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Late Wednesday morning, Guardians of the Galaxy actor Chris Pratt began trending on Twitter under the hashtag #ripchrispratt, and soon after a series of faked racist and sexist tweets from his Twitter account began circulating.

Only one of the tweets was real, a photo that Pratt posted in October 2012 of a Bank of America pen with the label "Made in China" stamped on it. "I feel like somebody smarter than me could make a joke about this," Pratt wrote.

It's unclear what sparked the hashtag, but it didn't take long for the memes to start flowing, including ribs at Pratt's Marvel Cinematic Universe co-stars rushing to defend him last October.

Robert Downey Jr., Mark Ruffalo, and Zoe Saldana all took to social media to say what a great person he was after Pratt was targeted when a Twitter user asked which Chris out of Chris Pratt, Chris Evans, Chris Pine, or Chris Hemsworth "has to go?"

It seemed the majority decided that Pratt was on the outs, prompting E! News to pick up on the story, earning it a scathing comment from Pratt's wife Katherine Schwarzenegger.

"Is this really what we need," she asked in a caption directed at the celebrity entertainment news site. "There's so much going on in the world and people struggling in so many ways. Being mean is so yesterday. There's enough room to love all these guys. Love is what we all need not meanness and bullying. Let's try that."

The tide turning against Pratt was a strange one. The actor became beloved for playing goofball Andy Dwyer on Parks and Recreation and was fawned over for his relationship with ex-wife Anna Faris.

But since his divorce from the actress in 2018, Pratt has repeatedly found himself the subject of criticism.

Juno star Elliot Page called Pratt out for reportedly being a member of Zoe Church in Los Angeles, which has ties to celebrity-favorite Hillsong Church, claiming it was "infamously anti lgbt" in February 2019.

"If you are a famous actor and you belong to an organization that hates a certain group of people, don't be surprised if someone simply wonders why it's not addressed," he wrote in a tweet.

Pratt denied the allegation, saying in an Instagram story, "It has recently been suggested that I belong to a church which 'hates a certain group of people' and is 'infamously anti-LGBTQ.' Nothing could be further from the truth."

He landed in hot water again when paparazzi photographed him in July 2019 wearing a "Don't Tread on Me" T-shirt. The motto originated from the Revolutionary War but has since been co-opted by gun rights and conservative Republican groups.

Internet sleuths found he followed several prominent Republican accounts on Instagram, including Ben Shapiro, Texas Congressman Dan Crenshaw, and North Carolina Congressman Madison Cawthorn.

Most recently, Pratt was dogged for an "insensitive" voting joke where he went on a spiel about how important it was to vote and to let your "voice be heard," not in the 2020 presidential election, but for his animated movie Onward in the 2020 People's Choice Awards.

While Pratt has managed to avoid landing in any major hot water, it seems the internet hasn't quite given up just yet.

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Why Is the Internet Trying to 'Cancel' Chris Pratt?

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Late Wednesday morning, Guardians of the Galaxy actor Chris Pratt began trending on Twitter under the hashtag #ripchrispratt, and soon after a series of faked racist and sexist tweets from his Twitter account began circulating. Only one of the tweets was real, a photo that Pratt posted in October 2012 of a Bank of America pen with the label "Made in China" stamped on it.

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The online mob came for Harald Uhlig.

What terrible thing had he done? As I show in my new video, he tweeted that Black Lives Matter "torpedoed itself, with its full-fledged support of #defundthepolice." Instead of defunding, Uhlig suggested, "train them better."

Hundreds of people then signed a petition to demand that Uhlig, a University of Chicago professor and head of the Journal of Political Economy, resign. Even prominent economists like Janet Yellen and Paul Krugman joined the mob. Krugman called Uhlig "another privileged white man who evidently cannot control his urge to belittle the concerns of those less fortunate."

But that's just a lie. Uhlig wasn't belittling concerns of anyone less fortunate.

"There was nothing racist or discriminatory in how he said it," says Reason magazine senior editor Robby Soave, who covers the new "woke" protests. "But because he has some different views from the protesters, he must be a racist."

Uhlig was placed on leave by the journal he ran.

The new totalitarians demand that no one criticize their view of the world.

The online mob even attacks its fellow Democrats.

David Shor, an analyst at Democratic polling firm Civis Analytics, tweeted a study that concluded, "race riots reduced Democratic vote share."

That study was probably accurate. Obviously, rioting alienates voters.

But the mob attacked Shor. "Come get your boy," one tweeted.

His bosses did. Even though Shor issued a groveling apology, he was fired.

Soave points out, "There's a cruel streak in activism that says, 'If you disagree with me...you have no right to speak.'"

"Why are they winning?" I ask. "Their argument is ridiculous."

"People are afraid to challenge them," explains Soave. "It just takes one employee at one company, to say, 'Here's the law that protects my rights to feel safe and comfortable in this workplace. If you're not making me feel safe and comfortable, I'm going to get you in trouble.'"

So cowardly corporations cave.

A Boeing executive was even forced out for opposing women's service in the military-30 years ago.

A Los Angeles soccer team fired a player because his wife posted racist comments.

Michigan State pushed out a physicist when a twitter mob from its "Graduate Employees Union" labeled him a "scientific racist." What racist thing had the physicist done? He "rejects the idea that scientists should categorically exclude the possibility of average genetic differences among groups," is how a Wall Street Journal column explained it.

Now "cancel culture" has moved abroad.

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling is being smeared as "transphobic." When a tax researcher was fired for saying, "Identifying as a woman does not make a person a woman," Rowling tweeted, incredulously, "Force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real?"

She said she has nothing against trans people, but she's "concerned about the huge explosion in young women wishing to transition."

The Twitter mob claimed her "hate" was "killing trans people."

Some staff at Hachette, her publisher, refused to work on her next book. Actors in her Harry Potter movies spoke out against her.

But Rowling didn't back down. "It isn't hate to speak the truth," she tweeted.

She also mocked a charity that used the phrase "people who menstruate" instead of women, tweeting: "There used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?"

That further incensed the mob. It claimed her "hate...leads to trans women, especially teens and black trans women, becoming victims of sexual assault."

But Rowling is the rare person popular enough to be able to resist the mob. Her publisher spoke up for her, saying, "Freedom of speech is the cornerstone of publishing."

And the University of Chicago stood up to the mob, too. The school, after a 10-day investigation, announced there was "no basis" for taking away Harold Uhlig's job. He's been reinstated.

That's how these cases should be handled.

"The solution is to challenge these people," says Soave. "We just have to speak up."

Those of us who can, must.

COPYRIGHT 2020 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM

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The online mob came for Harald Uhlig. What terrible thing had he done? As I show in my new video, he tweeted that Black Lives Matter "torpedoed itself, with its full-fledged support of #defundthepolice." Instead of defunding, Uhlig suggested, "train them better."

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"In cancel culture there is only one opinion, the opinion of the masses."- NY Times

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Cancel culture symbol or cultural cancellation and social media censorship as canceling or ... [+]
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There is no single accepted definition of cancel culture, but at its worst, it is about unaccountable groups successfully applying pressure to punish someone for perceived wrong opinions. The victim ends up losing their job or is significantly harmed in some way well beyond the discomfort of merely being disagreed with. Someone like J.K. Rowling isn't really a victim of cancel culture-she's too rich to be punished in any meaningful way and she doesn't have the kind of job that one can be fired from.

Powerful voices on the institutional left claim that there is no such thing as cancel culture. For example, the New York Times columnist Charles Blow, tweets: "Once more THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS CANCEL CULTURE. There is free speech. You can say and do as pls, and others can choose never to deal this [sic] you, your company or your products EVER again. The rich and powerful are just upset that the masses can now organize their dissent."

This argument confuses dissent with punishment. The victims of cancel culture are generally not powerful people. They are often vulnerable people who suffer devastating harm. A previous post discussed an African American school security guard who was fired for using the N-word in the course of telling a student not to direct that word at him. (Thankfully, he was eventually re-hired after a national furor erupted.) The same post discussed a teacher who was fired for inadvertently failing to address a student by his self-identified gender pronoun. The security guard and the teacher each have four children to support and lost their health insurance as well as their income when they were fired. They are hardly examples of the rich and powerful.

But at least one can say the security guard actually used the n-word and the teacher actually did have a religious objection to recognizing transgender identities. But as people, especially in educational settings, have grown more intimidated, it has been harder for the cancel culture warriors to find such people. So instead of finding someone who actually used the n-word, they expand the definition of cancel-worthy language. A professor at the University of Southern California was placed on leave for using a Chinese word that some people think sounds like the n-word even though it is simply the Chinese word for "that." The professor is a member of USC US-China Institute, and was teaching a communications course and was using the word to illustrate how different languages use different words to fill in pauses.

The situation has deteriorated to the point that one no longer needs to say anything to be targeted by cancel culture. At Skidmore College in New York State, a professor is being boycotted for merely attending a pro-police "Back the Blue" rally. He didn't participate in any way, he didn't speak or shout slogans, or carry a sign. He says he just wanted to hear what the demonstrators had to say. But an email circulated at the college saying, "Tonight, I and other Skidmore students witnessed Profs. David Peterson and Andrea Peterson at an anti-Black Lives Matter protest. We demand the immediate dismissal of both Skidmore staff members for engaging in hateful conduct that threatens Black Skidmore students." (It turned out that Andrea Peterson doesn't work at the college.)

The professor found a notice on his classroom door saying "STOP. By entering this class you are crossing a campus-wide picket line and breaking the boycott against Professor David Peterson. This is not a safe environment for marginalized students . . . By continuing to take this course you are enabling bigoted behavior on this campus."

According to Professor Peterson, as a result of the boycott, he has no remaining students in one class and only a very small number of students in his other two classes. He also says the university is investigating him for possible bias.

This extravagant expansion of cancel-worthy behavior is not limited to academia and it is not limited to anything a person has said or done anytime this century. A top executive at Boeing recently lost his job because of an article he wrote in 1987, opposing allowing women to serve as fighter pilots. The executive apologized for the article, writing: "My article was a 29-year-old Cold War navy pilot's misguided contribution to a debate that was live at the time. The dialogue that followed its publication 33 years ago quickly opened my eyes, indelibly changed my mind, and shaped the principles of fairness, inclusion, respect and diversity that have guided my professional life since." That was not enough to save his job.

In no way is contemporary cancel culture about free speech or debate. Nor is it any longer primarily about social justice. The power to get someone fired must be a thrilling feeling. It also strengthens group bonds and can raise one's social standing in certain groups. It is not hard to understand why many people would be willing to look further and further afield to find targets: an innocently uttered Chinese word for "that," mere attendance at a rally to hear a point of view, or a 33-year-old article that the author has renounced and apologized for.

What is harder to understand is why the truly powerful, those with the power to suspend and investigate professors and to fire people, are allowing this? Perhaps they fear becoming targets themselves. Whatever the reason, there is no denying that cancel culture exists and is getting worse.

... Read More

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There is no single accepted definition of cancel culture, but at its worst, it is about unaccountable groups successfully applying pressure to punish someone for perceived wrong opinions. The victim ends up losing their job or is significantly harmed in some way well beyond the discomfort of merely being disagreed with.

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“When you support somebody and then you’re just told you’re not allowed to support them anymore it’s like you’re kind of in a box, and you have to just listen to what everybody wants to do,” she said. “It’s hard.”

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Cancel culture is harsh, and it has become a negative trend in society through the influence of social media. I would go as far to say that it is a toxic concept and reaps more harm than good.

The concept of cancel culture deals with "canceling" public figures, brands or individuals that have done or said something offensive or deemed wrong by society. Cancel culture is thriving in this season of life and has surfaced on almost every social media platform in some way.

As it is most notably seen on social media platforms, the temptation to jump on the bandwagon of group shaming has become much easier. After all, someone who participates in cancel culture can do it through the click of their keyboard or the tap of their phone. This leads to the question of if pointing out the flaws of others is wrong if done behind the mask of social media.

As a Christian, cancel culture is an immediate red flag. By living in a broken world, it is nothing but man's nature to sin. The bottom line is, people are going to make mistakes in life, as no one is perfect.

