Serious Cancel Culture, let's talk about it.

[MarinaSpeaks]

With all of the recent incidents from Doja Cat, Lana Del Ray, Hana Kimura, August Ames, and others... How do you guys feel about cancel culture?? I'll provide some info about what I'm talking about for anyone who may not know including a definition, how I see it, and what's been happening lately. Here's a quote from dictionary.com.

Cancel culture refers to the popular practice of withdrawing support for (canceling) public figures and companies after they have done or said something objectionable. Cancel culture is generally discussed as being performed on social media in the form of group shaming.

So 'cancelling' is basically what can happen when people discover and spread something that seems offensive and hurtful that someone else (typically a person of high status) has said or done in the past. This usually leads to public outrage and contempt towards that person, especially on social media. Now sometimes I can totally understand this response, but.. I feel like there are a few major problems with it too.

For one, this kind of public shaming typically relies more on emotion than reason. It's sort of like a mob mentality, and sometimes it will involve some very hurtful false assumptions about people. In the case of Doja Cat (Who I'm a fan of), people accused her of being a racist, talking to racist men in video chats, writing racist song lyrics, and more. They also accused her of other horrible things, which she addressed in this video below.

Before allowing her to explain herself, many people had already made up their minds that she's a bad person. This is the problem with this 'guilty until proven innocent' mentality that many engaged in outrage culture have. Doja recorded her apology about 90 times before deciding to just wing it live on stream. She's also said that she avoids reading social media comments because they can be very very mean and hurtful.



My second main concern about cancel culture is that it COMPLETELY disregards the emotions and mental health of people. It's one thing to accuse people of being horrible, and sometimes it's justified to do so. But at the same time, we are dealing with other human beings. Words can hurt, especially when it's hundreds or thousands of people saying them, and most people care about their image and reputation. I think it's important to remember that pubic shaming on social media can severely hurt a person, and it has lead to a couple of tragic consequences (Hana Kimura and August Ames, to name a few).

In the case of Hana Kimura, people were outraged with her because of a scene in a reality TV show. She was subsequently sent hateful comments from many people and a few people even sent her personal threats and shortly afterwards she took her own life which hurts me to even think about.

Here's a quote explaining the scene leading up to it.

For those who don't know, the incident was that on a recent episode of Terrace House (a Japanese reality show), Hana WENT OFF on a housemate name Kai in very mean (or some may say bitchy) manner for ruining her latest wrestling attire (the purple one she was wearing), by accidentally washing it with his clothes not knowing that the attire was already washed in the washer and was washed again causing it to shrink (hence why you saw her went back wearing her old aqua attire in the recent Stardom shows). Hana admits though, that part of it was her fault for not taking the attire out of the washer when her and Kai went out on a trip together for a double date. But this got to a point where Hana went up to Kai and knock off the cap he was wearing out of his head and glare at him angrily. This was unlike how Hana usually is on the show, where she seemed kind and nice on for the most part.

Personally I feel like hate is usually BUT NOT ALWAYS the wrong way to go about things, and many times it solves nothing and only hurts people. I feel like sometimes aggression is actually necessary and can occasionally lead to positive change. I have personally expressed in the rioting thread my thoughts on that, so sure.

There are definitely instances where the saying 'drastic times call for drastic measures' holds true, and nevertheless I'm aware of some of the reasons cancel culture could seem like a good idea. For one, it prompts people to address very valid concerns that they would otherwise ignore and for two, it can discourage others from doing the same. But when you come at people so aggressively and don't give them a fair chance it's not virtuous, and can be incredibly hurtful.

I'm curious to know what others think about this because I think it's something that tells a lot about our culture in different ways.

 

[Caite-chan]

I was actually thinking about something along the lines of this while laying in bed last night. We are ALL human and NONE of us are perfect and will never be. We are ALL different and not 100% the same as someone else. We are all not going to like and dislike the same thing. Humanity is an ongoing process that's changed and still going to change as long as we have people around.

