Lia Fiffles ’24
Opinion Editor
Society is in the digital age and time has allowed technology to continually progress throughout the years. This progression has resulted in the creation of social media where individuals have been sharing photos, videos, words, and more with the Internet. As celebrities and influencers have risen to fame, so have their previous posts and actions from the past. Not only has this happened to well-known figures, but also to regular individuals such as us. Controversial and offensive content are constantly addressed by society, and alongside that comes the “cancelling” of individuals. The problem that has risen most recently though, is whether cancel culture is always used for valid reasons.
When the “cancelling” of an individual takes place, the individual is said to have done something that has offended a significant group of people or individual, whether it be in person or online. This results in the exclusion of that individual in social and professional circles, as well as society if the backlash is severe enough. This has an everlasting effect on careers and personal lives as the individual works through the repercussions. Many participate in cancel culture as a form of social justice when calling out individuals, groups, and companies when they have acted in a way that reinforces the injustice that is still prevalent in today’s society. But as cancel culture becomes more prevalent, it seems to have spun out of control in a way that makes cancelling someone an illegitimate way of calling them out.
Cancelling someone is counterproductive when the repercussions of that individual’s action are forgotten a week later. As more and more individuals and companies are being called out, there are less and less long-term consequences being implemented. Backlash will be thrown out onto the Internet for a few days, and in a week, it will be as if there was no harm done. This is making people question whether cancelling someone is done for the purpose of holding them accountable, or if it is done out of the boredom that a few faces behind their screens are feeling. Who is getting to decide what is and isn’t cancelled? The problem with this is that cancelling something is erasing all opinions and voices on any side of a subject. Anyone that presents a new form of argument that strays from the normal discourse of society is immediately shut down. This new phenomenon is not allowing for progress to be made in the conversations we have online and in person.
There is a difference between cancelling someone on the basis of boredom and disagreement, and calling someone out based on instances related to racism, homophobia, and other injustices that are still common in today’s society. It will be hard to maintain the validity of cancelling someone no matter the offense if it is continually used as a form of defensive recognition toward an opinion we do not agree with. Cancel culture can be powerful in its support and emphasis of social justice movements if we can reinforce its legitimacy and stray away from its use pertaining to petty online discourse.
