Cancel Culture? I Barely Even Know Her!

Cancel Culture?

I Barely Even Know Her!

Where in the World Is Cancel Culture?

        Cancel culture. It's one of the most contentious and controversial subjects in modern-day society, which probably has something to do with its inherently conflictual nature. I'm sure this widespread discourse about cancel culture in general will be reflected in the cavalcade of blogs about it this week that my peers will produce, but I think a lot of people talking about cancel culture - both in these blogs and across the wider internet - miss a huge aspect of it. That is, cancel culture only works in a heavily constrained environment.

        Cancel culture only has power online, in places like these blogs. In fact, I'd go as far to say that cancel culture is a heavily situational force that only works in an online space and never works in real life. Of course, I recognize the hypocrisy in saying this because I'm also talking about cancel culture online right now, but you gotta fight fire with fire.

        This is mainly because cancel culture only exists in an online space, and doesn't work outside the realms of forums. If you don't believe me, you can observe this phenomenon by going outside for a day, where you quickly realize people in real life do tons of stuff that would get them cancelled, yet they still exist. 

        This can actually be well-seen within Troy High itself; there's a fight about every other day, people are total creeps to women all the time, the n-word might as well be an article with its frequent usage in a sentence, and slurs in general are about as common as screaming people on rollercoasters. And this is just in Troy High, it gets worse if you go to any more populated part of the world. Like, I've been on the NYC subway system, so I've seen people act worse to others than they would in a warzone. Suffice to say, a lot of people in the real world are, and pardon my French here, pricks.

Twin Reasonings

        If any of these actions were videotaped and posted online, it would cause immense outrage and probably result in a cancellation, but nobody's complaining when it happens in real life, why? It's because as much as people will stand up for causes or a just society online, nobody has the energy to do that in real life. People have jobs and school and bills in real life, society at large doesn't have the energy to cancel someone when they do something bad in real life.

        It also doesn't help that real life is a place where any conflict you try to start can be quickly ended with a punch to your face. It's a lot harder to start a conflict knowing it could quickly turn physical. This is only emphasized by the fact that the people at the center of these conflicts are usually terrible people, harassers, bigots, etc. This is important because it means if these people are stupid enough to be sexist or racist, they're probably stupid enough to start a fight as well, giving even more reason to not cause a commotion in real life. 

        For example, it's super easy for me to act like I fought against racism by cancelling someone who said the N-word and putting BLM in my bio, because it's so much easier to do than having to fight a bigot in real life where the person I'm fighting against is right in front of me and not some video recorded on the other side of the globe, and if I try speaking up against them, they might just attack me because they're clearly stupid enough to be bigoted so they're probably stupid enough to start a fight too. 

        Due to both of these factors, cancel culture isn't really something that appears in the real world. It's only a thing online because cancel culture can only really exist in an online environment. Only in a place where conflict is encouraged because of the lack of repercussions, and where people don't have to do any work to start a movement besides typing a few words can cancel culture thrive. 

        This is because an environment like this, aka Twitter, solves 2 of the major reasons people don't speak up in real life. It's because there's a physical repercussion to it, and because it takes too much energy. So, only in online forums or social media sites does cancel culture appear, because those places get rid of 2 major reasons it never appears in real life.

False Righteousness

        Admittedly, I don't blame people for only sticking up for a cause online, it's a lot harder to do in real life, but I do think cancel culture has resulted in a problematic behavior that's resulted in a lot of fake righteousness. A lot of the people who start cancel culture movements get praise and talk online like they're righteous advocates for social change, but I can't help but notice that most of the people "fighting" for social change are really just pulling out their phones and recording a racist incident rather than stepping in themselves. For all of the effort that people causing cancel culture or exposing toxic behaviors claim it takes in order to speak out or cause a movement, they're really just holding out their phones and being a bystander. 

        For example, when on the NYC subway, I could have yelled over everyone in the subway and called out a white person for using the N-word, but that risks drawing the bigot's attention. It's a lot easier for me to pull out my phone, record the argument, post it online, and then act like I'm fighting racism rather than doing something in the moment. 

       Controversial as this will be to use as an example, this sort of "false righteousness" symptom of cancel culture was best shown at the height of the #MeToo movement in 2017, as tons of Hollywood CEOs and big-name actors got exposed and pretty much lost their careers and reputations forever. It's obviously a good cause and its great terrible people got taken down, but notice how none of those women yelled at or called out their gropers or sexual assaulters in public when it happened. 

        And before people try to counter, don't act like it wouldn't be as effective as cancelling them online, the amount of journalists and witnesses at these public events where a lot of these sexual harassment instances took places would spread the story and deal far more damage to the assaulter’s reputation than some Tweet from an account with 4 followers. And obviously, I can't exactly attack a woman for not instantly calling out their sexual harasser when she would obviously be in shock and surprise at what just happened, but it's still telling all these stories came out on Twitter in long threads instead of actual investigative stories. 

Summary

        It's very telling you almost never hear of someone getting "cancelled" in real life, it's only something contained to the online world. It's something that can only exist online, and if someone just ignored Twitter scandals and online drama, they could go their entire life without hearing about cancel culture. In fact, someone who would be deserving of getting cancelled could avoid it by just simply avoiding anyone recording them and not responding to any potential accusations online.

        Overall, despite all of its seemingly immense power and reach, cancel culture really doesn't have much of an impact in the real world. It's only able to thrive in an environment where it takes very little effort to start a movement, encourages conflict because there's none of the risk of violence associated with conflict, and a person can get praise and fame for choosing to be a bystander and actively not participate.

        Of course, if I brought up any of this up to the people engaged in cancel culture who cancel others, well, I might soon find the person on the receiving end of cancel culture to be myself.