The fact that we want to give someone the big red X because of what they might have done in the past or may be doing right now is stupid. We are human and will make mistakes. The difference is whether or not we learn and move on from them.

This is what I was thinking about last night in bed is everyone is allowed to think how they want and follow just about anything they want. For example: Some are for abortion while others are against it. If I should be for abortion I should be able to talk about it without worrying about others coming after me for what I believe in. Now we can educate each other on our differences but we should never make someone feel bad for what they believe in (within reason). I know there are some things that are just unspeakable and that there could be a thin line.

You used Doja Cat as an example and as I thought about it I don't really see anything wrong with her talking to racist men. Honestly, we have no idea what they talk about off-camera. What we see on camera is just a snapshot of what we see and we don't see the rest of the time. Just because she talks to a racist doesn't make her a racist.

It's all with how we are raised as kids and then how we change the older we get. Our parents were raised differently than how we were raised because it was a different time. Just because someone likes or is for something you're not shouldn't mean you X them out immediately it should make you want to talk to them even more. Yes it will be uncomfortable but that's the only way we can find out why people are the way they are. Talking about it as adults without screaming and telling them they're wrong is the best thing we can do.

 

[Bellsprout]

In the public view if you commit something deemed a wrong by the majority it's like you must pay for said thing for the entirety of your life. As if we don't all make mistakes and learn from them or as if we haven't thought one thing and then over time realized what we thought isn't what we think now. It's actually baffling to me that someone would care what someone like a celebrity says or does and then needs you to care about it too. People like that are toxic and it's best to stay very far away and laugh as you read the comments they write.

 

[fernshiine]

I think people are kind of like sheep and don't want to admit to following the majority of people. Like, I feel like some people only start getting angry at people and participating in cancel culture because it's what everyone else is doing. I feel like some people just follow the rest of society and don't stop to think for themselves. They just look at what others are saying and go "Oh, these people all think this person is racist. This person has horrible morals. This person is trash." A lot of the time people even make hoaxes saying that someone did something in a popular community and everyone jumps the gun and believes it's true despite not seeing the evidence for themselves.

I also feel like people need to learn to have their own personal sense of morality. Like, often a person with lots of status, followers, and popularity will say something and then people will interpret it to be wrong even though it really isn't, and then BOOM everyone is jumping to conclusions that aren't even true just because some other popular person decides that it was wrong even if it wasn't.

Also, some people take it too far and wish death upon the people they deem as morally wrong.

 

[lilaë21]

I don't follow entertainment news that much so I didn't know about those examples, but I completely agree on the fact it's more about emotion, and it completely ignores the fact that people can (and imho ought to) change for the better. I find unreasonable to think that, say, a 40-year old person should be criticized for something they said when they were 20 if everything they say and do now points to a different point of view from what they said back then (of course criminal responsibilities are a completely different thing, but even there most contemporary judicial systems in the world aim at rehabilitation, so even in those cases one tends to avoid marking people for life). I stand with the legal principle that everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and that's why social media culture doing the opposite made me leave most of those platforms.

 

[Adam Levine]

Frankly, it's disgusting. Remember when a month or so ago, people just realized Joji was Filthy Frank, then started a "#JOJIISOVERPARTY" over the things he'd said as a YouTuber, even though his channel description literally says Filthy Frank is the kind of person you shouldn't be, and Joji simply didn't want to continue his YouTube career any longer? Or when, months ago (maybe even a full year, idk), a young (we're talking a teenager here) blooming Smash player who beat Ally in a tournament was called out for saying slurs in a private Discord conversation over a year before winning against Ally?

A game I've played, VA-11 HALL-A, has a conversation that puts an interesting take on this kind of culture: "People pretend that they love celebs, but what they really want is to see their idols torn down to their level. They want to see them suffer. To get their comeuppance for daring to be so much more successful than them!" Not sure if it's entirely true, but it is an interesting take nonetheless. Perhaps people who indulge in this culture probably envy celebrities because unlike regular people, they're famous, and fame is something many people want, and some people feel deserving of fame more than those who are already famous.