However, Christ's followers must build each other up and not tear each other down. This is the exact opposite of what cancel culture does - it is rooted in evil and not in love.

Romans 12:2 says, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."

When I read this verse, it reminds me to lift my eyes off the corruption of man and instead focus on the perfection of the Creator. Where cancel culture screams, "your past defines you," God declares that we are forgiven and made new through him.

Digging up the past of public figures or brands and using it to manipulate the public against them is wrong. It is unfair to shame others of their past if one neglects to acknowledge their own. There is no room for growth in this
circulating trend.

When I think of a brand that has been subjected to being "canceled" this year, I immediately think of Quaker Oats Company discontinuing Aunt Jemima. Aunt Jemima was a line of breakfast, pancake and syrup products. However, the brand itself was discontinued to suppress racial stereotypes.

Other brands such as Land O' Lakes have been put in the spotlight to rebrand as the media strives to cancel anything that can be considered controversial. After 92 years with the same logo, Land O' Lakes caved to the pressure to remove the photo of the Native American woman who has appeared on their products since 1928. In return, it forces the brand or person to conform to something or someone that meets the current standards of society.

Overall, 2020 has been and still is a year full of division and controversy as cancel culture continues to thrive on social media and even in the work place.

What if cancel culture was "canceled" instead of those affected by it? What if we spent more time supporting and encouraging people instead of destroying their reputation?

A world without cancel culture would be a world with more love to give and less hate to receive.
Lauren Shank is an Opinion Writer.

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Opinion: Social Media is Overrun by Cancel Culture - The Liberty Champion

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Cancel culture is harsh, and it has become a negative trend in society through the influence of social media. I would go as far to say that it is a toxic concept and reaps more harm than good. The concept of cancel culture deals with "canceling" public figures, brands or individuals that have done or said something offensive or deemed [...]

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https://www.wsj.com/articles/cancel-culture-comes-to-science-11578867753

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Are Jimmy Fallon, Jodie Comer, Lana Del Rey, J.K. Rowling and Ellen DeGeneres really canceled? Getty Images

Is it time to throw the #CancelCultureIsOverParty yet?

"Jeopardy!" producer Mike Richards is among the latest of the cancellable celebrities, right after Chris Harrison stole the cancel culture show on "The Bachelor" earlier this year.

Even Dr. Seuss and Eminem (sort of) have found themselves among the famous figures who were declared "over."

Meet the celebrity "casualties" of cancel culture 2021.

The cancelation debate heated up last summer after Twitter users took to the digital platform to condemn Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling for making anti-trans comments along with denouncing singer-rapper Doja Cat's racist chatroom past and former "Glee" star Lea Michele's alleged mistreatment of co-stars. By July, the focus had lasered in on talk show host DeGeneres (complete with a death hoax) and "Killing Eve" star Jodie Comer's rumored conservative boyfriend.

The hits kept coming through the fall and haven't stopped - even for beloved kids movies. Disney+ announced that they'd be putting a filter on old classics such as "Dumbo" and "The Aristocats" over racist imagery. A sequel to "Space Jam" will notably leave out the creepily persistent Pepe Le Pew. And Millennial parents are done with Dr. Seuss books after realizing the harmful stereotypes depicted in his books.

But what does it really mean to get the #RIP treatment - and will society ever declare it to be over, too?

Cancel culture - the phenomenon of promoting the "canceling" of people, brands and even shows and movies due to what some consider to be offensive or problematic remarks or ideologies - isn't all that new.

Dr. Jill McCorkel, a professor of sociology and criminology at Villanova University, told The Post that the roots of cancel culture have been present throughout human history. Societies have punished people for behaving outside of perceived social norms for centuries, she said, and this is just another variation.

"Cancel culture is an extension of or a contemporary evolution of a much bolder set of social processes that we can see in the form of banishment," she said. "[They] are designed to reinforce the set of norms."

Over the last few years, the social-media trend has gained momentum under the trendy new name - placing celebrities, companies and media alike under a microscope of political correctness.

Here's a brief rundown of what's been canceled lately.

Mike Richards

What is: problematic. Richards was forced to step down from his role as "Jeopardy!" host after allegations surfaced that he was sexist and had reportedly harassed female employees. "We had hoped that when Mike stepped down from the host position at 'Jeopardy!' it would have minimized the disruption and internal difficulties we have all experienced these last few weeks. That clearly has not happened," reps for the show said before announcing his exit.

Joe Rogan

The controversial podcaster has been canceled time and time again for his conservative political beliefs and offensive comments. Most recently, he was canceled for his anti-vaccination comments. On an episode of his own podcast, Rogan complained that white men are "oppressed" because his opinions are seen as offensive or politically incorrect.

Disney classics

Children under 7 will now be forbidden from watching "Dumbo," "Peter Pan" "Swiss Family Robinson" and the "The Aristocats." Settings on the app will prevent the movies from even showing up on the young viewers' profiles. Disney explained its rationale behind each film's removal on the kid-focused Stories Matter section of their website.

They cited "Dumbo's" (1941) infamous singing crows, which "pay homage to racist minstrel shows, where white performers with blackened faces and tattered clothing imitated and ridiculed enslaved Africans on Southern plantations."

Piers Morgan

Last month, the TV personality lost yet another on-air gig with " Good Morning Britain," a decision that came seven years after he was originally canceled in 2014, along with his show on CNN. The controversial host confirmed that he left "GMB" because he refused to apologize for disbelieving Meghan Markle's claims of suicidal ideation as a royal. In a letter to his fans posted on Instagram, Morgan wrote: "This is not simply an act of defiance, but a commitment to our collective futures."

Dr. Seuss

The once irreproachable children's book author has been the subject of racial reckoning. On March 2 - what would have been the late author and illustrator's 117th birthday - the company that oversees Seuss' publications announced that they were pulling licensing rights to six titles, due to racially insensitive depictions of Asian and Black characters.

These books - which include "And To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street" and "Scrambled Eggs Super!" -- "portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong," Dr. Seuss Enterprises said in a statement to the Associated Press.

JK Rowling

She's no stranger to controversy. The infamous author has been canceled multiple times over the years, specifically for negative comments about people identifying as transgender. Earlier this year, a Harry Potter-themed segment at a book festival was canceled due to Rowling's insensitive remarks online, the latest in her cancel culture controversy.

Eminem

This one may be an example of cancel culture turning on itself. Gen Zers were schooled by Millennials after they attempted to cancel the rapper over his angst-filled lyrics.

The controversy kicked off in February when a "zoomer" (or Gen Z member) posted a TikTok clip condemning the rapper's 2010 hit "Love the Way You Lie," featuring Rihanna, for reportedly glorifying violence against women. They highlighted the verse "If she ever tries to f-king leave again I'ma tie her to the bed and set this house on fire."

The hater's on-camera diss caused 30-somethings to - in the words of an Eminem song title - "just lose it," as many of them grew up on the 48-year-old Detroit native's tunes.

One inspired TikTok sketch depicts an Eminem-loving millennial having a mock argument with himself as a Gen Zer, who says, "We gotta cancel Eminem." The millennial responds, "Why?" and is then asked by his offended younger doppelgänger, "Have you heard his lyrics?"

The creator, back to playing his millennial Fireball-drinking self, responds: "Heard 'em? I was raised screaming them all through grade school."

'Space Jam'

The serial harasser Pepé Le Pew was canceled from "Space Jam 2." Producers decided to cut one of Pepé's star scenes in the sequel, in which the character is depicted as a flirty bartender who insists on kissing a female customer (played by Greice Santo) despite her many objections.

According to Deadline, the scene also sees pro baller James take Pepé aside to explain the concept of "consent" as the flirtatious skunk admits that his longtime love, Penelope Pussycat, had filed for a restraining order against him - a troubling statement to come from a children's cartoon.

Gina Carano

Carano, 38, who played bounty hunter Cara Dune in the first two seasons of "The Mandalorian," was fired from the show for her controversial social media posts.

Lucasfilm made no secret of why she was canceled, ripping "her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities," which it called "abhorrent and unacceptable."

Carano's most controversial message - and the one that appears to have been the final straw - came when she shared an image from Nazi Germany and compared it to today's overheated political climate.

"Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors.... even by children," her post stated.

Central Park Karen

This popular request amongst the platform's users actively encourages a person to be put under the microscope. Twitter's users are often known for their FBI-like investigative skills - digging up past dirt, old secrets and discovering people's identities - and are now being utilized in the resurgence of cancel culture.

Users are uncovering the identities of people expressing racist comments in viral videos, with one recent victim being Amy Cooper, 41, otherwise known as "Central Park Karen." The video featured the white woman calling the police on a black man, Christian Cooper (no relation), 57, who requested her dog be put on a leash.

"Karen" promptly told authorities an "African-American man is threatening my life," all whilst seemingly strangling her dog. After the video racked up millions of views, she was fired from her investment firm job, temporarily forced to surrender her dog and charged with one count of falsely reporting an incident in the third degree. The viral clip also spawned new hate crimes legislation.

Oh, when Karens take a walk with their dogs off leash in the famous Bramble in NY's Central Park, where it is clearly posted on signs that dogs MUST be leashed at all times, and someone like my brother (an avid birder) politely asks her to put her dog on the leash. pic.twitter.com/3YnzuATsDm
- Melody Cooper (@melodyMcooper) May 25, 2020

Celebrities are joining the cancel-culture call to action, too.

Actress-writer Skai Jackson, 18, took to Twitter last month to expose a high-school student featured in a viral video screaming racial slurs. She identified his name, prospective college and Instagram handle.

In the thread, her followers used it as an opportunity to expose other people's offensive posts, starting a chain of ultimate Twitter investigative work in the name of canceling racists. Pop singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey, 35, experienced similar backlash after making comments about fellow female recording artists - many of them women of color.

The collective canceling of someone, even on the internet, creates a sense of solidarity, McCorkel explained, and reinforces the feeling of togetherness, that "we are a group...and we don't tolerate that kind of behavior."

"It reinforces, at a time of political division, a sense of shared solidarity, at least among the people who are doing the canceling," she said. "It's psychologically intoxicating to feel part of a group and to feel a part of something larger than yourself."

Popular Twitter accounts like @YesYoureRacist and @RacistOTW have become the pop-culture racism watchdogs. They've made it their civic duty to scrutinize the actions of average people and public figures alike, shedding light on previously overlooked or unknown incidents.

Uncle Ben's, Aunt Jemima and Mrs. Butterworth

Cancel culture, though, isn't exclusive to celebrities. Companies and brands are under fire for racist imagery.

After facing backlash for perpetuating racist stereotypes, the 130-year-old Aunt Jemima breakfast brand is getting a makeover. Similarly, Uncle Ben's and Mrs. Butterworth's brands might be next.

Popular vegan recipe creator, formerly named "Thug Kitchen," also underwent a rebrand, revealing its new name as "Bad Manners" last month. Eskimo Pies, owned by Dreyer's, and Cream of Wheat also followed suit.

Sports teams began to jump on board, too. After years of criticism, the Washington Redskins are finally brainstorming a new team name, inspiring the Cleveland Indians to consider doing the same.

#IsOverParty members apologize

With cancel culture comes apologies for the actions that caused the cancellation in the first place.

The #IsOverParty is an ode to cancel culture, most recently used to cancel Jimmy Fallon after a video resurfaced of him in blackface imitating Chris Rock. While #JimmyFallonIsOverParty was quick to trend on Twitter, some users were quick to condemn his cancellation.

"The culture of canceling people is ridiculous. Jimmy Fallon did this 20 years ago when he was young and had to listen to his boss in order to put food on his table," wrote one user in the thread.

The 45-year-old talk show host has since apologized, writing on Twitter that it was a "terrible decision" to wear blackface, that he is "very sorry" and thanked his fans for holding him accountable for his actions, despite how long ago it was.

McCorkel acknowledged that we are quick to cancel and not so quick to forgive or believe that people can learn from mistakes, but as someone who has extensive knowledge of the criminal justice system, she has been witness to people changing.

"I know that people are capable of rehabilitation," she said, adding that she's seen it happen and that people can grow if given the chance.

