Firstly, I have to say the patently obvious: 'cancel culture' is such an all-purpose and simultaneously nebulous term that it increasingly has come to mean only what the user wants it to mean. The idea of 'cancel culture' is almost entirely up to interpretation, because it has been thrown around in such distorted and paradoxical discussions that it has lost any real legs to stand on. Everyone has such a different idea of what it means, compared to what it achieves or is imagined to achieve. Part of this is intentional, which I will elaborate on later.
However, despite all this, its root and most common usage have to be considered, and they are most important to digesting the practical application of the term today. 'Cancel culture', as perceived, is in some ways an evolution of 'callout culture', which started being codified around 2012 as a reaction to young urban lefties not tolerating previously unchallenged attitudes on the internet. The term cancel culture evolved a few years later, I'd say mid-2016, once the 2016 election started creating a sort of disbelief in how an avowed bigot was making this far and people started taking bigoted posts a lot more seriously. What I do agree with is that the idea of 'calling out' evolved - it wasn't enough to just list the issues, there was a greater sense of not allowing the person to prosper. More about that later. The perception by a far more organised right, often on the end of such things (shockingly!), was that callouts had moved onto a 'cultural level', the very fabric of society trying to shut them down for Saying It Like It Is. The act of calling out someone for their shit, apparently adopted into a political or ideological strategy. I say strategy, because the idea of cancel culture is that it is inherently cunning and not located in morals beyond the moralisation used to justify the apparent cancelling. The overall idea of the term cancel culture is that it is targeted and based in impropriety, Note my use of qualifiers and doubts - because cancel culture is such a reactionary term, codified and organised by those more likely to be on the receiving end of such 'cancelling', it comes with many loaded biases in favour of them. It's an evolution of the behaviour directed at 'political correctness' - once used with seriousness, it's now a perjorative used by those that feel silenced or unable to say what they really feel, because the big left boogeyman (who originally used the term with sarcasm, mocking certain factions in the left) is out to get them. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
On the act of 'cancelling' itself, you get three major strands here.
1) Those who learned social justice ideals solely from the internet and are typically rather young (Gen Z), and extrapolate the ideals they learned from wider discussions and apply it to minutiae or their squabbles. They're well-meaning, mostly, but the sheer amount of useless discourse they create is very easy to twist by bad-faith actors, and they tend to react in a way that makes them easy to manipulate, especially as more and more internet savvy millennials get hired by corporations and learn how to manipulate their good will in a way that inherently awkward PR and HR departments did not know how to do previously.
2) Those that take the idea of 'cancelling' seriously and know either a) what actually works or b) what doesn't. This contains all three groups, and all across the political spectrum. When I say they take 'cancelling' seriously, I merely mean that they recognise what it means and how to theoretically apply oneself to it, or earnestly critique the attitudes apparent within. Simultaneously, they are the group that recognises to what extent 'cancel culture' is imagined, and how to utilise it for their own purposes. While I do not stress a 'both sides are equal' bullshit narrative, this is the group most likely to genuinely believe in the practical way of 'cancelling', and the group that also has the highest number of people capable of manipulating the other two groups.
3) Those that legitimately believe that 'cancel culture' is the boogeyman taken a true form, and the ones most likely to throw around the term completely straight-faced. You will most likely see the terms 'SJW', 'Orange man bad', 'NPC', and so forth used as well. Left wingers do have presence here, but this group is mostly composed of reactionaries - and the right, in this case, is a lot more composed of those more likely to be on the receiving end of cancelling, for whatever reasons. There is a lot of fear here, and because of that, this is the group that, paradoxical to what is typically believed by them, has defined the term 'cancel culture' the most. Their belief in being 'culturally dismissed' allows them to be highly manipulated, and leaves them open to grifters that pray on the perceptions they have, such as Jordan Peterson.
But here's where the joke really kicks in; cancel culture rarely means what it is believed to mean, because it is so ineffectual in practice. 'Cancel culture' doesn't work because it doesn't exist. This has a few faults which I don't have time to explain in depth, however I will try: if the power of 'cancelling' was anywhere as widespread, as earnestly believed in or as impacting on profits as cited by genuine believers, it would be a force to be taken dead seriously. Note that I'm not saying that the idea of organised condemnation separate from 'cancelling' is not effective, but rather, that this nebulous term of 'cancel culture' is utterly deprived of meaning because it fundamentally doesn't achieve shit, and in fact, finds most of its success in those that have been 'cancelled'.
