Cancel Culture: Our New Poison.
Over the last few years, social media has been awash with various powerful hashtags for change. #BlackLivesMatter. #WeSeeYou. #MeToo. Brands, celebrities, and ordinary folk alike have been at the forefront demanding change for the repressed in all social, political, and economic circles. This behavior brought into existence what is now known as the Cancel Culture.
According to the Merriam Webster dictionary,
…cancel culture refers to the mass withdrawal of support from public figures or celebrities who have done things that aren’t socially accepted today. This practice of “canceling” or mass shaming often occurs on social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook.
When something is canceled, it is ended, done, no longer wanted, like a TV show or subscription. This sense of cancel is the basic idea behind the slang meaning of canceling a person. When a person is canceled, they are no longer supported publicly.
Cancel culture has been effective in shifting longstanding narratives about victims and criminals, and in bringing about actual prosecutions in cases like those of Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein. Last year alone, police brutality in America came into the spotlight and some change was made because of the #BlackLivesMatter movement.
This is good, right? Holding people and organizations accountable for their actions. But is that all there is to this Cancel Culture?
“Mr. Bean” actor Rowan Atkinson compared Cancel Culture to a “medieval mob looking for someone to burn.”
It doesn’t matter how long ago a person made their irredeemably “offensive” comments, or how passionate their apologies are — the social media mob takes no prisoners. The victim ends up losing their job or is significantly harmed in some way well beyond the discomfort of merely being disagreed with.
Things that would typically get you “canceled” today would be:
- Using racist, sexist, or anti-LGBTQ slurs
- Saying the n-word especially when you are a white person!
- Being insensitive towards a vulnerable group
This information is often dug up from the target’s past videos or tweets, (but these may sometimes be recent).
December 4, 2018: comedian Kevin Hart lost his dream gig of hosting the Oscars after the Academy belatedly discovered his old homophobic tweets posted between July 2009 — Jan 2011. The Cancel Culture mob said because Kevin had never apologized for his homophobic jokes, he should therefore not be allowed to host at the Oscars. Eventually, Kevin Hart gave in to the pressure.
Over the past year, popular American TV Show hostess Ellen DeGeneres received serious backlash for her alleged behavior on the set of her show. She survived the cancellation but later on discontinued her show.
Another victim is a popular children’s story, Snow White. On May 3, 2021, The New York Post reported that the Cancel Culture mob says the kiss Prince Charming gives is without Snow White’s consent, as she’s asleep, which cannot possibly be true love if only one person knows what is happening. The uproar on this report has been intense and is still ongoing.
Cancel culture often denies the canceled individual the most basic of human opportunities: to apologize and to be absolved. A quick apology is viewed as insincere, a slow one as being issued under duress, and the matter can still be resurrected days, weeks, even years later. The cancel culture movement diminishes free-thinking, creates a great divide, and sets a poor example for future generations.
Cancel Culture creates an environment where harassment and bullying are accepted and embraced. In no way is contemporary cancel culture about free speech or debate. Nor is it any longer primarily about social justice. People might wish to believe it will effect positive social change. The nature of so many comments on social media seems to indicate otherwise.
The initial premise of Cancel Culture is quite noble and an effective tool to solve social issues. Sadly it has been hijacked by the “woke” brigade and has become a potent poison in our society. It is now a toxic way of simplifying complex issues and encouraging snap judgments that can easily result in overly harsh consequences in less offensive situations.
We can overcome this toxic and harmful behavior.
When it comes to canceling, don’t give in to online peer pressure — do your own research and allow people to be sorry. We’ve all said and done stupid things that we regret. We’ve all made mistakes. And we all deserve second chances, even on the internet.
Conversation, not cancellation, should be the method through which people should be dealing with controversy and disagreement.
It’s time to end cancel culture and start canceling the culture of toxicity that we live in today. Remember people change.
Priyanka Podugu sums it up beautifully:
I believe it’s worth thinking about what accountability looks like beyond simply exiling someone. In doing so, we can position ourselves more firmly within the values of social justice.