Twitter's ability to dredge up old, problematic content is creating new problems for other celebrities, too. YouTubers Jenna Marbles, whose real name is Jenna Mourey, and Shane Dawson recently faced criticism for donning blackface on their channels years ago. Mourey even decided to call it quits over the incident.

Columbus Day

As Americans realize the racist history of the US, many holidays, monuments and traditions have come under fire and subsequently been "canceled." Columbus Day - to commemorate the arrival of Christopher Columbus in America- is not exempt. Now in many states, the day is instead "Indigenous Peoples Day," to remember the genocide of native people on the land settlers colonized. But not everyone is thrilled about the change. Those who are adamant about tradition and keeping even the ugly parts of our history see the cancellation of Columbus as a complete erasure of our country's foundations.

Canceling "cancel culture"

This week, Harper's Magazine published an open letter calling to do away with cancel culture altogether, denouncing the movement as "censorious" and "an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty."

Many Twitter users responded to the open letter - which was signed by more than 150 public figures, including Margaret Atwood, 80, and Rowling, 54 - in disgust, arguing that bigotry, like they believe many of the signers are guilty of, is not free speech.

Eugene Gu, the CEO of CoolQuit.com with almost 500,000 followers on Twitter, responded to the letter in a tweet, saying, that while he believes in free speech, "Many of the signatories on this letter...believe in free speech for themselves and horrible consequences for those who disagree with them." In a subsequent tweet, the 34-year-old added that racism, sexism and homophobia are not free speech, because it is discriminatory to others.

"This rigidity right now in American political discourse is problematic because you really can't have a high-functioning democracy without people being willing to engage one another in meaningful ways to hash out their political disagreements," she said.

She acknowledged that while it depends greatly on the issue at hand, there's a difference between canceling a type of behavior that is collectively agreed on as "bad" - using #MeToo and condemning workplace sexual harassment, for example - and canceling one particular person without discourse.

"We have to be able to come together across those political differences and sort out what are the optimal solutions," she said. "We can't do that if we are dug into our respective trenches and unwilling to engage across those political divides."

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What is cancel culture? Everything to know about the toxic online trend

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Cancel culture - promoting the "canceling" of people, brands and even shows and movies due to what some consider to be offensive or problematic remarks or ideologies - isn't all that new.

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Why ‘Cancel Culture’ Is a Distraction (Published 2020)

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A reporter’s last thoughts before putting the phrase to rest.

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64% of Americans view 'cancel culture' as mounting threat to freedom - The Independent

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54% of respondents are 'concerned' they would be banned if they express their opinion online

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Should We Cancel Celebrities for Their Crimes? | Middle Ground

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Activists can be fierce in attacking perceived racism or sexism by people or firms - with serious consequences.

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The Long and Tortured History of Cancel Culture (Published 2020)

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The public shaming of those deemed moral transgressors has been around for ages. As practiced today, though, is the custom a radical form of citizen justice or merely a handmaiden to capitalism?

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Cancel Culture and Moving the Goalposts.

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Cancel Culture and Moving the Goalposts.

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Cancel culture is harsh, and it has become a negative trend in society through the influence of social media. I would go as far to say that it is a toxic concept and reaps more harm than good.

The concept of cancel culture deals with "canceling" public figures, brands or individuals that have done or said something offensive or deemed wrong by society. Cancel culture is thriving in this season of life and has surfaced on almost every social media platform in some way.

As it is most notably seen on social media platforms, the temptation to jump on the bandwagon of group shaming has become much easier. After all, someone who participates in cancel culture can do it through the click of their keyboard or the tap of their phone. This leads to the question of if pointing out the flaws of others is wrong if done behind the mask of social media.

As a Christian, cancel culture is an immediate red flag. By living in a broken world, it is nothing but man's nature to sin. The bottom line is, people are going to make mistakes in life, as no one is perfect.

However, Christ's followers must build each other up and not tear each other down. This is the exact opposite of what cancel culture does - it is rooted in evil and not in love.

Romans 12:2 says, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."

When I read this verse, it reminds me to lift my eyes off the corruption of man and instead focus on the perfection of the Creator. Where cancel culture screams, "your past defines you," God declares that we are forgiven and made new through him.

Digging up the past of public figures or brands and using it to manipulate the public against them is wrong. It is unfair to shame others of their past if one neglects to acknowledge their own. There is no room for growth in this
circulating trend.

When I think of a brand that has been subjected to being "canceled" this year, I immediately think of Quaker Oats Company discontinuing Aunt Jemima. Aunt Jemima was a line of breakfast, pancake and syrup products. However, the brand itself was discontinued to suppress racial stereotypes.

Other brands such as Land O' Lakes have been put in the spotlight to rebrand as the media strives to cancel anything that can be considered controversial. After 92 years with the same logo, Land O' Lakes caved to the pressure to remove the photo of the Native American woman who has appeared on their products since 1928. In return, it forces the brand or person to conform to something or someone that meets the current standards of society.

Overall, 2020 has been and still is a year full of division and controversy as cancel culture continues to thrive on social media and even in the work place.

What if cancel culture was "canceled" instead of those affected by it? What if we spent more time supporting and encouraging people instead of destroying their reputation?

A world without cancel culture would be a world with more love to give and less hate to receive.
Lauren Shank is an Opinion Writer.

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Opinion: Social Media is Overrun by Cancel Culture - The Liberty Champion

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Cancel culture is harsh, and it has become a negative trend in society through the influence of social media. I would go as far to say that it is a toxic concept and reaps more harm than good. The concept of cancel culture deals with "canceling" public figures, brands or individuals that have done or said something offensive or deemed [...]

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Shows how even an apology is meaningless once the damage is done. 

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Shows how even an apology is meaningless once the damage is done. 

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-Lindsay Bull

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-Lindsay Bull

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In March of 2020, famous actress Vanessa Hudgens made a video commenting on the Coronavirus that many viewers deemed "insensitive". "Coronavirus: Vanessa Hudgens 'canceled' for trivialising pandemic response". This headline published by NewsHub was not the only of its kind-many entertainment news sources began debating the question of whether or not Vanessa Hudgens would officially be 'canceled'.
This instance provides a recent example of a popular practice referred to as "cancel culture": withdrawing support-thus, canceling-from a celebrity, company, or brand in response to an offensive or controversial remark or action. Cancel culture falls under the branch of public shaming, as it often spreads on social media. As time passes, however, cancel culture seems to be causing more harm than good in the media.
For starters, cancel culture merely serves as a way for fans to boost their sense of confidence. Many people jump at the opportunity to criticize and "call out" seemingly perfect public figures any chance they get-because the less likable someone else is, then the more likable you become, right? For some, perhaps that is the case, but that does not justify blacklisting celebrities for one simple mistake. To set the record straight, serious offenses like sexual assault, racism, and other obscene crimes should not warrant forgiveness. However, everybody says things they regret and with celebrity's entire life public knowledge, it's easy for fans to forget how much pressure they endure to satisfy the public's expectations.
Similarly, some of the actions celebrities are 'canceled' for took place before they rose to fame. For example, one celebrity began receiving hate for a video filmed as a teenager, in which he discussed a controversial topic. He responded with an apology, explaining that he was naive at that age and no longer agreed with what he had said in the video. Another side of this applies to celebrities who are teenagers now. With the recent popularity of Tik Tok, a new group of famous teens has emerged. It's common knowledge that teenagers are notorious for being impulsive and making mistakes. In the past few weeks alone, there have been a handful of threats of 'canceling' a few Tik Tok stars, one of these being Nessa Barrett. Nessa's offense: posting a video of her dancing, but the song she was dancing to was a man reading a passage from the Quran. Many fans took offense to this post and she eventually deleted the video. However, after she ended her first apology attempt with "I'm sorry... I think", fans felt unsatisfied. People began 'dragging' her on all social media platforms and she soon after released another apology that gained her some forgiveness. It appears the internet has granted Nessa a second chance, as she still has six million followers on Tik Tok. This is a prime example of how cancel culture can be ruthless.
Lastly, society needs to accept that celebrities can have their own opinions. Though these views may not align with that of their fan base, it does not justify ruining their career. However, opinions perceived as overly offensive, racists, homophobic should be kept quiet. Ordeals such as supporting one political party over another or being the face of a cause should not be reasons to trash a celebrity's image. Often, someone may discover a celebrity who fights for a cause they do or share a view with them, growing in admiration. But this new fan might then learn that the same celebrity also advocates for a belief that they oppose and may try to bash them for holding that opinion. This should not be the case because celebrities are entitled to their individuality and their own set of values. Overall, if someone considerably disagrees with a celebrity's beliefs, then they should stop supporting them, rather than trying to blacklist them.
In summary, fans must learn to humanize celebrities and public figures to kill the spread cancel culture and benefit the atmosphere of the media.

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In March of 2020, famous actress Vanessa Hudgens made a video commenting on the Coronavirus that many viewers deemed "insensitive". "Coronavirus: Vanessa Hudgens 'canceled' for trivialising pandemic response". This headline published by NewsHub was not the only of its kind-many entertainment news sources began debating the question of whether or not Vanessa Hudgens would officially...

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Pro-cancel culture article that addresses TikTok famous teens who have been cancelled and have not faced harsh enough consequences. 

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Pro-cancel culture article that addresses TikTok famous teens who have been cancelled and have not faced harsh enough consequences. 

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-Lindsay Bull

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The TikTok app has undoubtedly taken the world by storm, with 800 million users around the globe. Along with the app itself gaining fame, select TikTok users have also shot to extreme levels of popularity in a matter of months, amassing armies of dedicated fans. While there is nothing wrong with TikTok users supporting their favorite creators, a problematic culture has begun to fester within these fan bases when it comes to "cancel culture."

Cancel culture refers to social media and press members denouncing public figures in response to offensive or insensitive behavior. While the act of "canceling" has been around for years, it has taken a bizarre turn with TikTok celebrities.

TikTok cancel culture exists between two extremes: no consequences for offensive behavior, or a flood of hatred so strong that the person receives death threats at their doorstep.

Take user Nessa Barrett, a popular creator with 7.3 million followers. She recently posted, then deleted, a video of her doing a sexual dance to a song from the Quran. Users were quick to criticize her, explaining how offensive her actions were to Islamic individuals. This prompted her to post an apology video in which she said, "I think I'm sorry if anyone was offended," and justified her actions by stating that her stepmother is of Egyptian heritage.

Barrett's actions were not simply ignorant, but belittling to an entire religion. However, following her, "I think I'm sorry" act, Barrett has faced almost zero consequences. After her (frankly terrible) apology video, she took a two-day break from TikTok, only to return to posting the same videos as she had been in the past. Her followers flooded her comments section with phrases like, "Like this if you forgive Nessa" and, "Don't listen to the haters queen!" Loyal followers also responded to the dwindling comments rightfully calling out her offensive behavior with justifications such as, "She apologized-what else do you expect her to do?" Barrett has yet to, and likely will never address the incident a second time, and her follower count has only grown in the meantime.

TikTok star @lilhuddy (real name Chase Hudson) likewise experienced the lenient end of cancel culture, with his over 19 million followers rushing to his aid after a video of him saying the n-word leaked in June of 2019.

In response to the video, Hudson issued a half-hearted apology to the black community and said he regretted using the slur. However, he faced no consequences for using the derogatory word outside of a few days of negative comments. Hudson's follower count actually grew by millions over the past few months as his supporters rallied around him, claiming his apology was sufficient and then basically forgetting about the incident. While it's unfair to claim that his life should have been completely ruined by the incident, it is ridiculous that this was no more than a negligible bump in the road for Hudson's career.

Barrett and Hudson faced practically no consequences for their behavior, with both actually seeing their follower counts grow as a result of their actions. Openly using racial slurs or mocking a sacred verse of a religious text are inexcusable actions that cannot be blamed on ignorance or a "lapse in judgement." So, why haven't either of these creators faced any real consequences?

The answer lies within the way they have marketed themselves to their fans. Both Hudson and Barrett made a career off of their looks and have gained an army of fans that defend their every move. Thus, when exposed for offensive content, fans rushed to their defense, claiming that it was a mistake and that their half-hearted apologies were enough.

Barrett employs a facade of innocence, and pins herself as too naive to have known better. Her apology is full of victim card-playing trademarks like, "I never meant to offend anyone," or, "I wasn't aware of the significance of the verse." Barrett portrays herself as the innocent kid who doesn't know any better, despite being almost 18 years old.

