Cancel Culture: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly.

Another day, another celebrity’s name dragged through the mud on the internet. It’s not an uncommon sight that each time you log onto Twitter, you see another celebrity who has been exposed for a wrongdoing they committed in their near or far past. This convention of calling out influential people has become so common, especially during lockdown, that it has been coined the term ‘cancel culture’.

This term might ring a bell, you might even use it in daily conversation, but if it doesn’t, here’s a small definition from the Telegraph that reads: “Most simply, to cancel someone is to reject them, to ignore, to publicly oppose their views or actions and to deprive them of time and attention – and, sometimes, their ability to make a living.” This practice of cancel culture is mainly propagated through social media, especially Twitter, as it’s the perfect platform for voicing your opinions. You could interpret it this way that cancellation is the modern and digital version of ostracism.

The term ‘cancel’ as a way of dismissal first made its appearance in Mario Van Peeble's 1991 crime thriller New Jack City, where one of the main characters, a drug boss named Nino, retaliates to his girlfriend’s confrontation with him over the violence in his occupation by shoving her on a table, dousing her in champagne and executing the iconic dialogue: “Cancel that b*tch. I'll buy another.”

A recent example you might be familiar with is J. K. Rowling, the once beloved author of everyone’s favorite fantasy series Harry Potter, now at the brunt of Twitter’s wrath for her history of transphobic behaviour. Her actions first caught netizens’ attention when she tweeted in support of Maya Forstater, a British researcher who was kicked out of a not-for-profit think tank association for claiming that “Transwomen are not women”. This brought into light her liking transphobic tweets in the past as well as writing a novel Troubled Blood (under the alias Robert Galbraith) which is said to have transphobic tendencies. Rowling is just one of the many prominent figures in society that has been “cancelled” due to her controversial opinions on the queer community.

Like every occurring phenomena, cancel culture has different perspectives that must be understood in order to form an educated opinion about it. In this piece, we analyze everything: the good, the bad and the ugly.

The Good

The biggest argument for cancel culture is that it gives the common man the power to stand against power to promote social change. The purpose of cancel culture is remedial, not damaging, and it aims to give those marginalized a voice to speak out against the injustices they face. When asked about the strength given to the disempowered as a result of cancel culture, Meredith Clark, Assistant Professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia, she said, “To me, it’s ultimately an expression of agency. To a certain extent: I really do think of it like a breakup and a taking back of one’s power.”

Those influential and in power deserve consequences for their wrong-doings and cancel culture helps us hold them accountable for their actions - this is what those supporting cancel culture believe.

The #MeToo movement was one of cancel culture’s successes. The Me Too movement was originally founded in 2006 by American social activist Tanara Burke but entered the mainstream when in 2017, actress Alyssa Milano put Burke’s cries on a megaphone by starting the social media campaign that we are familiar with today. The movement focuses on sharing one’s own experience with sexual abuse in order to educate the public on how common sexual harassement is and to provide victims with support in solidarity to show that they are not alone. Numerous vulnerable women in the film industry found a platform to voice the abuse they’ve repressed for so long. Celebrities like Louis C. K. and James Franco were exposed for their perpetrated sexual harassment.

The Bad

A lot of people stand against cancel culture as they believe that merely sitting behind a screen and inciting “hate” against a person does little to stir up a rebellion and help those in need. “Cancel culture doesn’t work,” is an opinion that is quite common. As President Barack Obama once quoted, “Like, if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn’t do something right or used the wrong verb, then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself, cause, ‘Man, you see how woke I was, I called you out… That’s not activism. That’s not bringing about change. If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far. That’s easy to do.”

After J. K. Rowling was accused of being a transphobe and her book Troubled Bloods was criticized extensively for transphobic undertones, one would consider it safe to assume that her career would be over post-cancellation. Yet, Rowling’s novel sold 65,000 copies in the first five days of its release, effectively denouncing the impact that cancel culture has.

Cancel culture is also blamed with perpetrating false accusations with lack of evidence. It is claimed that once a user posts an accusation against an influencer, effectively “cancelling” them, the post is re-shared by many without checking for factual evidence, resulting in baseless rumours shared around.

