those directly impacted.
Telling Someone’s Story Without Them
Speaking on behalf of marginalised people without sharing power, compensation, or the platform. Often framed as advocacy, but functions as appropriation.
Rewriting Struggle as Inspiration
Turning a complex, painful lived experience into an inspirational story that removes the systemic context — making it easier to consume, but harder to challenge.
Extracting Lived Experience into Research for Credit
When universities or institutions take knowledge developed through survival and reframe it into academic output — stripping the authorship and decontextualising the pain.
Trying on Struggle Without Living It
When people reword or co-opt someone’s survival story for social media clout, awareness campaigns, or funding applications — often without consent.
A collection of protected semantic frameworks written by lived-experience authors. Each glossary holds the line against pattern theft, narrative laundering, and coercive rewording.
These terms defend the metadata of lived experience in digital systems.
View Entries →The core terms that scaffold SSA™ and uphold protocol-layer authorship.
View Entries →These terms unpack how institutions weaponise the language of inclusion while reinforcing control.
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