TikTok cancel culture exists between two extremes: no consequences for offensive behavior, or a flood of hatred so strong that the person receives death threats at their doorstep. "

- Annie Cerria and Jessi Schlewitt

For Hudson, being an attractive white teenager has allowed him to play the victim card as well. His fans also blindly defend him in hopes that he will pay their comments any sort of attention, despite the fact that his actions are completely inexcusable.

With massive followings, Barrett and Hudson's fans overwhelm the comments sections, dismissing backlash against the creators' racist and insensitive actions as "hate." When people rightfully called out the two for their actions, both users' supporters left comments like, "Stay strong against the hate," and "Cyberbullying literally causes suicide guys-please watch what you're saying." By dismissing legitimate accusations of racism and insensitivity as "bullying," creators are further removed from ever having to acknowledge their mistakes, and instead can fall deeper into the role of the innocent victim.

This also exposes the other extreme of TikTok cancel culture: an onslaught of criticism to an absurd extent. However, this is most commonly seen with creators who don't market themselves as innocent children, but as adults, and therefore, face much more harsh criticism than others.

User @emmuhlu (real name Emma Lu) received extreme backlash beginning several weeks ago when videos of her using racial slurs leaked online. Her comments section has since been riddled with vicious messages attacking Lu (a white teenager), and much of it still continues.

"Those videos of me show an ignorant, obnoxious, stupid person who thought that saying blatantly offensive things was somehow funny or not serious," said Lu in an apology video. "It makes me sick that I used to say things like that. No amount of words can take away from the damage I caused."

Because the leaked videos featured Lu at 14 years old, she discussed in another one of her many long apology videos that she has since changed. "Me being young is not excusing my blatant ignorance and how badly this hurt and disgusted so many people," said Lu. "What I used to be eats me alive... I am not even a sliver of the same person that I was in those videos."

Many of the comments under this video continue to attack her, claiming she is "only sorry because she was caught" and demanding her to "get off this app."

The backlash far exceeded an aggressive comments section, however. Because Lu handled the incident in an objectively more mature way than Bassett's "I think I'm sorry" video, users felt more justified to dig the knife in further, going as far as sending death threats over social media and in letters.

"My parents' names and phone numbers have been leaked. They're being called," said Lu in another apology video. "My old address from New York has been leaked. I don't even live there anymore-a child and his family live there. Please stop. I was so terribly wrong and disgusting, but please see me."

Cancel culture preys on those who present themselves as an adult, not a naive child who gains a following based on physical appearance. By joining the masses in canceling less-popular creators whose fan bases are not rooted in their attractiveness, "haters" feel they are morally superior. What many of these commenters neglect is that there is an opportunity for growth for users who have been "canceled;" ironically, it is those who take this opportunity that are punished.

This does not condone any of the leaked videos of any of these creators. It is also not our place to accept or reject any of the apologies, considering we are not members of the offended groups.

But, while it is not our place to decide which apology is deserving of acceptance, it is our responsibility to note that users cannot pick and choose who is the recipient of incessant death threats versus who is the attractive white teen that, "doesn't deserve this," and the doe-eyed kid that, "didn't know any better." Cancel culture encourages a biased selection of the innocent and the guilty, even when they are both perpetrators of the same crime.

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'I'm just a kid': The toxic selectivity of TikTok cancel culture

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The TikTok app has undoubtedly taken the world by storm, with 800 million users around the globe. Along with the app itself gaining fame, select TikTok users have also shot to extreme levels of popularity in a matter of months, amassing armies of dedicated fans. While there is nothing wrong with TikTok users supporting their...

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Representing how cancelling has become more of a trend. 

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Representing how cancelling has become more of a trend. 

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-Lindsay Bull

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James Charles and Tati Wesbrook scandal. Represents how many jump on the bandwagon of unfollowing/ cancelling someone even before knowing their own side to the story. 

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James Charles and Tati Wesbrook scandal. Represents how many jump on the bandwagon of unfollowing/ cancelling someone even before knowing their own side to the story. 

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-Lindsay Bull

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US YouTube star James Charles has lost 2.6 million subscribers in three days following a public falling out with a fellow vlogger.

The 19-year-old, who posts makeup tutorials and beauty reviews to YouTube, amassed a following of over 16.5 million subscribers before a row with Tati Westbrook saw his number of subscribers plummet to13.9 million, according to tracking website Social Blade.

Westbrook was Charles' mentor, and Charles - who became the first male ambassador for Covergirl in 2016 - even did Westbrook's makeup on her wedding day in 2017.

His follower count appeared to plummet aftersocial media users sided with Westbrook, who objected to content Charles had posted, and amid Westbrook's claims that Charles, who is gay, tried to "manipulate someone's sexuality".

As the number of YouTube accounts subscribed to Charles dropped, Westbrook's subscriber count soared, gaining 2.9 million followers over three days, according to Social Blade.

The feud between the pair started on April 22, when Charles posted a video to Instagram for Sugar Bear Hair, a gummy vitamins brand, while at Coachella.

The supplements are a direct competitor of Westbrook's own brand, Halo Beauty.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume.

Tati Westbrook speaks about spat with James Charles

Shortly after the clip was uploaded, Westbrook shared a video of her own to Instagram, in which she said she felt "lost" and "betrayed" by someone, though she did not mention who.

After Westbrook's video went live, Charles posted a statement to his Instagram story in response, confirming the video was referring to him.

He wrote: "I want to publicly apologise to my close friend, Tati".

"She has been like a mother to me since my first days in this industry and has given me more love, support, resources and advice than I could ever ask for.

"This weekend I did an Instagram story for sleep vitamins that I've been taking because the brand helped me with security when the crowd around me at Coachella became unsafe.

"I did not accept any money from this post."

That was not the end of it, however.

'You are using your fame, power and money'

After Westbrook was accused of bullying Charles by another YouTube blogger, Gabriel Zamora, the 37-year-old uploaded a 43-minute YouTube video titled "BYE SISTER" on May 10, that detailed the feud with Charles from her point of view, as well as her decision to cut off their friendship.

The clip saw Westbrook accuse Charles of being "bought".

She said: "When you paired up with my number one competitor it was embarrassing for me and you know that.

"You kept saying you can't be bought, but you just were."

Westbrook also accused Charles of having tried to sway someone's sexuality.

"The last phone conversation me and James Charles had, is that he said something about a situation that happened at my birthday in Seattle.

"Oh my God, you tried to trick a straight man into thinking he's gay, yet again - and somehow you're the victim.

"You know it's really disgusting to manipulate someone's sexuality, especially when they are still emerging into adulthood and don't have everything figured out."

She added: "You are using your fame, power and money to play with people's emotions.

"I don't want to be friends with you. I don't want to be associated with you."

Charles was in Australia opening a pop-up store at Pacific Fair on the Gold Coast when Westbrook's latest video went live.

He posted a clip in response that specifically addressed Westbrook's latest comments shortly afterwards.

James Charles became the first male ambassador for Covergirl in 2016.(
Instagram: jcharlesbeauty
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"To Tati and James Westbrook [Westbrook's husband], I'm sorry for everything that is going on, everything that I've put you through over the past few weeks," he said in the video.

"Most of my career over the past few years has been about me making mistakes and trying to learn and grow from them.

"I haven't always done the best job of that, I can admit that. But I have always tried," he added.

Speaking on Westbrook's claims that he had tried to manipulate someone's sexuality, he said: "I've learned the hard way about the ways I can interact with boys [and] this is a conversation I should have been far more careful bringing into the public eye."

"[Tati] told me how it looked from the outside, she said talking to these boys might get you in trouble one day, and she was right."

The video has had more than 29.5 million views - more than double Charles' follower count - at the time of writing.

A storied past

While Charles built his fame off the back of his makeup skills, he has also courted controversy for comments that strayed into other topics.

In February 2017, he was criticised for a tweet about an upcoming trip to Africa.

The YouTuber wrote: "I can't believe we're going to Africa today OMG what if we get Ebola."

Several hours later, Charles removed the tweet and issued an apology, in which he referred to Africa as a country.

Last month, Charles attracted further controversy when he said he had been attracted to transgender men in the past in a YouTube video.

Charles apologised on Twitter, where he wrote: "In an attempt to explain the very complex concept of sexuality (and mine) in my vid today, I unintentionally implied that my trans brothers and sisters aren't valid.

"This is NOT what I was trying to say. You are valid in your identity!

"I apologise and should've chosen my words wiser!"

The star most recently landed himself in hot water last week, following the Met Gala.

After attending the New York charity event for the first time, Charles took to Instagram to describe his attendance as a "step forward in the right direction for influencer representation in the media".

He added: "I am so excited to be a catalyst."

The comments were widely ridiculed on social media.

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How YouTuber James Charles lost 2.6 million subscribers in just three days

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US YouTube star James Charles has lost 2.6 million subscribers in three days following a public falling out with a fellow vlogger. The 19-year-old, who posts makeup tutorials and beauty reviews to YouTube, amassed a following of over 16.5 million subscribers before a row with Tati Westbrook saw his number of subscribers plummet to13.9 million, according to tracking website Social Blade.

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People can be cancelled for irrational reasons.

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All The Reasons Why Cancel Culture Is So Toxic For Our Mental Health

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All The Reasons Why Cancel Culture Is So Toxic For Our Mental Health

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It's been a good year for cancelling. There's the pandemic, of course, which crushed all of our plans and some hopes and dreams along the way. But there were also more specific cancellations. From celebrities - Jimmy Fallon, J K Rowling and Ellen DeGeneres - to brands like SoulCycle and Oatly (as well as a fair few "normal" people), if you spoke, tweeted, or acted in an unfavourable way in 2020, chances were you'd be swiftly shunned for it.

Cancel culture - which sees individuals and brands spurned due to comments, actions or stances that some perceive to be wrong - is nothing new. "Fundamentally, cancel culture is about shame," explains chartered psychologist and author of How To Build A Healthy Brain, Kimberley Wilson. "Shame emerges in response to the feeling that we have transgressed against some agreed social rule and lost status within the group." Wilson says that evolutionary psychologists believe shame played a role in our survival - one upon a time, doing something that got us expelled from our tribe would have been life threatening.

But while being ostracised from society for wrongdoings has been a risk throughout human history, and while we've always - rightly - called attention to injustices, social media has given rise to a particularly virulent form of mob justice that is degrading our (already taxed) mental health.

"Social media has democratised shaming (we can all shame anyone we like), simultaneously expanding its reach, stripping away any mitigating or humanising context, and leaving a permanent paper trail of what might have been a momentary indiscretion," says Wilson. She believes ones of the biggest mental health risks of online cancelling is the "pile on" - the fact that within minutes a person could be verbally attacked by thousands of people. "For the 'cancelled' person it can feel as though they are being attacked by the whole world." For anyone watching, there's the feeling you could easily be next.

In its current form, cancel culture is anonymous, fuelled by a pack mentality, and intensely polarising - "I am right, you are wrong." It teaches us that if someone does something wrong, or champions someone or something that we may not like or agree with, then we must stop supporting them immediately. No grey areas allowed: they're cancelled, they're finished, and their name is attached to the #IsOverParty hashtag to prove it.

However, while calling out bad behaviour might be important, a culture that encourages people to be quick to cancel and reluctant to forgive is dangerous. It creates an environment that doesn't allow anyone to correct their behaviour (they should've known better), nor learn from their mistakes. And after all, mistakes, without sounding trite, are part of what makes us human. They're how we grow and develop as people.

"Cancel culture often denies the cancelled individual the most basic of human opportunities: to apologise and to be absolved," explains Wilson. "Because the road to redemption is blocked by the indignant mob." A quick apology is viewed as insincere, a slow one as being issued under duress, and the matter can still be resurrected days, weeks, even years later.

Children learn through mistakes. And no matter the severity of their mistake, we teach them to admit their wrongdoings, to apologise, demonstrate remorse, make amends, learn and grow. Cancel culture, by denying adults the same opportunity, disregards our imperfect nature and stymies our potential for growth.

