You’ve probably been cancelled. You may have knowingly or unknowingly cancelled someone or something. I’ve probably been cancelled. I might even be cancelled by you right now.
Kevin Spacey, Harvey Weinstein, R Kelly. When was the last time you saw any of these names not involved in some kind of controversial conundrum or ‘cancelling’? Most of the time, we see public figures or celebrities get ‘cancelled’ because of something bad that they’ve done. In today’s society a lot of people like to think of themselves as whistleblowers – they see something unlawful or immoral, whether it be a tweet or picture/video or a comment about a series of allegations and have to take action against it.
Cancel culture, also known as call-out culture, is a type of public shaming (usually on social media e.g. Twitter, YouTube, Instagram etc.) where a person or organisation publicly does and/or says something controversial – as a result a community or general public then ‘call out’ the offender, thereby shaming or punishing them. Usually public figures or celebrities are targeted when it comes to cancel culture, and when saying that we as a society or general public are cancelling someone it means we are trying to abolish their significance.
There is a somewhat technological factor to cancel culture, being that it is a modern phenomenon stemming from the apparent increase in internet and social media usage. A critical mass of people (i.e. audiences) quickly judge this person, usually absolutely shredding the person in question on social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram. It is commonly, but not subjected to, accusations with and/or without merit.
According to the New York times, there’s a hierarchy to being cancelled. There are celebrities who say generally unpopular things or opinions. For example; in May of 2018, rapper Kanye West said the enslavement of African Americans over centuries may have been a “choice”. As you can imagine, many fans and people of the public were confused and outraged.
What was actually said by Kanye West, was:
“When you hear about slavery for 400 years…400 years? That sounds like a choice. We’re mentally imprisoned. Right now, we’re choosing to be enslaved.”
While the statement itself and its intended perception is questionable Kanye West did not explicitly say the words “slavery is a choice”, however that was what headlines and tweets screamed when the story broke.
Another example of a scandal that ‘broke the internet’ and resulted in cancelling, was the James Charles and Tati Westbrook situation. Both James Charles and Tati Westbrook are popular beauty YouTubers, James known for his beauty tutorials and also as a celebrity makeup artist and Tati for similar tutorials and also her own brand of health vitamins (called HALO Beauty Vitamins).
Allegations of homophobic and racist comments as well as borderline predatory behaviour were made against Charles, and Westbrook uploaded a video to her channel to address or ‘call out’ Charles’ behaviour, saying it has been inappropriate for far too long.
As a result of this video fans began to “cancel” James Charles, as he began to lose millions and millions of subscribers from his own YouTube channel.
Hashtags, memes and many videos began to surface as the magnitude surrounding this scandal began to rise – even fellow celebrities began to weigh in with their opinions (such as beauty YouTuber and entrepreneur Jeffree Star) and some even unfollowed Charles on Twitter (such as Kylie Jenner and YouTube stars The Dolan Twins).
But like most instances within this ruthless cancel culture, these people only stay cancelled for so long. In the so-called hierarchy in cancelling, the bottom to mid-tier scandals stay relevant for a certain amount of time before people and fans get bored.
For example, the aforementioned James Charles and Tati Westbrook incident happened in May and since, James Charles has gained back the millions of followers he’s lost and is doing well in the selling of his makeup products.
Many stars and influencers like Charles get absolutely slaughtered when the topic is hot and still a-buzz on social media – they lose family & friends, money (if a majority of their revenue is based on post reach and fan activity such as follows and subscribes) and are seemingly disgraced from social media, however months down the line they are back to their normal activities.
In more serious instances of stars being cancelled (such as Kevin Spacey or R Kelly), any hope of snapping back in the near future probably isn’t likely due to the seriousness and magnitude of the allegations. Kevin Spacey had a number of accusations made against him, ranging from sexual assault to ‘routinely’ preying on young male actors. These allegations were made back in August 2017 – his latest film since 2017, Billionaire Boys Club, made a miserable $126 (£98) at last August’s US Box Office.
Mr Robert Kelly is another example; while he’s had sexual abuse allegations against him for more than two decades, it was the release of the documentary “Surviving R Kelly” that really done it. The documentary featured victims of his sexual abuse accounting their stories and everything they saw and experienced while living under his seemingly watchful eye.
Obviously, people and fans as well as celebrities were quick to express their concern and general opinions and the scandal spread through social media like wildfire. As a result, at such a response from the public, Kelly was dropped from his label and a trial & investigation has been launched as he awaits the final verdict from courts on 13thFebruary 2020.
Cancel culture has its pros and cons. Because the act of cancelling can threaten a career/social status and the way the person is viewed, it can be damaging. As previously shown, some have a perfectly good reason for being cancelled but for some it can be extremely harmful, especially if they are tweets or messages or comments made from a long time ago. It can affect their image and not let them learn or grow from their mistakes. For example;
I interviewed someone who has been publicly cancelled on Twitter. This person was ‘cancelled’ on Twitter based on a collection of things she has said and done. She is not famous, however relatively known around a few friendship groups because of situations similar to this and she is no longer on Twitter. She has deactivated her social media accounts and would not like to be named – the images below are the exact tweets from a person who cancelled the woman in question:
Mobbing can also stem from cancelling, as well as cyberbullying. If someone is cancelled, the situation is can be followed by a lot of online, and sometimes in-person harassment (as you can see from the above screenshots).
I think the main thing to take away from this is that cancel culture, for the most part, is very toxic. Most people in today’s society have the power to write what they feel and think online, and in a lot of instances, it is taken advantage of quite often. It may feel fun to get involved in the memes or the latest “tea” but it’s also important to fact-check and realize whether it’s okay or not to cancel someone, as I’m sure there instances where people have been cancelled based on inconclusive information or rumours.
While the method of public shaming may be new (i.e. on social media), cancel culture isn’t new. Before social media usage was as high as it is today, print media was the primary method for publicly shaming important figures and celebrities.With print media it was much easier able to deal with cancel culture because the media organisation would be sued for libel or defamation etc. But social media is so expansive and there are so many millions of people that are publicly shaming each other, therefore making it harder to tackle the problem at hand, and it is likely that it will only get wrorse.