These days it might be possible to "cancel" someone for something that they didn't even say/do, although I'd hope that the victim could bounce back once the mob moved on. Of course, you could also get killed crossing the street.
It always has been. And, often the “cancelling” has been total and irreversible, not, as it often is with the “cancel culture” of recent complaints, just a reduction in current popularity with a particular segment of society (frequently accompanied by profitable celebrity status with an opposing and at least roughly equivalent power social group.)
In fact, those complaining about modern “cancel culture” often make hyperbolic analogies to these historical, more total cancellings, such as lynchings.
> It always has been.
This is a significant plot point in Musashi. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musashi_(novel) )
this is wildly untrue. ted bundy escaped police custody (from being charged with multiple murders), moved a couple states, and kept raping and murdering for years. this was 50 years ago.
if someone catches you on video on a field trip like the covington high kids, you might get death threats of such credibility that your school will have to shut down and youll have to sue major "news" networks because their "reporting" was so bad it was tantamount to libel. a grown adult celebrity called them nazis and wanted them doxed.
how can you in any seriousness claim cancel culture now is the same as even 10 years ago, much less 100 or more?
If we break cancel culture up into roughly before the internet and after. Being canceled (I'd call a non-violent black-sheep status) was a local phenomenon, it was in your town, your church, or your local group. You could move away to reclaim anonymity.
Today, you can't hide from it, but it's as you said, a quick burst. But I think you're forgetting that these ramifications aren't just about you being hated by the internet, they can follow you by alienating friends/family. They have made people lose jobs. They take a person's worst moment and give it permanence in a way that wasn't possible in the past.
I'd probably say that cancel culture requires the internet to really be a thing, because now we can take anyone who's worst moment is caught on video and have it follow them around forever. Sure the internet as a whole might not hate you for more than a week or so, but the ramifications of unwanted massive celebrity must be profound.
To be clear, I'd consider cancellations to be people who are not famous and don't want to be famous. Even that level of positive reception by half of a socially powerful group might be unwanted, especially if you don't really align with them.
I'll finish with this, cancel culture is a minor problem compared to those of our ancestors. But it's still something we as a society can try to work on. As individuals when we see someone being canceled, don't dog pile on them, look for context and dig deeper. Sometimes it will make you more angry there are people you're not going to like out there.
Side story: When I was a kid I had a bully for all of 1 year in elementary school, he'd trip me at recess every day. One day I lost it and punched him in the face. I remember this clearly, he waited a few weeks then tripped me one more time. For most of us that'd be the end of the story, but a few years later, a family friend of mine brought him by our house and I had to play with him for an afternoon. We got to talking and playing. Just two kids playing as if we didn't know each other. I found out he had dealt with some shit I never had to, and it showed me that his behavior wasn't all his own. I don't regret punching him, I don't begrudge him being a bully for a year, but I do thank that family friend for giving me an afternoon of seeing more context. It showed me that, I don't have to like everyone, and I don't have to let people walk on me, but I do have to do my best to understand people even when I don't like them.
Sorry maybe that's not relevant, but I think about the kid that I was getting thrust onto the internet for punching someone, no context, no background and I'd probably not have learned from it.
Edit: context around the link. Just a really good video I watched from a person I like on this topic. Sometimes I'll haunt my threads to reply to people but I don't really feel like it tonight, so have a good night everyone.
Blacklisting with more than local scope (and, while nonviolent in themselves, again, vastly more drastic practical impact than modern “cancel culture”—and particularly, often, a much more direct and total impact on employability, and often impacting people with less socioeconomic privilege and associated security than are at issue with “cancel culture” complaints) was a thing long before the internet, to the point that laws curtailing it in certain contexts were adopted (and fought against by blacklisters) before WWII.
EDIT: The internet or something like it may help the less privileged coordinate against the more privileged, changing who is potentially exposed to something that the powerful have always had in their toolbox, though.
Blacklisting isn't cancel culture, I don't understand how it equates at all. I think, we're talking past each-other a bit here just because cancel culture can be hard to define. It's defined by some as boycotting like "cancel Netflix". It'd defined by others as canceling an individual like "this person tweeted about XYZ when they were 17 fire them." It can also be, "Celebrity XYZ said something I disagree with cancel them (Kapernick comes to mind)." One is targeted against the less privileged and elevates those without a voice or a platform to celebrity. The other is just a re-branding of boycotting. The third targets celebrities who making a social stand.
I'd define the cancel culture I'm concerned about as the form that is against an individual who was not previously famous, doesn't want to be famous and is thrust into the spotlight without the ability to control the narrative or provide context. They got caught on a bad day and just want to be left alone. This is a form of "witch hunt" that thrives on the mob mentality of twitter and other social networks out there that feed on our baser human instincts.
I also think that canceling celebrities because you disagree with them is dumb, but that's privilege vs less privilege and I don't see it as big of an issue.
Cancel culture that's really just boycotting is not something I'm concerned about.
I'll re-iterate, the past had some awful and yet socially acceptable shit going on. I don't think there is a similar phenomenon where the mob went after other individuals in such a global manner. The level of cancel culture that I'm talking about wasn't a global phenomenon before. It wasn't more local, mobs stayed in towns and cities. But they also carried pitch forks and hurt people. So before we had, potential death in your city/town, and now we have humiliation and loss of job but globally. I dislike them both and if I had to pick I think the later is the obvious choice.