Even worse, this culture will very likely cause some serious repercussions. H3H3 vs. Keemstar drama was hot for a while, and now it seems, thanks to H3H3's fanbase, Keemstar has lost a sponsorship or two. As cR1TiKaL pointed out, this can become an even larger problem because this can happen to anyone, no matter how innocent they may be. People could lose careers and reputation over a bunch of petty haters who desperately want them off the face of the Earth for things that would otherwise be overlooked if a regular person did them.

I mean, if you're after someone who has very clearly done something unlawful and immoral but hasn't faced repercussions for it (you know, with the whole...movement that's been rampant recently), that's another story, but I won't talk about that here.

 

[gimmepie]

I'm always conflicted about this one. I agree with the base premise, that people should be held accountable for their actions and that it is people's right to not hire those who have done wrong/to not consume the products of someone who has done wrong. I feel like this runs a bit wild in practice though. People shouldn't be punished now for something they did ten or twenty years ago if there is nothing to indicate they would do the same thing now.

 

[Palamon]

For the most part, I hate cancel culture. People make mistakes. And online, people can easily edit shit to pretend like it happened, so you never know what's true and what isn't. I feel like only people who have hurt multiple people or are showing consistently gross behavior should be called out on their behavior. But, don't call out someone who's only done one thing wrong, or not especially bad things. People in certain fandoms will call you out for SHIPPING SOMETHING and call them things that they shouldn't be called.

But, if you're constantly racist, homophobic, sexist, transphobic, have been/are abusive, or are a pedophile and there's multiple accounts from multiple people, then yes, people need to be warned. A call out should be done. But don't cancel someone over a fucking ship or liking a character that's not the best human being. Characters aren't real. Liking a specific bad character is no reason to call someone out.

Also the #/CelebrityIsOVerParty trend is really annoying. People really need to stop witch hunting what random celebrities say over the internet just to call them out on it. Unless it's repeated behavior, leave them alone. Leave people alone.

I feel like cancel culture started with people calling out someone on Tumblr for very minor things and blew them out of proportion. It's been getting worse since.

 

[MarinaSpeaks]

Going to respond to your answers because I really enjoy engaging on these subjects. :)

I think people are kind of like sheep and don't want to admit to following the majority of people. Like, I feel like some people only start getting angry at people and participating in cancel culture because it's what everyone else is doing. I feel like some people just follow the rest of society and don't stop to think for themselves. They just look at what others are saying and go "Oh, these people all think this person is racist.

This is exactly what I mean.. like I kept reading these nasty comments of people saying horrible things about those men: that they're racist, incels, and all kinds of nasty baseless descriptions about them and honestly I find it so horrible that people can just join together and bully others they know NOTHING about just because of hearsay. :(

I was actually thinking about something along the lines of this while laying in bed last night. We are ALL human and NONE of us are perfect and will never be. We are ALL different and not 100% the same as someone else. We are all not going to like and dislike the same thing. Humanity is an ongoing process that's changed and still going to change as long as we have people around.

Exactly! Personally I consider myself an existentialist and I strongly believe that people shouldn't be afraid to be themselves, as long as they make sure to follow the golden rule. In fact I would encourage people to learn to love and appreciate themselves FOR their uniqueness, because hiding these traits that make you special is in a way banishing a part of your own personhood... at least in my opinion.

I stand with the legal principle that everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and that's why social media culture doing the opposite made me leave most of those platforms.

I definitely believe in innocent until proven guilty as well. ^^ Although I also believe in using common sense and looking at all evidence before coming to conclusions. I think that we humans often struggle to be objective in a lot of circumstances. If the court of public opinion were a real civil court, it would be the worst most incompetent court on the planet that would just prosecute everyone. ><;;

"People pretend that they love celebs, but what they really want is to see their idols torn down to their level. They want to see them suffer. To get their comeuppance for daring to be so much more successful than them!" Not sure if it's entirely true, but it is an interesting take nonetheless. Perhaps people who indulge in this culture probably envy celebrities because unlike regular people, they're famous, and fame is something many people want, and some people feel deserving of fame more than those who are already famous.