In terms of benefits to "cancelling", there are a few. As with ancient ostracisations, the fear of shame can potentially keep our behaviour in check. Plus, it gives a voice to people who may otherwise be powerless - creating tangible consequences for those who have more power in society, such as large, multinational brands.

However, while public shaming can make an individual less likely to repeat a behaviour, and consumer opinion can lead to significant and positive shifts in a company, the majority of cancelled victims are not powerful people or brands. For every celebrity moved to sign an open letter disavowing cancel culture, there are 10 vulnerable people who quietly suffer personal, devastating harm - as well illustrated in Jon Ronson's 2015 book, So You've Been Publicly Shamed.

Ultimately, the collective bullying and cancellation of individuals for relatively minor, one-off events or comments (without the possibility of reform), often outweighs the harm caused by the actual event or comment. Should someone lose their reputation or their job - their entire livelihood, upon which perhaps their family also depends - because of one tweet? Do they deserve to have their lives torn apart, their homes targeted, death threats flooding their inboxes? It's rare that Obama and Trump agree on anything, but both have spoken out against cancel culture. Trump compared it to totalitarianism (which seems a bit rich, to be honest), while Obama observed: "The world is messy, there are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting may love their kids. And share certain things with you."

Good mental health depends on flexibility, on compassion, and on understanding. It relies on apologies and forgiveness, and (like any good penal system), sees mistakes as an opportunity not for punishment, but for reform. When it comes to cancelling, don't give in to online peer pressure - do your own research and allow people to be sorry. We've all said and done stupid things that we regret. We've all made mistakes. And we all deserve second chances, even on the internet.

Wilson's advice for someone who's been cancelled:

1. Get off social media. It is utterly overwhelming to be confronted with tens or hundreds of people giving you their opinion of you or your behaviour. It is too much for us to process. Turn your phone off, uninstall the apps (at least for a while), give your phone to someone else to screen for you.

2. Try to hold on to who you know yourself to be. Those who are cancelling you are likely to be telling you what kind of person you are based on one event. But each of us is more complex than a single incident. Connect with people who truly know you.

3. Reconnect with the world. It's easy to forget in the midst of a social media storm that there is an entire planet out there where no one knows (or cares) about what you might have done. Spending some time in the real world, particularly in nature, can help to shift your perspective and remind you that, even if it feels like it, the whole world isn't out to get you.

4. Remember that cancelling is not actually about morality; it about dominance. It's not an attempt to help you be a better person or see a genuine error (people can reach out in private to do that). It's an attempt to control you. The people doing the cancelling do not have the moral high ground.

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All The Reasons Why Cancel Culture Is So Toxic For Our Mental Health

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After a year in which cancelling became the norm, Lily Silverton explores all the reasons why cancel culture is so toxic for our mental health - and shares tips on how to deal with it if you have been cancelled.

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Cancel culture symbol or cultural cancellation and social media censorship as canceling or ... [+]
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There is no single accepted definition of cancel culture, but at its worst, it is about unaccountable groups successfully applying pressure to punish someone for perceived wrong opinions. The victim ends up losing their job or is significantly harmed in some way well beyond the discomfort of merely being disagreed with. Someone like J.K. Rowling isn't really a victim of cancel culture-she's too rich to be punished in any meaningful way and she doesn't have the kind of job that one can be fired from.

Powerful voices on the institutional left claim that there is no such thing as cancel culture. For example, the New York Times columnist Charles Blow, tweets: "Once more THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS CANCEL CULTURE. There is free speech. You can say and do as pls, and others can choose never to deal this [sic] you, your company or your products EVER again. The rich and powerful are just upset that the masses can now organize their dissent."

This argument confuses dissent with punishment. The victims of cancel culture are generally not powerful people. They are often vulnerable people who suffer devastating harm. A previous post discussed an African American school security guard who was fired for using the N-word in the course of telling a student not to direct that word at him. (Thankfully, he was eventually re-hired after a national furor erupted.) The same post discussed a teacher who was fired for inadvertently failing to address a student by his self-identified gender pronoun. The security guard and the teacher each have four children to support and lost their health insurance as well as their income when they were fired. They are hardly examples of the rich and powerful.

But at least one can say the security guard actually used the n-word and the teacher actually did have a religious objection to recognizing transgender identities. But as people, especially in educational settings, have grown more intimidated, it has been harder for the cancel culture warriors to find such people. So instead of finding someone who actually used the n-word, they expand the definition of cancel-worthy language. A professor at the University of Southern California was placed on leave for using a Chinese word that some people think sounds like the n-word even though it is simply the Chinese word for "that." The professor is a member of USC US-China Institute, and was teaching a communications course and was using the word to illustrate how different languages use different words to fill in pauses.

The situation has deteriorated to the point that one no longer needs to say anything to be targeted by cancel culture. At Skidmore College in New York State, a professor is being boycotted for merely attending a pro-police "Back the Blue" rally. He didn't participate in any way, he didn't speak or shout slogans, or carry a sign. He says he just wanted to hear what the demonstrators had to say. But an email circulated at the college saying, "Tonight, I and other Skidmore students witnessed Profs. David Peterson and Andrea Peterson at an anti-Black Lives Matter protest. We demand the immediate dismissal of both Skidmore staff members for engaging in hateful conduct that threatens Black Skidmore students." (It turned out that Andrea Peterson doesn't work at the college.)

The professor found a notice on his classroom door saying "STOP. By entering this class you are crossing a campus-wide picket line and breaking the boycott against Professor David Peterson. This is not a safe environment for marginalized students . . . By continuing to take this course you are enabling bigoted behavior on this campus."

According to Professor Peterson, as a result of the boycott, he has no remaining students in one class and only a very small number of students in his other two classes. He also says the university is investigating him for possible bias.

This extravagant expansion of cancel-worthy behavior is not limited to academia and it is not limited to anything a person has said or done anytime this century. A top executive at Boeing recently lost his job because of an article he wrote in 1987, opposing allowing women to serve as fighter pilots. The executive apologized for the article, writing: "My article was a 29-year-old Cold War navy pilot's misguided contribution to a debate that was live at the time. The dialogue that followed its publication 33 years ago quickly opened my eyes, indelibly changed my mind, and shaped the principles of fairness, inclusion, respect and diversity that have guided my professional life since." That was not enough to save his job.

In no way is contemporary cancel culture about free speech or debate. Nor is it any longer primarily about social justice. The power to get someone fired must be a thrilling feeling. It also strengthens group bonds and can raise one's social standing in certain groups. It is not hard to understand why many people would be willing to look further and further afield to find targets: an innocently uttered Chinese word for "that," mere attendance at a rally to hear a point of view, or a 33-year-old article that the author has renounced and apologized for.

What is harder to understand is why the truly powerful, those with the power to suspend and investigate professors and to fire people, are allowing this? Perhaps they fear becoming targets themselves. Whatever the reason, there is no denying that cancel culture exists and is getting worse.

... Read More

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There is no single accepted definition of cancel culture, but at its worst, it is about unaccountable groups successfully applying pressure to punish someone for perceived wrong opinions. The victim ends up losing their job or is significantly harmed in some way well beyond the discomfort of merely being disagreed with.

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Cancel culture: a force for good or a threat to free speech?

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Cancel culture: a force for good or a threat to free speech?

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Let's begin with what cancel culture is and what it isn't, because it has come to mean a great deal of different things to different people. To some, it poses a grave danger to free speech. To some, it is a new take on 'political correctness gone mad' and a method used by the intolerant left to enforce a puritanical censure.

To others, it's just a way of saying that someone has done something they perceive to be offensive and therefore has lost their respect. It is not a new phenomenon - free speech has always had consequences, especially when that speech has the potential for harm. High-profile figures have been challenged and publicly criticised for apparent wrongdoings by the media for decades, celebrities who have acted in opposition with a company's values have been dropped and politicians regularly pillory their opponents. Today, it can be viewed as a way of defending the weak against higher powers. Rightly or wrongly, cancel culture gives the marginalised an amplified voice and a way to challenge damaging narratives promoted by the status quo.

Its purest definition is the boycotting of a person or organisation because of an objectionable comment or act. It is the withdrawal of support, be it no longer watching films that the offending person has starred in or books that they have written. The cancellation is akin to voiding a contract, severing ties with someone or something that you might have previously been a fan of.

Free speech has always had consequences, especially when that speech has the potential for harm

What it isn't is call-out culture, which is highlighting a mistake, condemning it if it's harmful and asking them to do better so that the individual doesn't make the same error again. Both are linked to public shaming, and both have been used as a way of achieving social justice. Both have become extremely divisive over the past six months, reaching a crescendo last week over comments made by JK Rowling about the trans community. She, along with over 150 academics, writers and authors, penned a public letter condemning cancel culture (thought to be an escalation of call-out culture) on the basis that it threatens the right to free speech, "the lifeblood of a liberal society", arguing that it promotes an "intolerance of opposing views [and] a vogue for public shaming and ostracism". It's a fascinating line to take - to argue that something endangers free speech by telling others that they don't have the right to theirs.

The debate is rampant. Others argue that our right to free speech doesn't make you entitled to hate speech. The trans activist Munroe Bergdorf says, "cancel culture is not the same as being held accountable for your actions". The journalist and author Owen Jones argued on Twitter that "All too often, 'cancel culture' becomes a means for very rich and very powerful people to pretend they are victims when people respond to very controversial things they have used their huge public platform to say". The situation has become heated indeed.

There are many pitfalls of cancel culture if we take it to mean boycotting a person and expunging them from society. "When does 'cancelling' cross over with bullying?" asks the psychologist, lecturer and author Dr Audrey Tang. "The number of Lea Michele's co-workers who spoke up about her poor behaviour may have been making a point, which Lea Michele addressed, but I refer to the tragic suicide of Caroline Flack. What outcome do those calling for change actually want? Unfortunately, when we say anything, we simply do not know how others will react."

"Psychologically, cancel culture carries echoes of Melanie Klein's 'Splitting Theory,'" says the psychotherapist Lucy Beresford. "This is where small children separate the world into good or bad, and can't integrate or tolerate the two sides of someone or something. For example, when a parent stops them having ice-cream between meals, they are 'all bad' and the child will be furious, whereas when they kiss the child goodnight, they are now 'all good' and the child is content. As we grow up, ideally, we are able to hold in our hearts the idea that someone can have different views from us and still be a good or decent person. Cancel culture doesn't allow for the same kind of nuance."

One of the potential issues with cancel culture is how it taps into feelings of shame, which rarely helps or propels an individual to learn and make positive changes. Essentially, it renders cancel culture ineffective when it comes to social justice, which is its goal. The research professor Brené Brown, who has spent two decades studying vulnerability, shame and empathy, says that shame is rarely productive.

We think we can shame people into being better, but that's not true

"We think that shaming is a great moral compass, that we can shame people into being better, but that's not true," says Brown in a recent episode of her Unlocking Us podcast. "Here's a great example that comes up a lot when I'm talking about parenting. You have a kid who tells a lie, so you shame that child, and say, 'You're a liar.' Shame corrodes the part of us that thinks that we can be different. If I'm a liar, if that's who I am, how do I ever change? How do I ever make a different decision? This is versus 'You're a good person and you told a lie, and that behaviour is not OK in this family.' Everyone needs a platform of self-worth from which to see change."

Shame is different to guilt, which can prompt positive behaviour. "When we see people apologising, making amends and changing their behaviour, that is always around guilt," says Brown. "Guilt, the whole 'I am bad', is not easy. It creates psychological pain, 'I have done something that is inconsistent or incongruous with my values or who I want to be.' When we apologise or make amends for something we've done and change our behaviour, guilt is the driving force. It's a positive, socially adaptive experience."

This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

The activist and author Jenna Arnold, who was one of the key organisers of the history-making Washington Women's March in March 2017, agrees that cancel culture is unproductive on the basis that the shame associated with being wrong deters people from moving forward. "It doesn't leave space for redemption, and while this isn't an opportunity to pardon those who have caused harm, it is worth the exercise of watching the very important role humility and responsibility can and need to take in a world that is trying to right its way."

