should we cancel cancel culture?

SARAH WATERS AND AZARIA JONES

Pro’s

Trends are some of the defining features of a year or era- the mullets and ripped jeans of the 1980s, the boo-yah saying and Tamagotchis of the 1990s and even the cha-cha slide of the early 2000s. Each of these trends may either be remembered with fondness or horror -often depending on what side of history you’re on- but now there seems to be a new, more political trend emerging within today’s era- “Cancel Culture”. This trend, like most, is also either loved or hated- but often for more complex reasons than the simple personal preference of earlier trends; instead often requiring the assessment of one’s own moral compass in reference to a specific community’s opinion.

Cancel Culture involves a group of people, or even a singular person, “exposing” a person of fame or importance who has previously committed acts deemed immoral or inappropriate by a sizable group of people.

This creates an environment of peer pressure, which often forces the person to apologise, lose support, or even lose their job over the alleged claims. This has been helpful in a number of cases, such as the most commonly mentioned case of cancel culture; the Jeffry Epstein case. In examples of alleged sexual assault, celebrities/influencers such as J.K Rowling and Bari Weiss were ‘under fire’ due to discriminatory opinions.

These cases can be seen in a positive light, where many of the people’s supporters are able to see the person’s values and whether they align with their own, making it easier for people to see who to support and agree with. It also enables the general community to be able to observe and even partake in acts of justice as they see fit, or even simply be aware of the issue as a whole directly from other members of the community, rather than filtered by sources such as the media or the celebrity themselves.

The other benefit of this method includes the community’s ability to hold a person accountable, rather than depending on a few key people to judge for them. This way, people can use their power of the majority to change the world to what they would rather see- often attempting to further free it from obvious negative behaviour such as racism, sexism, or homophobia, and to hopefully promote a more morally just community.

We have all seen cases of people who simply should not be in a position of power or influence, and cancel culture can be a way to ensure that they are punished and have their power taken away. Once deemed ‘America’s father’, Bill Cosby was a man whose work could be seen flashing across the screens of most TV’s in the 80s and 90s. He held significant power and influence but was later accused of sex offences. While this was originally overlooked in 2004, 10 years later, more people came forward, detailing what had happened between them and Cosby. Cancel culture worked in this instance to charge and ‘cancel’ a man who once held power and was considered ‘good’- by everyone except his victims. 012

As a society, we are constantly pushing to out rule stigma associated with minority groups. However, cancel culture sets this progress back decades and calls for people to work as a majority group to ‘cut down’ the person they are trying to attack. When put simply like that it seems to reflect ideas of bullying- unidentifiable faces voicing their opinions to the void of the internet that consumes so much of our time. This means that it has become increasingly important to follow ‘The Group’ and their ideas and values. This phenomenon fails to recognise minorities and their ideas and beliefs, as the whole idea is that a large group with a loud voice needs to push their ideas. Social media has made this anonymous grouping easier, particularly the popular social platforms Reddit and Twitter. A classic example of Cancel Culture and it negative impacts is in the case of Carson King, a man, who in 2019 went viral as he famously held up a sign in a “College GameDay” event asking people to Venmo him money for his beer supply. This joking ad got aired on TV and ended up gaining him over $1 million dollars, which he promptly donated to one of the state Children’s Hospitals. Having become viral overnight, for not only his hilarious accidental fame and success but also his seemingly incredible sense of selflessness, he managed to raise even more fame and awareness as he appeared on national TV shows like “Goodmorning America” and being the tagline for companies such as Busch Light and Venmo who both pledged to match whatever money he made from the cause.

We’ve all heard of cyber attacks and bullying incidents and we are automatically programmed to recognise it as wrong. So, why is this any different? Due to the constant monitoring of behaviour and easy access to past and present actions, previous comments, and past actions can be taken out of context and misinterpreted in a reductionist way. As a teen, social media is an easy platform to use to share your opinions in a way that gets you that ‘5 minutes of fame feeling’. Whether it be a racist tweet, a controversial anti-religion post shared or a video about going back to ‘the old ways’, these are all ways in which we seek to climb the social ladder to feel *important*. As writers or ‘cancel-hunters’ seek to find people to bring down, it has become easier to isolate old comments made that the person in question stated as a teen. Fast forward 20 years to their modern self, those comments may not reflect their current ideals. These comments made in the person’s far past can result in their being ‘cancelled’. We seem to be able to understand that this is wrong logically speaking, but when it comes to cancel culture, this logic is thrown out the window and we take these past public announcements to be a whole and complete the retro issue picture of the person. This seemingly good occasion took a sour twist however when a reporter named Aaron Calvin set out to make a report on him and discovered that the now 24-year-old King had posted two racist tweets when he was 16. While it was not Calvin’s intention to cancel King, the findings caused major backlash towards him, with him almost immediately losing his sponsorship with Busch and suddenly having a vast amount of hate thrown towards him. However, this stage quickly backfired for Calvin as it was discovered he himself had posted a number of racist remarks in the past, causing him to lose his own job, as people viewed his comments towards King completely hypocritical.

Cancel Culture makes people quick to tear each other down in the face of moral superiority, and to seemingly “forget” about their own misdemeanours which often makes their criticism completely unjust. The problem is, no one is perfect, so no one can expect others to be- something which Cancel Culture almost seems to promote in its ideal standard of “creating a better world”. Rather, it seems that Cancel Culture may simply be creating a more toxic environment, as people get the allowance to tear each other down over things that happened years ago, may be taken out of context, or even be ‘crimes’ the accusers have committed themselves. 013