What you're describing is called tall poppy syndrome and it definitely exists and it's horrible. :c

I'm always conflicted about this one. I agree with the base premise, that people should be held accountable for their actions and that it is people's right to not hire those who have done wrong/to not consume the products of someone who has done wrong. I feel like this runs a bit wild in practice though. People shouldn't be punished now for something they did ten or twenty years ago if there is nothing to indicate they would do the same thing now.

I agree very strongly with this and I can understand being conflicted about it because I am too! I just feel that the main problem is how people go about cancelling, the vitriol, dehumanization and lack of reason is what really bugs me. The fact that we can bring people to their breaking point where they're literally considering just ending it all because of how badly the abuse can get to them mentally... and it's not okay...

But, if you're constantly racist, homophobic, sexist, transphobic, have been/are abusive, or are a pedophile and there's multiple accounts from multiple people, then yes, people need to be warned. A call out should be done.
Also the #/CelebrityIsOVerParty trend is really annoying. People really need to stop witch hunting what random celebrities say over the internet just to call .

I 100% agree with you as well! I feel like some people deserve cancellation a lot more than others. One very prominent example would be a person such as Harvey Weinstein. People who are powerful and hard to knock down are much better at getting away with abuse. The problem of course as many of you and myself have noted is that most of the time the people at the end of it aren't bad people at all, only misunderstood and misrepresented.

 

[Her]

I can't help but laugh at the idea of people here calling others sheep, but using terminology coined by pissbrained 'cancelled' racists - 'cancel culture' originated as a deflection, the idea that "The only reason I am being called out is because I am the victim of a societal Woke Stasi persecution force". I think there is much to critique around the idea of 'cancelling' and its effectiveness or morality, but our respective soapboxes can't be made out of rotted balsa wood. The idea of 'cancel culture' an intentional inability to understand the need for reflection, to take on any idea of culpability; as this is an idea most strongly associated with grifters, in part due to the reality that reactionary grifters i.e Jordan Peterson helped popularise the term, it is not surprising that it is an inherently dishonest idea.
It is also a fundamental misunderstanding, deliberate or otherwise, of the level of control the common person has relative to the gears of industry that actually have the power to 'cancel'. The idea behind cancelling ultimately comes down to a plea, or a pleading, to financially abandon the figure after a grievous faux pas. We withdraw our financial support, and do not contribute to this person or business that is doing harm. But the level of capital needed to influence the supposed cancelling is well out of the reach of the worker. Media and tech industry consolidation is at a point where the financial impetus towards pressuring the Cancelled Person's corporate backers into Doing Better is not just nothing, it is actually the reverse - to be 'cancelled' is to be noticeable, to be a source of interest, and therefore inherently profitable. Like, you think the fuckin' Kardashians and Jenners and Pauls and whoever the fucks just exist in a vacuum? Even if the figure does do something so grievous as to lose their soulless backers, they are typically readily absorbed into the reactionary conservative grifter scheme; a new market that exists solely around the idea of being perpetually 'cancelled'. Gun Girl aka Kaitlyn Bennett is a prime example here. Cancel culture isn't 'real'. But it is a thriving industry.