The idea of pushing someone out - because they have said or done something perceived to be offensive - leaves no room for growth or learning. Matt Haig describes cancel culture as "anti-progress because it is anti-change". "Cancelling people pushes them away and makes them more likely to find spaces where bad views are the norm," he says. "Obviously, if someone has been convicted of, say, violence or sexual assault then they need to be punished, but cancel culture isn't that. Cancel culture, as I see it, involves the shutting down of different perspectives and treating people like mere disposable artefacts in the cultural economy."

Cancel culture involves the shutting down of different perspectives and treating people as disposable

If the purpose of cancel culture is a method to achieve justice for marginalised groups or people, then its influence isn't as great as we've been led to believe. Of individuals who have been 'cancelled' over recent years, many are still working and enjoying relative success. Many have not seen long-term boycotts - R Kelly still makes music, Woody Allen still shoots films and Louis CK still performs.

The problem with cancel culture is that it has become too broad, and near meaningless. R Kelly was cancelled over decades of sexual-assault allegations, yet so too was Jodie Comer for dating a Republican. There is no proportion. It is used in so many different contexts, both heavy and light, that it oversimplifies, and loses its weight because it allows those who have engaged in dangerous and/or harmful rhetoric and behaviour to ride on the backlash.

"When something becomes 'fashionable' it can lose meaning," says Dr Tang. "For example, when the debate around Dominic Cummings' lockdown behaviour was a social-media trend, the calls were to resign, but why not a hefty fine? Why not a suspension? In the workplace 'you're fired' is not the only option. We should not allow the complexity of the human brain to be reduced to a hashtag."

In the eyes of cancel culture, people are reduced to good or bad with no room for anything in-between. "The process is like air-brushing someone or something out," says Beresford, "It doesn't allow for the possibility that two sides could ever agree, or learn from each other, or could persuade each other of their arguments - or even agree to disagree."

Being told you're wrong is not the same as being cancelled

That's not to say that individuals should not be held accountable when they air a questionable view or do something wrong. Call-out culture is just that, the idea that we can challenge someone's opinion or action without deleting them, therefore leaving them with room to grow and learn. "Being called out has made me a better person," said Jameela Jamil on Instagram. "Not being cancelled has enabled me to be accountable, learn from my mistakes, and go on to share those lessons with others and do good with my privilege. Most of us have the potential to do that."

This content is imported from Instagram. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

When we decide to call someone out, we must resist a combative approach if we want to have the best chance of helping that person see the issues with what they may said or done. Most of us respond to criticism with defensiveness. Dr Tang says the best results come from talking to someone privately and also to challenge without accusation.

"Ask a question first to generate explanation. For example, 'When you said x what did you mean by that?'" advises Dr Tang. "It doesn't have to be nasty, nor humiliating. In fact, the more diplomatic you are, the more likely you are to effect a change of mind and that is after all, what you want. A subtle private message to see if they acted in error is more likely to influence than having a go. The latter only results in defensiveness that neither party wants fundamentally. The debate often turns on wanting to win rather than any form of learning."

Instead of calling people out, we must start calling them in

Jenna Arnold says we must use forms of restorative justice that don't make people feel threatened and therefore less likely to want to change. She wants to evolve our concept of call-out culture, instead arguing for 'call-in culture'.

"My aim is to provide practical tools to use as we start listening with open hearts to others and inviting them to listen to us in the same manner - as, instead of calling people out, we start calling them in," she says. "We must put aside the urge to win - or maybe just redefine what winning means. We're not stirring the pot with the goal of a neat resolution or a concrete answer; rather, we want to start uncomfortable conversations for the sake of urgently needed exploration. This can be hard to fully internalise. Yet this hard work is the most essential antidote to the polarisation widening the rifts in society and within ourselves."

By calling each other in, rather than out, when it comes to debate, we take into account the fundamental human desire for acceptance and to be part of a collective.

"Human beings yearn for community," she says. "We are longing to belong to something bigger than ourselves. Inviting people into the conversation - calling each other 'in' versus calling each other 'out' - is key to our survival. But that doesn't only need to happen in the wake of an awkward statement, bumper sticker or post-election conversation. We need to share ideas and seek out the perspectives of others in our communities, throughout our lives. We're no longer allowed to go back to sleep, no matter who is in the White House or how fair the world suddenly becomes. Being a citizen is active, hard, constant work."

We live in a society where it's easier than ever to have our voices heard - social media was designed for it. What we must do now is listen, regardless of which side we fall on. The free-speech argument is two-fold - progress will not be achieved through silencing either party, whether that's 'cancelling' someone, or by dismissing one's right to criticise. Being told you're wrong is not the same as being deleted. It's time to listen, process and move forward.
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Cancel culture: a force for good or a threat to free speech?

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Let's begin with what cancel culture is and what it isn't, because it has come to mean a great deal of different things to different people. To some, it poses a grave danger to free speech. To some, it is a new take on 'political correctness gone mad' and a method used by the intolerant left to enforce a puritanical censure.

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An article that examines the origin of cancel culture how it became an extremely controversial practice.

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An article that examines the origin of cancel culture how it became an extremely controversial practice.

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-Saihari Kota

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"Cancel culture," or the idea that people too often pile onto others for bad behavior, emerged only in the past few years but has become a ubiquitous phrase among English speakers.

President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump have both criticized a culture of relentlessly calling people out for alleged wrongdoing. In an address at Mount Rushmore last month, Trump said it was "the very definition of totalitarianism."

As social-media users decry cancel culture and poke fun at the criticism itself, the phrase has come to describe a wide variety of behaviors and their consequences.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

In a congressional antitrust hearing on July 29, Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio had a specific question for Apple CEO Tim Cook.

"Mr. Cook," Jordan said, "is the 'cancel culture' mob dangerous?"

"Cancel culture," which President Donald Trump last month called "the very definition of totalitarianism," describes the phenomenon of frequent public pile-ons criticizing a person, business, movement, or idea.

The phrase - a surprisingly recent creation - has become ubiquitous in pop culture and reached the highest halls of power, used to describe "cancellations" large and small.

On one end of the spectrum are people like Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, and R. Kelly who were canceled by the public before their sex-crimes trials. On the other end are everyday people like David Shor, who faced criticism on Twitter after he tweeted a study from an academic journal questioning the political consequences of violent and peaceful protests. Shor, who tweeted the link during the George Floyd protests, was fired, though the company has said it wasn't over the tweet.

Despite the seemingly positive intentions of many cancellations - to "demand greater accountability from public figures," as Merriam-Webster's evaluation of the phrase notes - people tend to call out cancel culture itself as a negative movement, suggesting that the consequences of cancellation are too harsh in minor instances or represent rushed judgment in complicated situations.

Others have criticized that criticism, saying cancel culture doesn't exist.

With the varied usage and wide debate around the term, it's reasonable to ask where it came from and how it became a part of everyday speech.

The phrase was popularized only in the past few years. Now it's everywhere.

"Cancel culture" came into the collective consciousness around 2017, after the idea of "canceling" celebrities for problematic actions or statements became popular.

Lisa Nakamura, a professor at the University of Michigan who studies digital media's connections to race, gender, and sexuality, told The New York Times in 2018 that cancellation was a "cultural boycott" of a certain celebrity, brand, company, or concept.

Merriam-Webster, the American publisher of dictionaries and thesauruses, connected cancel culture with the #MeToo movement, which coincided with the rise of the term's popularity online. New allegations seemed to come out daily, and attitudes quickly shifted against the accused.

The trend of calling someone out laid the groundwork for full-on cancellations. It has roots in early-2010s Tumblr blogs, notably Your Fave Is Problematic, where fandoms would discuss why their favorite stars were imperfect, Aja Romano reported for Vox in 2019.

While "canceling" has been used colloquially for the better part of a decade, "cancel culture" is much more recent.

For example, one of the earliest uses of the phrase on Twitter came from Myles McNutt, a TV critic and assistant professor at Old Dominion University, who used it in a tweet in February 2014 to refer to the cancellations of TV series.

"It's unfortunate how renew/cancel culture has made 'not renewed early' read as canceled - 'wait and see until pilots come in' is normal," McNutt tweeted.

McNutt's tweet got only four retweets and four likes. McNutt told Insider in an email that he was referring to "renew/cancel" culture and that he didn't consider "cancel culture" a "legible phrase" at the time.

-Myles McNutt (@Memles) February 13, 2014

Before then, the term had been used a handful of times on Twitter, and nearly all had different meanings.

The phrase "cancel culture" experienced notable growth in 2016 and 2017, particularly on Black Twitter, according to research by Insider and reporting by Merriam-Webster and Vox. Insider identified fewer than 100 tweets or threads with the phrase "cancel culture" before 2018.

The writer Shanita Hubbard used the phrase in a tweet about the controversy surrounding Gabby Douglas in November 2017. The Olympic gymnast was ostensibly canceled after she appeared to blame survivors of sexual assault; in response to her teammate Aly Raisman's tweet about sexual assault, Douglas said that "it is our responsibility as women to dress modestly and be classy."

Responding to the backlash against Douglas, Hubbard tweeted: "Let's talk 'cancel culture.' Personally, I am willing to give a lot of grace to young Black girls simply because the world doesn't." The tweet got more than 6,000 likes.

-Shanita Hubbard (@msshanitarenee) November 18, 2017

The phrase continued to gain popularity on Twitter in late 2017, with several people writing "cancel culture" in quotation marks to describe the trend. Insider found that most of those tweets referred to cancel culture negatively.

In addition to Hubbard, other Twitter users made similar arguments that year. "Cancel culture is SO toxic, you can't even learn from your mistakes anymore because you're not even allowed to make any," another tweet in November 2017 said.

The concept gained steam among celebrities and influencers in 2018

Google Trends data indicates that there was almost no search interest in the phrase "cancel culture" until the second half of 2018 and early 2019. The most search interest came in July of this year.

The top definition of "cancelled" (the British spelling) on Urban Dictionary was posted in March 2018. The top definition of " canceled" on the website was posted the next year and has less engagement.

A series of fleeting cancellations of celebrities including Taylor Swift and Kanye West brought about more discourse. "Almost everyone worth knowing has been canceled by someone," Jonah Engel Bromwich wrote for The Times in June 2018 in one of the first news stories to analyze the trend. In a Vice Canada story the next month about the resurgence of the YouTuber and mega-influencer Logan Paul after inappropriate behavior, Connor Garel called cancel culture a "myth."

The comedian Kevin Hart faced intense online backlash in the fall of 2018 when his homophobic tweets resurfaced after he was chosen to host the 2019 Oscars. Ellen DeGeneres and others defended Hart, who said he shouldn't be judged based on a statement he made years ago. In the end, Hart stepped down from the hosting gig and refused to issue another apology. He later blamed cancel culture. Though much of the media attention was critical of Hart, he has since found wide-ranging career success.

Still, anti-cancel-culture rhetoric continued on social media. Zolita, a German American singer, said in a December 2018 tweet that "cancel culture needs to be canceled."

Indya Moore, who stars on FX's TV show "Pose," wrote that month that "nobody deserves to be defined by the worse mistakes they ever made."

"Especially when they aren't consistently stubborn in complicity," Moore continued. "We really need to cut down on this cancel culture, it's drowing everyone and it is unnecessary."

-#BreonnaTaylor (@IndyaMoore) December 22, 2018

By 2019, more news articles had analyzed the trend, and "cancel culture" became a piece of mainstream vernacular. A November op-ed article in Time was titled "Cancel Culture Is Not Real-At Least Not in the Way People Think." Chi Luu, JSTOR Daily's resident linguist, wrote about the trend in December. Vox's Romano wrote about it the same month.

Eventually, the term became politicized

The idea of cancel culture eventually found its way into mainstream politics.

Former President Barack Obama criticized the trend in an interview about youth activism at an Obama Foundation summit in October, though he didn't use the phrase. "That's not activism. That's not bringing about change," he said. "If all you're doing is casting stones, you're probably not going to get that far. That's easy to do."

Many of the politicians and pundits who have recently come out against cancel culture are conservative. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, whose controversial June op-ed article in The Times led to the resignation of the paper's opinion editor, said that the critical response to his column showed that cancel culture had gone too far.

"Cancel culture, whether in its Maoist or its Jacobin forms, ultimately is animated by a single idea-that America at its core is fundamentally irredeemable and wicked," Cotton wrote on his website.