1) Because 'cancelling' is so widely defined and easy to manipulate, it dilutes the power attached to the term and the perceived beliefs behind it. Examples: What is racism to one person is not racism to another person, what is racist to one person is racist to another, but they don't care or gladly trumpet said belief. Simultaneously, you can get people with far more influence and limited perspectives making the decisions for those actually have to live with the social issues likely being brought up. You see this often with discussion involving the n word - shutting out black people and extending forgiveness without nuance or criticism. More examples: The mistakes of youth are, depending on the actors involved, mistakenly or intentionally conflated with the mistakes of the adult. There is an idea that time inherently changes a person; this can be and is mostly true, but must be displayed consistently for it to be taken seriously. The longer the time period, the lower the bar for perceived change needs to be. So easy to manipulate. Further examples: The severity of consequences are often diminished, typically in favour of the person supposedly being 'cancelled'. There tends to be a far larger organised response in favour of playing up the idea that a mistake has no ripples, that a misjudgement always happens isolated from their wider goodness, no matter how often it might happen.
2) These issues constantly playing out in the public sphere have a cumulative effect and they ultimately cheapen the discussion. This idea of cheapening terminology is age-old, but in our contemporary world, a highly relevant analogy to what we see with 'cancel culture' belongs to William Safire. One of Nixon's key speechwriters, he is credited with helping to diminish the perception of Watergate, if not necessarily Nixon himself, through his endless and entirely intentional demeaning of the -gate suffix by creating the joke of the -gate suffix's overuse. By throwing it everywhere, he helped to diminish the importance of the crime itself. This happens so often with 'cancel culture', its intentional overuse diminishing what it really means, if it ever meant anything. The idea of facing consequences for gross violations of conduct is turned into the idea that they're just facing a witch hunt, and the rare cases that are truly smoke with no fire are held up as backing the norm, not exceptions. The necessary nuance for examining these discussions is reduced to pettiness. In the end, 'Cancelling' is largely defined by those with considerable resources, those necessary to launch public PR in their favour, which works against those without (which is most people).
3) If 'cancel culture' was as much of a force as the term culture implies it to be, the success rate of those that apparently throw rocks in its name would be far higher. The simple fact of the matter is that, if anything, it tends to abide by the 'bad publicity is still publicity' aphorism. This is mostly true regardless of political affiliation. I have largely shied from using names and concrete examples until now, but this is where it is most relevant. If 'cancel culture' was a powerful mechanism for delivering punishment, you would know. David Bowie would likely be the subject of far less tattoos on the human body if people actually cared about his predilections towards statutory rape, for example. You could cite nearly any '70s rock figure there, however. Admitted predator Lena Dunham would be similarly affected. Woody Allen. Donald Trump. Figures known for domestic violence, ranging from Floyd Mayweather to Gary Oldman to Bill Murray would not be around, much less making bank. If people actually cared about separating the mistakes of a child/teenager from those of adulthood, Kevin Hart wouldn't be bouncing from success to success ever since people cottoned on to his homophobia. Similarly, Dave Chappelle wouldn't be so brushed off so delightfully. It is by now a tired joke, but there is an entire Netflix category dedicated to this very idea: being 'cancelled' is good for you. Every racist alt-right figure or sympathiser that gets attacked for their views wouldn't be making bank, they are instead comforted by the knowledge that they now have a dedicated market of perpetual self-victimisers that bask in the the tropes I am discussing. Similarly, Sean Spicer wouldn't be on Dancing with the Stars if the power of cancelling was anywhere as effective as it is claimed to be. There are so many people nowadays that are successfully grifting on this subject - I've mentioned Jordan Peterson, but they range from Andy Ngo to Shaun King. Milo is the very rare exception to this: he seems to have been excised from any political groups that once claimed him. Going on, edgelord reply guy 'comedians' that live and die by this behaviour would not be selling out shows daily. I could continue, but I'm a bit tired. That's not to say that the act of ensuring consequences for vile behaviour doesn't happen or is impossible, obviously. But if 'cancel culture' was the nefarious shadow demon of suffering it is made out to be, the mere allegation of improper behaviour would end careers with zero exception.
4) Ultimately, the money and power usually in favour of these people. This should lead into a discussion about how it is increasingly harder to 'cancel' someone in a landscape where they belong to increasingly fewer companies, and simultaneously, to cancel people that are backed by companies intentionally playing into consequence discourse and manipulating hysteria around it, but I don't have the energy right now. The point I'm trying to get to is that Mel Gibson wouldn't be slowly returning to prominence, however bearded and quietly he may be doing so,
The most bitter joke of all this is that so many people have been played for fools, especially those who supposedly decry the idea of 'cancel culture'. People that cry 'vigilantism' have been played like a fiddle, because by resorting to reactionary defenses, they help play up the reason why the term 'cancel culture' was created to begin with; throwing around 'political correctness' as a form of silencing criticism was losing its power, so a new buzzword was created to fill the void. Simple as that - 'cancel culture' is an effective weapon of those looking to cheapen the tools of social justice that have become more widely available in the last few years, tools previously isolated to academic discussions. And Nero played on.
The irony is obvious.
