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Are you saying Cosby’s serial drugging and raping habit was unrelated to his career? I know you’re not defending him, but that’s still a crazy take in my mind. His career and popularity helped put him in the position to be able to do that, and to get away with it for so long.

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That's why I threw the qualifiers like "usually" in there. I doubt Cosby would have much of an audience or desire to tour even if none of that occurred.

It seems like it ought to be called "cancellation" only when a relatively small number of people cause the artist/speaker to go silent. If the vast majority of their audience vanishes, then nobody in particular has done anything to them.

But it might be hard to distinguish those two cases -- a few clubs/publishers/etc. might refuse to book you, and that could cause your audience to dry up.

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