The White House adviser Stephen Miller recently made a similar claim. "Cancel culture is a very grave threat to American freedom," he said on Larry O'Connor's radio show.

Trump condemned cancel culture in his Independence Day address at Mount Rushmore, saying it was being used as a "political weapon" by protesters fighting for the destruction of statues of American slaveholders. "It is completely alien to our culture and our values, and it has absolutely no place in the United States of America," he said.

Common conservative depictions of cancel culture compare the idea to mob rule and authoritarianism. In a column last year, The Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan compared it to China's Cultural Revolution.

"Social media is full of swarming political and ideological mobs," she wrote. "In an interesting departure from democratic tradition, they don't try to win the other side over. They only condemn and attempt to silence."

Last month, the columnist Bari Weiss wrote in a resignation letter announcing her departure from The Times that "Twitter has become its ultimate editor." She later described cancel culture as "social murder."

In her 2019 JSTOR Daily article, Luu said the anti-cancel-culture sentiment was rooted in the negative discourse about groups or movements - and it's the same notion that has led to criticism of Black Lives Matter, Occupy Wall Street, and other social-justice movements.

"The kind of language that's used to talk about groups of people assembled together-or their collective actions seeking to change the status quo-often maligns communities as irrational, 'mobs' or 'rioters' with uncontrolled, invalid emotions, a kind of faceless contagion that presents a threat to civilized, law-abiding society and the ruling establishment," Luu wrote.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic and heightened activism, cancellations have increased - but they've been less controversial

As the COVID-19 pandemic has forced many people into social isolation, and as activism has spiked around the Black Lives Matter movement, cancellations appear to have reached a high point.

The YouTubers Shane Dawson and Jeffree Star, celebrities like Doja Cat and Lana Del Rey, and figures in traditional media have recently faced waves of criticism of controversial content or bad behavior. Many of these cancellations have had intense consequences, such as firing or brand separation.

But many people online have framed the criticism around accountability rather than cancellation, saying that people in power are finally being asked to address problematic pasts.

Private people have experienced an uptick in public criticism too. Videos of white women - sometimes referred to as "Karens" - going on racist or generally inappropriate public tirades have been massively popular. Many of these women, including Amy Cooper, who called the police on a Black birdwatcher in Central Park in May, faced real-life consequences: She lost her job and temporarily lost her dog after the video went viral. Their defenders have blamed cancel culture, with one op-ed article proclaiming that "Karens" were the victims in these situations.

Hubbard, the chair of a National Association of Black Journalists task force, said cancel culture was the wrong phrase to use for these instances where sleuths on social media identify a person caught on camera acting racist or being offensive.

"I think it's unfair for anybody to say what happened to Amy was cancel culture," she said. "What happened to Amy was public accountability, because her actions were harmful."

@jaimetoons/Twitter; Melody Cooper/Twitter; @savsoares/TikTok

It's important to recognize that cancellations exist to hold people accountable, said Krishauna Hines-Gaither, the associate vice president for diversity, equity, and inclusion at Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina, and a cofounder of African American Linguists.

Hines-Gaither told Insider that someone's cancellation is almost always in direct response to "largely unchecked" actions that are problematic or questionable.

Now, Hubbard said, "the term 'cancel culture' is being used as a shield" as people try to evade responsibility for their actions and decry any kind of public accountability.

Hines-Gaither said in an email that while "'cancel culture' is not the antecedent," finding ways to engage with one another on these issues despite the temptations of cancellation "continues to be a work in progress."

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How 'cancel culture' quickly became one of the buzziest and most controversial ideas on the internet

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"Cancel culture," or the idea that people too often pile onto others for bad behavior, emerged only in the past few years but has become a ubiquitous phrase among English speakers. President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump have both criticized a culture of relentlessly calling people out for alleged wrongdoing.

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A tweet by Elon Musk saying we should cancel culture (Which would technically be using cancel culture again to get rid of cancel culture)

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A tweet by Elon Musk saying we should cancel culture (Which would technically be using cancel culture again to get rid of cancel culture)

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-Saihari Kota

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Cancel Cancel Culture!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 19, 2020

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A NY Post article which looks at recent examples of celebrities and other things that have been "cancelled" and the possible consequences.

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A NY Post article which looks at recent examples of celebrities and other things that have been "cancelled" and the possible consequences.

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-Saihari Kota

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Are Jimmy Fallon, Jodie Comer, Lana Del Rey, J.K. Rowling and Ellen DeGeneres really canceled? Getty Images

Is it time to throw the #CancelCultureIsOverParty yet?

"Jeopardy!" producer Mike Richards is among the latest of the cancellable celebrities, right after Chris Harrison stole the cancel culture show on "The Bachelor" earlier this year.

Even Dr. Seuss and Eminem (sort of) have found themselves among the famous figures who were declared "over."

Meet the celebrity "casualties" of cancel culture 2021.

The cancelation debate heated up last summer after Twitter users took to the digital platform to condemn Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling for making anti-trans comments along with denouncing singer-rapper Doja Cat's racist chatroom past and former "Glee" star Lea Michele's alleged mistreatment of co-stars. By July, the focus had lasered in on talk show host DeGeneres (complete with a death hoax) and "Killing Eve" star Jodie Comer's rumored conservative boyfriend.

The hits kept coming through the fall and haven't stopped - even for beloved kids movies. Disney+ announced that they'd be putting a filter on old classics such as "Dumbo" and "The Aristocats" over racist imagery. A sequel to "Space Jam" will notably leave out the creepily persistent Pepe Le Pew. And Millennial parents are done with Dr. Seuss books after realizing the harmful stereotypes depicted in his books.

But what does it really mean to get the #RIP treatment - and will society ever declare it to be over, too?

Cancel culture - the phenomenon of promoting the "canceling" of people, brands and even shows and movies due to what some consider to be offensive or problematic remarks or ideologies - isn't all that new.

Dr. Jill McCorkel, a professor of sociology and criminology at Villanova University, told The Post that the roots of cancel culture have been present throughout human history. Societies have punished people for behaving outside of perceived social norms for centuries, she said, and this is just another variation.

"Cancel culture is an extension of or a contemporary evolution of a much bolder set of social processes that we can see in the form of banishment," she said. "[They] are designed to reinforce the set of norms."

Over the last few years, the social-media trend has gained momentum under the trendy new name - placing celebrities, companies and media alike under a microscope of political correctness.

Here's a brief rundown of what's been canceled lately.

Mike Richards

What is: problematic. Richards was forced to step down from his role as "Jeopardy!" host after allegations surfaced that he was sexist and had reportedly harassed female employees. "We had hoped that when Mike stepped down from the host position at 'Jeopardy!' it would have minimized the disruption and internal difficulties we have all experienced these last few weeks. That clearly has not happened," reps for the show said before announcing his exit.

Joe Rogan

The controversial podcaster has been canceled time and time again for his conservative political beliefs and offensive comments. Most recently, he was canceled for his anti-vaccination comments. On an episode of his own podcast, Rogan complained that white men are "oppressed" because his opinions are seen as offensive or politically incorrect.

Disney classics

Children under 7 will now be forbidden from watching "Dumbo," "Peter Pan" "Swiss Family Robinson" and the "The Aristocats." Settings on the app will prevent the movies from even showing up on the young viewers' profiles. Disney explained its rationale behind each film's removal on the kid-focused Stories Matter section of their website.

They cited "Dumbo's" (1941) infamous singing crows, which "pay homage to racist minstrel shows, where white performers with blackened faces and tattered clothing imitated and ridiculed enslaved Africans on Southern plantations."

Piers Morgan

Last month, the TV personality lost yet another on-air gig with " Good Morning Britain," a decision that came seven years after he was originally canceled in 2014, along with his show on CNN. The controversial host confirmed that he left "GMB" because he refused to apologize for disbelieving Meghan Markle's claims of suicidal ideation as a royal. In a letter to his fans posted on Instagram, Morgan wrote: "This is not simply an act of defiance, but a commitment to our collective futures."

Dr. Seuss

The once irreproachable children's book author has been the subject of racial reckoning. On March 2 - what would have been the late author and illustrator's 117th birthday - the company that oversees Seuss' publications announced that they were pulling licensing rights to six titles, due to racially insensitive depictions of Asian and Black characters.

These books - which include "And To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street" and "Scrambled Eggs Super!" -- "portray people in ways that are hurtful and wrong," Dr. Seuss Enterprises said in a statement to the Associated Press.

JK Rowling

She's no stranger to controversy. The infamous author has been canceled multiple times over the years, specifically for negative comments about people identifying as transgender. Earlier this year, a Harry Potter-themed segment at a book festival was canceled due to Rowling's insensitive remarks online, the latest in her cancel culture controversy.

Eminem

This one may be an example of cancel culture turning on itself. Gen Zers were schooled by Millennials after they attempted to cancel the rapper over his angst-filled lyrics.

The controversy kicked off in February when a "zoomer" (or Gen Z member) posted a TikTok clip condemning the rapper's 2010 hit "Love the Way You Lie," featuring Rihanna, for reportedly glorifying violence against women. They highlighted the verse "If she ever tries to f-king leave again I'ma tie her to the bed and set this house on fire."

The hater's on-camera diss caused 30-somethings to - in the words of an Eminem song title - "just lose it," as many of them grew up on the 48-year-old Detroit native's tunes.

One inspired TikTok sketch depicts an Eminem-loving millennial having a mock argument with himself as a Gen Zer, who says, "We gotta cancel Eminem." The millennial responds, "Why?" and is then asked by his offended younger doppelgänger, "Have you heard his lyrics?"

The creator, back to playing his millennial Fireball-drinking self, responds: "Heard 'em? I was raised screaming them all through grade school."

'Space Jam'

The serial harasser Pepé Le Pew was canceled from "Space Jam 2." Producers decided to cut one of Pepé's star scenes in the sequel, in which the character is depicted as a flirty bartender who insists on kissing a female customer (played by Greice Santo) despite her many objections.

According to Deadline, the scene also sees pro baller James take Pepé aside to explain the concept of "consent" as the flirtatious skunk admits that his longtime love, Penelope Pussycat, had filed for a restraining order against him - a troubling statement to come from a children's cartoon.

Gina Carano

Carano, 38, who played bounty hunter Cara Dune in the first two seasons of "The Mandalorian," was fired from the show for her controversial social media posts.

Lucasfilm made no secret of why she was canceled, ripping "her social media posts denigrating people based on their cultural and religious identities," which it called "abhorrent and unacceptable."

Carano's most controversial message - and the one that appears to have been the final straw - came when she shared an image from Nazi Germany and compared it to today's overheated political climate.

"Jews were beaten in the streets, not by Nazi soldiers but by their neighbors.... even by children," her post stated.

Central Park Karen

This popular request amongst the platform's users actively encourages a person to be put under the microscope. Twitter's users are often known for their FBI-like investigative skills - digging up past dirt, old secrets and discovering people's identities - and are now being utilized in the resurgence of cancel culture.

Users are uncovering the identities of people expressing racist comments in viral videos, with one recent victim being Amy Cooper, 41, otherwise known as "Central Park Karen." The video featured the white woman calling the police on a black man, Christian Cooper (no relation), 57, who requested her dog be put on a leash.

"Karen" promptly told authorities an "African-American man is threatening my life," all whilst seemingly strangling her dog. After the video racked up millions of views, she was fired from her investment firm job, temporarily forced to surrender her dog and charged with one count of falsely reporting an incident in the third degree. The viral clip also spawned new hate crimes legislation.

Oh, when Karens take a walk with their dogs off leash in the famous Bramble in NY's Central Park, where it is clearly posted on signs that dogs MUST be leashed at all times, and someone like my brother (an avid birder) politely asks her to put her dog on the leash. pic.twitter.com/3YnzuATsDm
- Melody Cooper (@melodyMcooper) May 25, 2020

Celebrities are joining the cancel-culture call to action, too.

Actress-writer Skai Jackson, 18, took to Twitter last month to expose a high-school student featured in a viral video screaming racial slurs. She identified his name, prospective college and Instagram handle.