OK really trying to close this down now, but this conversation is more fun than what I'd be doing othewise!
I think the issue may be that you're defining cancel culture in a way that's very different than what most people in general, and in this thread, do. That's not wholly your fault, but it does mean that the conversation probably won't be fruitful.
I ask this mostly because I'm having a hard time coming up with a lot of examples of what you mean by "cancel culture" outside of the 3-4 well trodden examples of "cancellation gone wrong" (Justice Sacco, and the recent examples from the Atlantic Article "Stop Firing the Innocent").
Off the top of my head...
Stephen Hsu of MSU
Greg Patton of USC
Bret Weinstein (a few years ago.. this backfired).
Jonathan Friedland (fired for using the N-Word in a meeting discussing sensitive words in PR),
Peter Boghossian (still is employed, but was harassed IRL and investigated under ethics charges after the grievance studies papers).
But, it's the famous people that are the most important for signalling that if you publicly voice an unpopular opinion you will have to endure retribution. It's the chilling effect that important as that will silence multiples for each public witch burning.
For most of human history being ostracized from your social group was a death sentence. We are wired to respond to negative group pressure. We learn the rules pretty quickly. Avoid certain topics, post anodyne content, virtue signal to my in group.
Hsu, Weinstein, and Boghossian definitely do not meet GPs definition. After a second look, Freidland also does not. He was fired by netflix solely due to their preferences and without any sort of external hubbub at all. (I'm also not clear how Friedland's firing meets any definition of cancel culture, so I'd like to hear your definition as well).
An executive fired by their own company isn't "thrust into the spotlight".
If your personal definition of cancel culture is "a non famous person faces consequences for an act", that's fine, but it's also a uselessly loose definition.
Just to be clear, I'm using a definition that I did not come up with on my own. Cancel culture doesn't have one definition. I linked a video where T1J kinda covers this. He's not a definitive source, but at least two people are confused by this definition.
Examples => I've got to google it. The best example I can think of was the lady who got on the flight and when she landed she didn't have a job. Her tweet was taken out of context, and while made in poor taste still.... kinda lame.
Other examples would be the google memo guy (kind of a reverse order firing iirc), the maga hat kid, the lady from brookfield zoo, and the manager at Chipotle off the top of my head.
Google some examples of this. Should you post stupid things to Facebook/Twitter? No you shouldn't. Should you get fired for it? I'd lean to the no side more than most people I'd guess. I think free speech is important, but companies have the right to fire people.
Is it the end of the world? In most mild cases, not so much. But there are some more extreme cases where there are much more long lasting effects to people. We don't typically hear about it unless the cancellation is something that was taken out of context and some people feel bad for the person being canceled. A lot of times it's just someone getting fired.
That's Justine Sacco.
> Other examples would be the google memo guy (kind of a reverse order firing iirc)
I (as a firsthand account) argue that Damore had ample opportunity to contextualize his comments, so I'd disagree that this meets your definition, although there's been so much misleading information since that it's an easy mistake to make.
> the maga hat kid
Sure. Although there's an argument that he was able to control the narrative eventually. At this point in time the prevailing narrative is that he was libeled by the media, even though legally speaking, that's probably false.
> lady from brookfield zoo
I honestly can't figure out what you mean. There's a 2019 story about an old lady who crashed her car and may have lost her license? I can't find enough information on this to see why it would be an instance of cancellation.
> manager at Chipotle
Ok, sort of. I mean she was able to recontextualize the situation and was offered her job back the same week.
This is sort of why the sky is falling concerns about cancellation don't resonate with me. The definition you picked is, I'd argue one that frames cancellation as an objectively unfair thing. And one that is concerning even when it ultimately makes the right choice.
But the examples you gave don't really meet that objectively bad definition.
I'm not trying to write a dictionary definition. You are correct that my way of phrasing this definition is really objectively bad. What is a non-celebrity, how do we quantify this? If you google people who lost their jobs for facebook posts etc you'll find some example.
The ones that concern me more are the people who flashed across your screen, an image, a video, some "Karen" who did something on social media or someone video'd them and their company saw it, then they got fired. The context doesn't get picked up by the news so there really is no story other than a post by someone who was picked up and a life that was ruined.
>This is sort of why the sky is falling concerns about cancellation don't resonate with me. The definition you picked is, I'd argue one that frames cancellation as an objectively unfair thing. And one that is concerning even when it ultimately makes the right choice.
Fairness, is for courts and groups of people who have time and inclination to look at context to determine. My issue with cancellations I've seen is if you get a post blown up (even moderately so) and you lose your job, no one knows or cares.
This is not a sky is falling issue, but it is a new issue that's come up in the modern internet era and Laws lag behind this sort of thing. You should not be able to be fired for being pro-Insert your politician here-. Even annoyingly so. That should not affect where you work, I believe that right now that freedom is at risk on both sides in the US. Is it a top 10 political risk on my whiteboard? No, I don't have a board. But it's an issue, and we can agree to disagree that it even is an issue. You won't get any argument that I made a good definition.