Cancel culture, it’s like that ex-boyfriend who only hits you up late at night, the bag of potato chips lying under the mountain of vegetables in your shopping cart, the open Netflix tab right next to your assignment that’s supposed to be due the next day. Whether you want to admit it or not, you can’t help but get sucked back into it, even though you know it’s not good for you. It seems as if someone new is getting canceled every week. Usually, the lifespan of a trend on the Internet is brief, but cancel culture has rapidly snowballed into a bigger issue. It doesn’t matter who you are, from A-list celebrities to your small-town friend group, anyone can be a target of cancel culture. Cancel culture has become a gray area that can’t be defined anymore, which is why it’s become so dangerous.
Though not a new concept, the term “cancel culture” was coined pretty recently. This social phenomenon has exploded within the past couple of years to “cancel” people, brands, or even movies and TV shows for promoting or doing something offensive. However, there’s a fine line between canceling someone or something and actually holding said party accountable for their actions. Accountability is calling someone out for wrongdoing on their part and also allowing them to show growth and maturity through their apology (if there is one) and future actions. It works the same with TV shows, movies, and books, too. This past year, Netflix was put under fire when they released the award-winning French film, “Cuties.” The promotional poster, which depicted a group of pre-teen actresses showing a lot of skin with their backs arched, sparked a lot of controversy with the film crowd and other critics. The hashtags #CancelNetflix and #BoycottNetflix were soon trending on Twitter after people began calling out Netflix for releasing a movie that portrayed the sexualization of underage girls and the normalization of it.
What cancel culture fails to do is allow people to take accountability for their actions. A virtual mob constantly attacking someone or something distracts everyone from having a productive conversation on how to reflect and apologize. In some cases, many people hop on the bandwagon and cancel someone for the sake of cancelling something. With cancel culture, it’s good to address the mistake, but there is a lack of education on the latter part. There is no chance given to learn from the mistake. However, we can’t help but feed into the drama. As soon as we see that hashtag trending on Twitter, it’s too late. We want to be constantly updated on who’s being canceled and their response to it all.
The Internet has become a ruthless place to be if you have a platform at all. Twitter users have developed FBI-like skills in digging up old tweets and posts from a decade ago that would definitely be incriminating if someone were to tweet something like that today. It doesn’t matter how private you think your spam account is — if anything offensive was said, it’ll get out one way or another. In fact, here’s a short list of celebrities that have been “canceled” from March to the end of this summer: James Charles, Shane Dawson, Jeffree Star, Vanessa Hudgens, Lea Michele, Lana Del Rey, Doja Cat, and the list goes on. Shane Dawson and Jeffree Star received huge backlash (as they should) after Tati, another beauty influencer who had stirred up drama last year against James Charles, released a video accusing them of manipulating her into releasing the previous video. After that, people online dug up past content of Dawson and Star, both who had said and acted in offensive ways. Star was exposed for making racist remarks, and Dawson went down for a lot of reasons, including pedophelia, racist behavior, and even beastiality. However, despite all the evidence racked up against them, they both still have a platform and a loyal fanbase. During a livestream on Instagram, Vanessa Hudgens made insensitive remarks about COVID-19, saying that Coachella was more important than quarantining, yet the backlash she received was short-lived. Contrarily, allegations about Doja Cat being anti-black turned out to be false, yet people still attack her for it. That’s precisely the problem with cancel culture — people pick and choose who they want to cancel without any consistency.
It doesn’t really matter if these celebrities apologize but don’t show any change or growth. Specifically, when it comes to social media influencers, there’s almost an unspoken routine that comes with cancel culture. When one of them gets called out, their response is usually a long apology video with a dramatic title. However, it’s a rare occasion when we actually see them own up to their actions instead of diverting the blame to their mental health or their young age. In the end, a lot of them don’t even end up apologizing, which was the whole reason they made the video in the first place. Then, most of them follow up their apology with a “short break from social media,” but slowly start posting content until they’re fully integrated into the community again. The replies to cancel culture have become a temporary fix for a response that should take more than a twenty-minute YouTube video or a hastily written notes app apology.
Now, it’s not to say that cancel culture doesn’t have some benefits. Without the Internet sleuths, we wouldn’t know about some people’s problematic past, and they would’ve continued to succeed without recognizing their mistakes. J.K. Rowling, one of the world’s most successful and franchised authors, has recently been called out for being transphobic. In her most recent novel, “Trouble Blood,” there’s a serial-killer character who wears women’s clothes to disarm his victims, but he’s neither transgender nor a cross-dresser. On Twitter, she’s expressed her controversial beliefs about the trans movement and people who are transgender, saying that she “knows and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives.” Not only that, but fans have begun picking apart her infamous Harry Potter series. It’s a bit suspicious that the only Asian character in the series is named “Cho Chang,” and that she got sorted into Ravenclaw, the house that was known for intelligence.
In her case, cancel culture brought about these issues that need to be addressed. People are upset with J.K. Rowling for a genuine reason. But, for other cases, the real question we have to ask ourselves is if it’s worth it all the time. Is it worth digging up someone’s offensive tweets from 2012 when they were 13 years old because they could’ve changed within the past ten years? We’ve seen a countless number of people being canceled for no reason, too. Kevin Hart stepped down from hosting the Oscars in 2019 because people had dug up tweets from 2010 where he wrote homophobic messages. He received serious repercussions and got genuinely cancelled. But, even after his honest apology, people still ignored the fact that the tweets were from a decade ago and that he took responsibility for his actions and continued to criticize him for it. Another example is Jenna Marbles. Some of the more recent accusations were quite serious, and she did take accountability for her mistakes and showed growth on her YouTube channel. However, let’s not forget that a mass of people tried to cancel her for killing her fish when she accidentally bought the wrong tank for it.
The likelihood of cancel culture dying is very slim. As much as we don’t want to give in to drama, it’s hard to not be intrigued and follow the gossip. When it’s not our own lives under fire, it’s easy to get sucked into the excitement and spectacle because we don’t personally see the repercussions. For now, cancel culture is here to stay, but it’s important that we learn how to hold others (and ourselves) accountable in the most mature manner before it spirals into something that can’t be stopped.