Cancel culture gives a toxic power to people on the internet
Cancel culture promotes a mob mentality and causes damage to people’s lives.
September 29, 2020
Social media has become a tool for activism, socialization and self-expression. Over the past several years, it has become the ideal platform for cancel culture’s growth.
We have witnessed cancel culture affect people’s lives, from celebrities to regular people like you and me. This trend on social media has evolved into a weapon with the potential to ruin lives.
How did cancel culture become so destructive and toxic?
Cancel culture began in 2015 on Twitter as a joke, a reaction to someone who acted in a way that others disapproved of.
Fast forward five years and cancel culture has evolved into a toxic trend on social media designed to bring down celebrities, brands and shows from their pedestal in pop culture for acting in a way that is offensive to the masses or supporting a particular ideology.
When this trend involves celebrities, what usually occurs is that tweets, photos and videos resurface, either from the celebrity’s past or more recently.
Typically, what they find is the celebrity in question is caught saying derogatory comments that are insensitive to particular groups. Fans and other social media users take it upon themselves to comment their thoughts on the actions done by the celebrity or brand, leading to boycotting their work and products and unfollowing them from all platforms. Consequently, this hurts their careers and the brands they have built.
It happened recently with Harry Potter series author J.K. Rowling, who has come under fire for her comments towards transgender folks. Rowling’s behavior caused an uproar amongst her fans, who were in shock upon reading the comments made by the author, who created a world they can identify themselves with.
In this case, canceling Rowling is hard because her series became a pop culture phenomenon, but social media knew it needed to be done. Now, when we think of anything remotely to Harry Potter, J.K. Rowling has become disassociated from the series.
In another instance, Guardians of the Galaxy director James Gunn faced scrutiny in 2018 for offensive tweets that resurfaced, leading to fans canceling him. His role as director of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was jeopardized and he was fired by Disney.
Cancel culture worked in bringing James Gunn down from his pedestal but also failed in keeping it that way; almost a year later, Gunn was reinstated as the director of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.
Cancel culture promotes a mob mentality that is often toxic because it gives people online a power they have never experienced before. The power they possess is informal since social media users can unfollow and choose to ignore the person whom they are canceling.
This power can lead to messy endings and vicious searches into people’s personal lives. All someone has to do is tweet, “Twitter, do your thing,” and minutes later someone is canceled.
This happened to Amy Cooper, who called the cops on Christian Cooper, a birdwatcher in Central Park, after asking her nicely to put her dog’s leash back on because it was a park rule.
After the video went viral, people took it upon themselves to dig into the life of Amy Cooper, discovering where she worked and getting her fired. Christian Cooper, who took and published the video of his interaction with Amy Cooper, stated that he posted the video to serve as a lesson, not to have strangers to get her fired from her job.
One shouldn’t have to go to the depths of finding out someone’s job to have that person canceled and learn a lesson. Yes, I’m aware that what Amy Cooper did was wrong and that she should be reprimanded for her actions, but her penalty should not have been as destructive as it was.
I am not justifying her actions, but we shouldn’t have to act like vigilantes taking down a villain. That is the toxic power that cancel culture gives to people.
As ironic as it might sound, we need to cancel “cancel culture.”
The toxic environment created by this trend has a destructive purpose to end someone’s life. This hurts people personally, even if the act of canceling is done online.
Patricia Olney • Jan 16, 2021 at 6:27 pm
I know a faculty member who was just fired this way. His comments on Twitter offended those who disagreed with him and instead of engaging him in a debate– he was arguing in favor of agency as a cause of race problems while most were arguing the problems were structural– they went after him personally. As happened with Amy Cooper who we all have been conditioned to see in a negative light as the narrative was completely framed by those who saw the 30 second sound bite about her racism, these tweets were taken completely out of context by people who knew nothing about this professor. It turns out he is one of the kindest people I have met, has to care for a severely disabled brother, is not only not racists and transphobic, but is a minority and gay himself, and had an impeccable professional record before this happened. As a result of Twitter demands to fire him, his university did, despite his tenure and great record. He has to sell his home, his reputation has been ruined, and he may never be able to get another job. A faculty who went through this before he did, committed suicide and it is something that concerns me. I wish I knew how to help, but at the very least I agree– we have to cancel cancel culture. Destroying people’s lives via social media vigilantism is not only wrong but does not even accomplish its purpose– as quite often the targets are misunderstood. The context of the comments is never accurately captured. I wish we could hold the perpetrators accountable for destroying the lives of these people. Ironically, they claim they cancel due to the target’s intolerance but the intolerant ones are the “cancelers.” Cancel culture is toxic and even lethal.
Mauricio Santana • Oct 15, 2020 at 2:31 pm
That’s funny. She got caught being racist. I guess what white people are really is embarrassed because sometimes white people do racist shot. It doesn’t make them racist they just need to be.made aware of their actions. When you call white people out on things or point something out that is kinda racist their immediate reaction is to get defensive and they are not racist. They probably aren’t but their action or comment was. Don’t get offended by being made aware of your racist action. Don’t take it personal and learn from it. You were conditioned that way. Just like we are conditioned to think Columbus discovered America. It’s pretty silly. It’s like me saying I discovered the moon because I looked up.
Deborah • Oct 7, 2020 at 6:39 am
Plus Amy Cooper did not call the police because she was asked nicely to leash her dog. She called the police because Chris Cooper made a threatening comment, tried to take her dog away from her and then started videotaping her just as she had gotten control of the dog and was trying to attach the leash. And she only called the police after first trying two things to avoid calling the police, firmly and politely asking him to stop which is right out of police self defense training and then trying a threat. Only then did she call the police and only told them what had actually happened. In fact, Chris Cooper says he INTENDS dog owners to be alarmed on his Facebook page. New York State increased the penalty for theft of a pet in recognition of the emotional trauma. Chris Cooper exploited this emotional trauma and then filmed it out of context. The press soon completely left out the details of what had come just before. So now Chris Cooper is a hero and Amy Cooper is the worst person in the world for being one of many New Yorkers trying to walk their dog while social distancing as thousands of New Yorkers were dying of a new disease. Dog runs had been closed without expanding the off leash hours in the places remaining in Central Park. No wonder bird watchers had said that the number of people violating the rules in the Ramble had grown during the pandemic. New York could have expanded off leash hours in the legitimate areas or expanded the territory temporarily to prevent these conflicts in the first place in the special case of a pandemic. Those places are provided because apartment dogs have zero ability to run without them. Many people violated the rules at this time due to a special case…Amy Cooper implied she normally goes to dog runs. Only Amy Cooper’s life was ruined.