Cancel culture

Former Member

Is there a space for cancel culture?
What do you think?

I think personally if someone is obviously doing harmful things they should be.
Or within a certain group someone might get cancelled. But some people don't deserve to be like over a tweet or something they said 7 years ago so it really depends.

lovemimoon

I believe there is a space for cancel culture but with the way it's going, I doubt that any allegations regarding harmful actions will be taken seriously unless a drastic shift happens.

AislingDM

This is a really awesome discussion point and agree with what is being said in that the current 'format' of cancelling really does not do a lot 1) for victims of harm 2) for stopping institutional problems. For example, lots of famous celebrities are still famous and people love them and are happy to support them, despite messed up things they do, so is 'cancelling' them even working? Bottom line though, is that the group(s) impacted by whatever harm has been done should have the most say in how it's handled. Equally though, in terms of abolitionism and moving away from punitive justice, it seems that the current approach for cancelling is unsuccessful at best, and harmful at worst. However, this is not to suggest that people who do harms should go unquestioned by society or in their interpersonal relationships.

JustV

I think the biggest niggle I have about cancel culture is that it doesn't seem to leave room for people to make honest mistakes, which all of us do fairly regularly. But if someone innocently says something insensitive or makes a bad decision in their life, it shouldn't cost them their livelihood in my opinion. Everyone (even high-profile people) should be allowed to mess up and grow.

If someone is found to be a predator, absolutely - cancel them a thousand times over. It's a different conversation when someone is knowingly an awful person, and there might be an argument for an industry needing to make an example of someone by firing them for doing bad things.

I guess, for me, it's whether something happens in good faith or bad faith. If someone is acting in good faith, it seems damaging (to them and to society) to cancel them. If someone is acting in bad faith, like a corrupt politician or a serial abuser, they need to go.

I've been back and forth on this one personally, so it's interesting to read what y'all think.

Former Member

I personally believe that cancel culture is very much different from when people want to hold content creators accountable. Holding creators accountable is needed to make sure that big and small content creators make sure that they are aware of the kind of damage that things which they think of as 'jokes' or 'inconsequential' are in fact something which holds a lot of weight and does a lot of damage. After all especially big content creators have so many viewers and fans that it would be easy for those who are uneducated to adopt their favourite content creators beliefs.

However, there most definitely is a line with cancel culture with firstly what cancelling is, how it differs from de-platforming and especially those people who have been cancelled time and time again yet still have a platform and wide influence. I think one of the biggest issues with 'cancel culture' is that it has come to a point that if any person speaks out about how a CCs actions or words has negatively effected them or their community, people instantly write them off as trying to 'cancel' that person. In actuality, usually when people bring these things up its because they want an explanation as well as an apology so that they can then decide if they would like to further support that person. Of course there are people who have done so much wrong or done something so horrific that they either don't deserve/ shouldn't have a platform anymore or obviously don't care enough about the people they have hurt in order to educate themselves or change their behaviour. These are people who don't deserve to have a platform. But i think we can all think of CC who still have such big platforms - therefore it's evident that 'cancelling' doesn't work and holding CCs accountable is a good thing yet it solely depends on the person as to if they will address it or ignore it.

Then again I've seen many times things being brought up from a creators past of something obviously bad, however it's very evident that they support the community now and have done so for a while. Therefore, while they should address those things they said/did it's pretty obvious they have changed.

Its a whole big balance that i don't think will ever truly be found just due to the ever changing way of the internet. People are always going to find something to be mad at but we shouldn't immediately dismiss peoples concerns especially if they are valid and founded on evidence.

AislingDM

@ForestWitch Completely agree with your points!! It's a lot to think about and as you say SO important to clarify the difference between de-platforming and trying to pretend a person does not exist anymore.

Former Member

I am seeing some good points here and honestly, I do think it just leads to the question of can you separate art from the artist? I adore the film Rosemary's Baby and think it is a cinematic masterpiece but I am disgusted by the director's actions, truly disgusted. Nevertheless, I have liked the film in the past and even though I don't want to like the film because of the negative connotations, I still do. Another question is should we cancel someone if they are only suspected of something (Brett Kavanaugh, Johnny Depp)?

Former Member

i agree with @Mike . the problem with cancel culture is people can't make mistakes anymore and must live in the shadow of their past? but then everyone wants to be mental health advocates? cmon people were only human LEARNING , NAVIGATING THROUGH LIFE - Cancel culture is toxic and should die and we need to learn to forgive people and move on. grudges are gross and people deserve second chances