However, this thread does seem to be more about 'cancelling' on a different level, people that aren't necessarily wealthy or media presences or whatever. And what I think this thread is attempting to grasp is not the idea of 'cancelling', but instead, the limits of culture as being constrained by performative wokescolds. The internet has helped to proliferate many powerful left-wing ideas to the masses that were previously locked up in the walls of academia, even if truly radical thought has not had that same luck. And the downside of this mass proliferation is not some stupid and degrading idea of 'people outside of academia don't know how to wield complex theory on culture industry and social justice bc they're stupid as fucccccccc', but rather, it happened at such a pace that there wasn't enough time to impress the ideas of responsibility alongside them. I think the dumbasses over at Red Scare are contrarian idiots, but they do provide interesting food for thought on the topic. People that have little to no tangible idea of critique, an inability to detail their politics outside of how Things Make Them Feel, and a pathological drive to make up for/distract from their guilt of Past Crimes by grandstanding. These people do not connect with the topics they are supposedly imploring others to consider - they are instead centring the discussion around themselves. White guilt is probably the most noticeable form of this, and probably the most insidious form of it as well. Aw, you're sad about being white and being associated with white supremacy? Go donate to some black people, and remove your head from your ass. This is similar to the idea of tone policing - it centres the discussion about yourself, removing it from any context and purportedly helpful praxis. Aw, someone doesn't think cops are good people? Tone policing is about as radical as Ellen Degeneres. These are the stereotypes you people in this thread are describing, do not get it mistaken. Like, wokescolding comes from such a grievous and pathological displacing of priorities - we're about to enter a global depression and political realignments the world over, the fascists are increasingly gaining power at breathtaking speed, climate change is about to kill us all, and this is the stuff you're worried about? Wokescolding is ultimately a place of indulgence, of privilege, of narcissism. It becomes cyclical, and what would be minor mistakes become grandiose crimes against the weakest idea of humanity.

But don't get me mistaken, I think the Queer Eye gang should be kicked down to Jahannam for embodying the worst of elitist LGBT politics. And this thread is rather embarrassing for playing down the total weirdness of Doja Cat - sorry, but the 'dindu nuffin' material is some fucked up shit! Furthermore, if you truly think anyone who gets into Youtube drama for a living is remotely deserving of sympathy, you're a joke. They deserve to be mocked, and the idea of 'cancel culture' is just the most precious form of protecting one's fragility. And in general, I think if you're foolish enough to not understand that the memory and breadth of modern media apparatuses is truly eternal, and you don't delete your fuckin' slur tweets, then that's on you. However, don't take this as some sort of rejection behind the underlying ethos of wanting people to be better - we should be encouraging people to do better, we should be insistent on people (and OURSELVES) on removing destructive ideologies from our way of thinking. But pick your battles, and do it for reasons of empathy to the oppressed, not because you're emotionally stunted and unable to conceive of political and cultural reform outside of the lamest attempts at dragging.

 

[MarinaSpeaks]

I'm going to leave a few comments because you made a lot of very good points that I would like to give my thoughts on, and thank you so much for writing this because it's a really fantastic contribution to my thread and you brought up some points that no one else had. If you read this please excuse any weird ordering because I kinda did this fast, but I wanted to add a little bit from my perspective to a couple of your points.

However, this thread does seem to be more about 'cancelling' on a different level, people that aren't necessarily wealthy or media presences or whatever. And what I think this thread is attempting to grasp is not the idea of 'cancelling', but instead, the limits of culture as being constrained by performative wokescolds. The internet has helped to proliferate many powerful left-wing ideas to the masses that were previously locked up in the walls of academia, even if truly radical thought has not had that same luck. And the downside of this mass proliferation is not some stupid and degrading idea of 'people outside of academia don't know how to wield complex theory on culture industry and social justice bc they're stupid as fucccccccc', but rather, it happened at such a pace that there wasn't enough time to impress the ideas of responsibility alongside them.

Very accurate, we use the term 'cancel culture' simply because it's the expression many use to describe the social phenomenon. Sure, it's definitely not the most appropriate self explanatory term to delineate what it actually references. I mean, I could say outrage culture, but even that term comes with certain implications I don't want to infer. And I totally get that it's a term made notorious by 'reactionaries', and I honestly felt a little hesitant to use it initially because of these reasons, but I choose to because I felt it would be familiar. This is a very good point though.. and I'm overall happy to see the left make a bigger presence online, but I worry about these 'wokescold' types you've mentioned taking their anger out in some of the worst possible ways possible which has the potential to push people to their breaking point.

