Is Cancel Culture a real thing? It sure seems that way with everything and everybody from J.K. Rowling and Christopher Columbus to Goya beans and confederate statues getting the treatment of late. What treatment is that? As Wikipedia puts it, “The act of canceling, also referred to as cancel culture (a variant on the term ‘callout culture’), describes a form of boycott in which an individual (usually a celebrity) who has acted or spoken in a questionable or controversial manner is boycotted.”
Explains the New York Post:
“J.K. Rowling and Ellen DeGeneres are among the latest famous faces to find themselves trending and declared ‘over,’ joining the hordes of celebrity “casualties” of cancel culture 2020.
Twitter users took to the digital platform last month to condemn Harry Potter author Rowling for making anti-trans comments along with denouncing singer-rapper Doja Cat’s racist chatroom past and former ‘Glee’ star Lea Michele’s alleged mistreatment of co-stars. By July, the focus had lasered in on talk show host DeGeneres (complete with a death hoax) and ‘Killing Eve’ star Jodie Comer’s rumored conservative boyfriend.”
That’s why I don’t get it when people say that Cancel Culture isn’t real. Granted, there’s no conscious, coordinated effort to “cancel” people, places, or things but the effect is very much real. Act inappropriately and your actions will have real consequences. Yes, you have the right to say whatever you want. But everyone else also has the right to respond to what you say. If the end result of that is that you wind up losing your job, your platform, your brand, or your image then so be it.
It would be far worse if you were completely innocent. If a random mob of Internet users just randomly decided to cancel you for fun as part of a larger power play. That would be wrong. That would be cyber bullying and none of us would like that. But if a “Karen” gets called out for doing something immoral? That’s not called Cancel Culture That’s called Karma.
That’s why I’d like to suggest that we create a formal website to coordinate and keep track of all these cancellations to give them an air of credibility. We can call the site Shame(s) on You and use it to call out anyone who is racist or sexist, committing criminal acts, or infringing upon the rights of other citizens in any way whatsoever. We could use it to publicly shame people for not wearing masks or acting like Karens. And we could use it to aide the Black Lives Matter and Me Too Movements.
All in all, the site would be all about calling attention to injustices and getting those issues resolved. It would be a force for good. For social change. Maybe Cancel Culture isn’t real. But it should be.
Is Cancel Culture real?
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