In 2019, YouTuber James Charles was called out by friend and fellow beauty influencer Tati Westbrook for being a “sexual predator to straight men." in response to Charles supporting Westbrook’s rival cosmetics business. With no real evidence to back this claim, the rumour was spread all over social media, framing James Charles as a “danger to society." This rumour led Charles to lose 3 million subscribers on his YouTube channel over the course of two days. However, in a video titled “No More Lies," James Charles rebuked all claims, with evidence, or more commonly known as “receipts," that he was not the person he was made out to be and not a sexual predator. Yet, the damage had been done. James Charles claims it took fans a whole year to realize he was “innocent," as compared to the two days that it took him to lose a major part of his following.

The Ugly

Cancel culture has a very ugly side, and that takes the form of cyberbullying. Often, this automated rebellion can cause a train of hate speech that can be scarring to live after. When a person becomes the target for cancel culture, they can be bombarded with messages of hate speech against them, whether they are relevant to the “mistake” they made or not, making them more than just victims of cancel culture but victims of cyber-bullying. According to a research published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood Journal in 2020, 35% of cyberbully victims and 29% of cyberbullies themselves showed symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

After her racially insensitive tweets from the past resurfaced, beauty YouTuber Laura Lee claimed in her apology videos that not just her but even her family members were receiving aggressive messages that included some messages going as far as threatening their lives. Previously mentioned James Charles said that the hate had become unbearable and he had considered possibly taking his own life. ‘The past week on the internet has been the darkest I think we’ve all ever seen, it’s been the darkest time I have ever had to go through, and my thoughts went to a scary place,’ said Charles.

Experience comes to show that there is a fine line between cancel-culture and cyberbullying.

On one side of the spectrum, we have people carrying the belief that cancel culture gives disadvantaged people a platform to speak out on and on the other, we have people who speculate that cancel culture is ineffective and possibly even harmful. But as it happens with most debates, there’s always a gray area.

Some people are coming to use another term as a replacement for cancel culture: “call-out culture”. While most would use this term as a synonym for cancel culture, some, albeit few, argue that the concept of call-out culture is essentially the same as cancel culture but minus the toxicity. The term is to be disassociated from the umbrella term cancel culture and come to represent solely the positives.

Hopefully, this piece has educated you to this digital anomaly we call cancel culture. Whether you are pro-cancel culture, against it or choose to stay neutral or even use the term call-out culture instead, that decision lies in your hands.

References:

1. Goldsbrough, B., Cavendish, B. and Mclean, B., 2020. Cancel Culture: What Is It, And How Did It Begin?. [online] The Telegraph. Available at: <https://www.telegraph.co.uk/music/what-to-listen-to/cancel-culture-did-begin/>

2. Flood, A., 2020. JK Rowling's New Thriller Takes No 1 Spot Amid Transphobia Row. [online] the Guardian. Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/sep/23/jk-rowling-thriller-no-1-transphobia-row-troubled-blood-robert-galbraith>

3. ProCon.org. 2020. Is Cancel Culture (Or “Callout Culture”) Good For Society? - Procon.Org. [online] Available at: <https://www.procon.org/headlines/is-cancel-culture-or-callout-culture-good-for-society/>

4. Simao, K., 2020. 10 Biggest Celebrity 'Cancellations' Of 2020 (So Far). [online] TheThings. Available at: <https://www.thethings.com/cancelled-celebrities-2020/>

5. Maryville Online. 2020. Me Too: Sexual Harassment Awareness & Prevention | Maryville Online. [online] Available at: <https://online.maryville.edu/blog/understanding-the-me-too-movement-a-sexual-harassment-awareness-guide/>

6. Ng, E., 2020. No Grand Pronouncements Here...: Reflections on Cancel Culture and Digital Media Participation. Television & New Media, 21(6), pp.621-627.

7. Kesslen, B., 2020. The Canceling Of James Charles: Beauty Guru Loses 3 Million Subscribers In A Weekend. [online] NBC News. Available at: <https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/cancelling-james-charles-beauty-youtuber-loses-3-million-subscribers-weekend-n1005131>

8. Smith, K., 2020. James Charles Says It Took A Year For Fans To See He Was “Innocent” In Tati Westbrook Drama. [online] PopBuzz. Available at: <https://www.popbuzz.com/internet/youtubers/james-charles-logan-paul-interview-tati-westbrook/.