The Art of Cancel Culture

 Celebrities are controversial, and the world is dark. Is cancel culture the correct way to deal with this?

#Thiscelebrityisoverparty or #cancelcultureisoverparty

Which one would you join?

Everyday, some of the other celebrities are cancelled on the internet. #Thiscelebrityisoverparty trends constantly on Twitter, with one or the other personality being cancelled each day.

This new culture of cancelling people has become a source of debate, with people on each end feeling strongly about the subject.

What is cancel culture?

^[1]The practice or tendency of engaging in mass canceling as a way of expressing disapproval and exerting social pressure is called cancel culture.

This usually happens with celebrities, or people of power, with the view of coming out with a crime that was committed by this person and seeking justice from this situation. It takes the help of social media, a powerful and influential tool, to pressurize this person into being evaluated.

What cancel culture started as -

It started as a reform movement. Its end goal was to break the power structures and achieve justice in a society, where it didn’t often happen.

What it has become now -

A name and shame game. It has become a way of harassing people in the public domain, often resulting in a wave of bullying and death threats.

To understand this better, let’s observe this phenomenon from two points of view.

'Cancel Culture' is the new Social Justice

There exist power structures in an economy, which are very rigid and hard to break. It’s very difficult to call out a person of power and influence and expect them to go through the same trial and justice that regular people like you and me do. The intermediaries existing between regular people and these powerful people, never really let us call out these people for their actions and wrongdoings. This is where this culture comes into the scene.

For many, cancel culture is the new social justice. Holding someone accountable for their actions in front of the whole world, pressurizes that person to come out and accept their mistakes. This person will either be defending themselves and filing in the court or accepting their mistakes and apologizing for them. Either way, they’ll do it to save their reputation and career, which takes a solid hit, owing to the amount of power the audience has in a profession such as that of an actor, or a singer. When the public is displeased with you, it results in a lesser audience engaging with your art, which can be the death of one’s career.

When talking about social justice, cancel culture has been able to achieve considerable success. Take, for example, the incident of Louis C.K, a famous comedian who lost his job after being accused of sexual misconduct. ‘Call Me By Your Name’ actor Armie Hammer was shunned by the industry, replaced in movies, and cancelled by his sponsored brands when women raised their voices against his sexual and cannibalistic conduct.  Another fairly famous comedian called Chris D’Elia was called out for possession of child pornography and sexual misconduct by women when they were minors. Kevin Spacey was found guilty of sexual assault by an actor who was a minor at that time. Countless celebrities have been called out for their racist and homophobic statements.

What all these incidents resulted in was a wave of taking accountability followed by reforms to fix their mistakes. This not only made the perpetrators reflect but also gave so much power to the victims of these crimes. It is incredibly difficult to raise one’s voice against a powerful figure, but social media and the people on it have given the strength to these victims to come out and raise their voices.

This culture has become a new movement for justice. It is breaking the barriers of power structures in society by bringing the most influential of people on the stand of a public trial.

However, is this justice permanent or fleeting?

'Cancel Culture' is not the solution to a problem. It is a problem.

Cancel culture is used to call out bad behavior. The irony is, it was itself born out of a misogynistic reference. In the film New Jack City, the character of Nino Brown played by Wesley Snipes referred to his ex-girlfriend saying “Cancel that. I’ll buy another one” 

Cancel culture is very toxic in nature. It started from the value of breaking power structures and bringing justice to people around the world, but it has transformed into something completely else. People are now cancelled over the most minuscule of things. 

Let’s first talk about the public trials this cancel culture holds. This public trial is held by the public, with little to no knowledge of law or the incident itself. This public often jumps to a conclusion and directly labels the accused as ‘bad’ before even getting the gist of the incident. This jump to conclusion is detrimental to the life of the accused. 

This cancel culture has then turned into bullying, instead of actually holding this person accountable. Why bullying? The accused is then harassed, assaulted, stalked, shamed, and sent death threats, even before the court has actually deemed them a perpetrator. People bully this person to an extent where their mental health is permanently damaged, and harm is caused to their whole family. This burden of justice shouldn’t fall into the hands of the public but rather the court itself. This is what the downside of a public trial looks like.

Let us now talk about communication. When a person is cancelled, all communication is shut off. Cancelling a person is often more a monologue than a dialogue, where this person is shut off and “cancelled” even before they have got a chance to defend themselves. This cuts the dialogue aspect of the trial, that every accused deserves to have. To bully this person into submission without getting a chance to stand up for themselves is plain horror.

In the end, is justice really served? The end goal of this culture should be correcting wrong behavior. Instead, it has become a name and shame game of pulling your favorite celebrity down to ashes.

So what should be done?

First of all, this cancel culture should be named, accountability culture. The word cancel in itself is very toxic. The end goal of this movement should be for this person to come out, accept their mistakes and take accountability for their actions. To prove this by reforming their actions from that point in time, and not by bullying and harassing them into submission.

Accept your mistakes.

Take accountability and issue an apology.

Take corrective measures to reform your mistakes.

This is the ideal path of what this accountability culture should look like. We should also pay attention to the mental health of the accused. Instead of jumping to conclusions, let’s wait for the court to hold a trial or for the necessary investigation to take place and then form our opinions with all the facts and figures in place. The victim should be given power and protection. There shouldn’t exist victim-blaming of any sorts and people should feel comfortable in coming out.

Let’s all remember that we are humans. We make mistakes. To make a mistake is not as wrong as not taking accountability for it. What we need is a better society where justice is given to all, equally. Where justice is born out of facts and figures and not bullying and harassing people.

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^[1] Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, s.v. “cancel culture,” accessed June 25, 2021, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cancel%20culture.