Another thing I'd like to add is that I've seen many argue that cyber bullying isn't real, and that would be a conversation I'd love to have some other time - but it can often lead to the same, and often worse outcomes. My point being that many people downplay the impact of these behaviors because to them it's just 'words online' and people should just 'suck it up and learn to ignore it'.

People that have little to no tangible idea of critique, an inability to detail their politics outside of how Things Make Them Feel, and a pathological drive to make up for/distract from their guilt of Past Crimes by grandstanding. These people do not connect with the topics they are supposedly imploring others to consider - they are instead centring the discussion around themselves.

This point is amazing. I feel it so much and I'm very happy that you mentioned it because I've seen and experienced it plenty of times myself.
I often notice reading controversial back and forth's in online comment sections that people's arguments are more often an expression of themselves than any meaningfully objective assertions, and I can often interpret a message into "I care about this and not this", despite the way people frame their arguments as objective while simultaneously postulating outright falsehoods because it suits what they want to believe, or what they genuinely believe.

It is also a fundamental misunderstanding, deliberate or otherwise, of the level of control the common person has relative to the gears of industry that actually have the power to 'cancel'. The idea behind cancelling ultimately comes down to a plea, or a pleading, to financially abandon the figure after a grievous faux pas. We withdraw our financial support, and do not contribute to this person or business that is doing harm. But the level of capital needed to influence the supposed cancelling is well out of the reach of the worker.

This is very true. My main concern would be less of cancelling itself, because as you've expressed, 'cancelling' doesn't work. It has more to do with the potential for public outrage to take a toll on one's mental health -- hence why I brought up a couple of examples of people taking their lives over it. People in the public eye are known for receiving hate messages and many deliberately avoid comments directed at them because words can be very hurtful, and it can be very difficult for many people to just... not care. It can be especially damaging when a person in question has existing mental health concerns stacked on top of it. It's one thing to express your concerns assertively and firmly, another thing to completely disregard the well being of others because of your self-righteous indignation.

Like, wokescolding comes from such a grievous and pathological displacing of priorities - we're about to enter a global depression and political realignments the world over, the fascists are increasingly gaining power at breathtaking speed, climate change is about to kill us all, and this is the stuff you're worried about? Wokescolding is ultimately a place of indulgence, of privilege, of narcissism. It becomes cyclical, and what would be minor mistakes become grandiose crimes against the weakest idea of humanity.

With this I feel it's a matter of knowing your target, and knowing you do have the potential to (collectively) provoke them into capitulating. It sorta feels like a form of retribution for those involved who are more sadistic. Like for example in all of the instances I mentioned, it often provokes 'apologies', although only some are willing to accept said apologies.

I agree very much with your point though, that people's priorities are a bit concerning.

But don't get me mistaken, I think the Queer Eye gang should be kicked down to Jahannam for embodying the worst of elitist LGBT politics. And this thread is rather embarrassing for playing down the total weirdness of Doja Cat - sorry, but the 'dindu nuffin' material is some psyducked up muk!

Haha. Honestly, I do like Doja's music and I won't claim everything I've written is 100% objective either. Although I wouldn't fully excuse her behavior because I do see how and why it can concern people, especially African Americans. Although I feel that many of the harsh reactions she's been met with are overly critical and often very slanderous as well. Like, I could easily see myself in a similar situation but you already know where I'm getting at with this. In the end all I can say is I believe in the ethic of reciprocity.

 

[Alexander Nicholi]

Meh, it's what it's always been. Tribal warfare in words only. It's an unbecoming thing for anyone to do IMO. I get how lots of people are finding the world to not be how they thought it was, and I know this drives fear into irrational decision-making.

But at the same time, it's a natural process. Watching autonomous zones collapse and police departments walk off the job because of no pay is satisfying, because it's destroying the optics play behind what's really going wrong in society.