In the thread, her followers used it as an opportunity to expose other people's offensive posts, starting a chain of ultimate Twitter investigative work in the name of canceling racists. Pop singer-songwriter Lana Del Rey, 35, experienced similar backlash after making comments about fellow female recording artists - many of them women of color.

The collective canceling of someone, even on the internet, creates a sense of solidarity, McCorkel explained, and reinforces the feeling of togetherness, that "we are a group...and we don't tolerate that kind of behavior."

"It reinforces, at a time of political division, a sense of shared solidarity, at least among the people who are doing the canceling," she said. "It's psychologically intoxicating to feel part of a group and to feel a part of something larger than yourself."

Popular Twitter accounts like @YesYoureRacist and @RacistOTW have become the pop-culture racism watchdogs. They've made it their civic duty to scrutinize the actions of average people and public figures alike, shedding light on previously overlooked or unknown incidents.

Uncle Ben's, Aunt Jemima and Mrs. Butterworth

Cancel culture, though, isn't exclusive to celebrities. Companies and brands are under fire for racist imagery.

After facing backlash for perpetuating racist stereotypes, the 130-year-old Aunt Jemima breakfast brand is getting a makeover. Similarly, Uncle Ben's and Mrs. Butterworth's brands might be next.

Popular vegan recipe creator, formerly named "Thug Kitchen," also underwent a rebrand, revealing its new name as "Bad Manners" last month. Eskimo Pies, owned by Dreyer's, and Cream of Wheat also followed suit.

Sports teams began to jump on board, too. After years of criticism, the Washington Redskins are finally brainstorming a new team name, inspiring the Cleveland Indians to consider doing the same.

#IsOverParty members apologize

With cancel culture comes apologies for the actions that caused the cancellation in the first place.

The #IsOverParty is an ode to cancel culture, most recently used to cancel Jimmy Fallon after a video resurfaced of him in blackface imitating Chris Rock. While #JimmyFallonIsOverParty was quick to trend on Twitter, some users were quick to condemn his cancellation.

"The culture of canceling people is ridiculous. Jimmy Fallon did this 20 years ago when he was young and had to listen to his boss in order to put food on his table," wrote one user in the thread.

The 45-year-old talk show host has since apologized, writing on Twitter that it was a "terrible decision" to wear blackface, that he is "very sorry" and thanked his fans for holding him accountable for his actions, despite how long ago it was.

McCorkel acknowledged that we are quick to cancel and not so quick to forgive or believe that people can learn from mistakes, but as someone who has extensive knowledge of the criminal justice system, she has been witness to people changing.

"I know that people are capable of rehabilitation," she said, adding that she's seen it happen and that people can grow if given the chance.

Twitter's ability to dredge up old, problematic content is creating new problems for other celebrities, too. YouTubers Jenna Marbles, whose real name is Jenna Mourey, and Shane Dawson recently faced criticism for donning blackface on their channels years ago. Mourey even decided to call it quits over the incident.

Columbus Day

As Americans realize the racist history of the US, many holidays, monuments and traditions have come under fire and subsequently been "canceled." Columbus Day - to commemorate the arrival of Christopher Columbus in America- is not exempt. Now in many states, the day is instead "Indigenous Peoples Day," to remember the genocide of native people on the land settlers colonized. But not everyone is thrilled about the change. Those who are adamant about tradition and keeping even the ugly parts of our history see the cancellation of Columbus as a complete erasure of our country's foundations.

Canceling "cancel culture"

This week, Harper's Magazine published an open letter calling to do away with cancel culture altogether, denouncing the movement as "censorious" and "an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty."

Many Twitter users responded to the open letter - which was signed by more than 150 public figures, including Margaret Atwood, 80, and Rowling, 54 - in disgust, arguing that bigotry, like they believe many of the signers are guilty of, is not free speech.

Eugene Gu, the CEO of CoolQuit.com with almost 500,000 followers on Twitter, responded to the letter in a tweet, saying, that while he believes in free speech, "Many of the signatories on this letter...believe in free speech for themselves and horrible consequences for those who disagree with them." In a subsequent tweet, the 34-year-old added that racism, sexism and homophobia are not free speech, because it is discriminatory to others.

"This rigidity right now in American political discourse is problematic because you really can't have a high-functioning democracy without people being willing to engage one another in meaningful ways to hash out their political disagreements," she said.

She acknowledged that while it depends greatly on the issue at hand, there's a difference between canceling a type of behavior that is collectively agreed on as "bad" - using #MeToo and condemning workplace sexual harassment, for example - and canceling one particular person without discourse.

"We have to be able to come together across those political differences and sort out what are the optimal solutions," she said. "We can't do that if we are dug into our respective trenches and unwilling to engage across those political divides."

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What is cancel culture? Everything to know about the toxic online trend

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Cancel culture - promoting the "canceling" of people, brands and even shows and movies due to what some consider to be offensive or problematic remarks or ideologies - isn't all that new.

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An article which explores the different perspectives on cancel culture.

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An article which explores the different perspectives on cancel culture.

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-Saihari Kota

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Is cancel culture a problem? Should there be social consequences for some views? Which views? Explore all perspectives and stances about cancel culture with AllStances™ by AllSides.

Controversy has been raging in the United States around cancel culture, a practice in which institutions are pressured into sanctioning someone who has done or said something that is perceived to be offensive, objectionable, or harmful, either recently or in the past.

Being "canceled" takes many forms. Cancel culture most often involves someone being fired from a job or having their business ties cut, but it can also take the form of the boycotting of a brand, product, or person, the removal of advertising revenue, the removal of a TV show, book, or movie from streaming, broadcast or purchasing platforms, or career consequences such as "deplatforming," such as disinviting speakers to events, preventing people from speaking at universities and conferences, or getting someone banned from social media.

Explore all stances and perspectives around cancel culture. Are we missing a stance or perspective? Email us!

Stance 1: Cancel Culture Doesn't Exist

Strong criticism doesn't amount to persecution or mean a threat to free speech.
Some arguments for this stance:

There is no "cancel culture," just accountability.

Phrases like "cancel culture" are boogeymen phrases, myths used to delegitimize criticism from marginalized voices.

Privilege has historically shielded many people from scrutiny; now that they are coming under fire for illegitimate views and beliefs, they have invented a narrative of persecution.

We shouldn't tolerate dehumanizing viewpoints, and dehumanizing viewpoints can be a form of violence that threaten our lives.

It is not the government nor men with guns who are preventing someone from speaking; free speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences.

Some supposed victims of "cancel culture" have resigned, not been fired. They are also still able to speak on social media or go on comedy tours or otherwise engage in careers even after the fact. If they were truly canceled, we wouldn't be able to hear from them at all.

Some speakers invalidate the humanity of others, and thus their speech should no longer be a public good. The parameters of public speech must be continually redrawn to accommodate those who previously had no standing.

We only ever hear about cancel culture from those who are unlikely to be harmed by it. Many public figures have fame and fortune that increases with every cancellation attempt.

Many of those who complain about cancel culture are hypocrites and often engage in suppression of views themselves, such as Donald Trump.

Civil rights leaders of the past have been celebrated and accepted for staging boycotts of businesses that, for example, didn't serve black people; withdrawing support from someone by refusing to do business with them over their views is essentially the same thing.

Stance 2: Cancel Culture Has Gone Too Far and Should End

We can see clearly that cancel culture exists, and free speech is under attack. People should not be fired for their views; the answer to speech you don't like is more speech.
Some arguments for this stance:

Evidence cancel culture exists is all around us, and we should recognize patterns when we see them: there are high-profile examples of executives and celebrities being canceled as well as opinion page editors, university speakers, and everyday people: electric employees, firefighters, school principals, teachers, reporters, editors, sheriff's deputies, professors and more professors.

Intolerance, public shaming, and cutting someone off from their livelihood are distinct from "holding someone accountable."

Cancel culture has gone too far. It harms civil discourse and debate, and leads to a climate of fear and self-censorship in which Americans are afraid to speak or explore ideas at all, afraid of losing their ability to feed themselves and their families.

In a civil society, we should engage with views we disagree with.

Cancel culture is about exercising power and intimidating people. Ruining someone's life over their speech is a way to institute ideological purges and shame those who will not conform to their orthodoxy.

In order to be able to think, you have to risk being offensive. If we can't risk being offensive, we can't pursue the truth.

Not all issues are settled. There is always something new to learn. Cancel culture risks putting good ideas into the shadows, not just bad ones.

While it is not the government nor men with guns who are preventing someone from speaking (and that would also be bad), modern-day consequences for speech wielded by private actors are still disproportionate, unjust, oppressive, and harmful.

Cancel culture threatens our democratic system because it stifles speech that either a large group or a small, powerful minority deem offensive. Sometimes it is done by a powerful group claiming to defend a minority. This is how freedom ends - when counter-speech, even majority opinions, are silenced or punished.

At its core, cancel culture is a hateful practice where mobs attack and harm individuals. Our country is supposed to protect individuals, not harm them based on whatever is currently deemed unfashionable by pop culture - often things that were deemed acceptable just a few years ago.
There are already legal protections against truly harmful speech, such as yelling "fire" when there is none.
Cancel culture harms the very people it is supposed to protect, by making words more painful instead of helping people to build resilience. Open dialogue about ideas that are supposedly harmful actually helps us to deal with them better psychologically. When we can't discuss ideas, we actually give them more power over us. Pushing speech to the shadows interferes with people's social, emotional, and intellectual development.

We should take a charitable approach when interpreting other peoples' statements, instead of assuming they meant offense.

Stance 3: Certain Views Should Warrant Cancellation

Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences. Some views are too harmful to allow in public.
Some arguments for this stance:

Some expressions, such as those that are sexist, racist, or homophobic, should be considered beyond the pale, and private actors should use their power to reduce the space in which those expressions are socially acceptable.

Ideas can have consequences, and must be shut down before negative consequences from those ideas can occur, such as harmful government policies or violence.

We shouldn't tolerate dehumanizing viewpoints, and dehumanizing viewpoints can be a form of violence.

Cancellation is well within the bounds of the First Amendment. It is not the government nor men with guns who are preventing someone from speaking. We must constantly discriminate amongst views, and determine which views are welcome, promoted, or tolerated in our society.

For the most part, the views that people are currently being canceled for are the wrong views - views that are dehumanizing and for which there should be social consequences.

Some speakers invalidate the humanity of others, and thus their speech should no longer be a public good. The parameters of public speech must be continually redrawn to accommodate those who previously had no standing.

Civil rights leaders of the past have been celebrated and accepted for staging boycotts of businesses that, for example, didn't serve black people; withdrawing support from someone by refusing to do business with them over their views is essentially the same thing.

Cancellation is largely about which cultural factions possess power; oppressive and prejudiced factions have historically had cultural power. Many views that were once deemed acceptable no longer should be.

Stance 4: Certain Views Should Warrant Cancellation - But Not Those That Are Currently Being Canceled

There should be social consequences for some views, but not the ones currently deemed unacceptable.
Some arguments for this stance:

Any society will have ideas that are considered beyond the pale, and private actors should use their power to reduce the space in which those expressions are socially acceptable.

However, many of the ideas that currently have consequences are either ideas that warrant more discussion, are the right ideas, or are not offensive nor harmful.

It is primarily those whose ideas go against liberal, "progressive" orthodoxy who are canceled - when liberal Justin Trudeau or Democratic governor Ralph Northham wear blackface, or liberal talk show host Jimmy Kimmel employs racial slurs, they are not canceled. This shows liberals are protected and forgiven for their mistakes, but conservatives aren't.

There are many harmful ideas that should warrant cancellation due to their negative consequences on society, such as ideas that promote communism, the destruction of the traditional family, etc., but these ideas are not canceled; instead, people who argue for the existence of biological sex are, or those who dissent against powerful political groups. Cancellation is largely about which cultural factions possess power; harmful factions currently have cultural power.

There is an overwhelming lack of consensus in favor of ruling certain views and actions as morally out of bounds - especially when it comes to race, gender, and sexual orientation. Activists are leaping ahead of public opinion, and cancelling people without allowing due diligence for society to determine what is really right and wrong.

A radical contingent of society is determining which views are acceptable; their beliefs are often wrong and should actually be the ones that are considered out of bounds.

Author:
Julie Mastrine, AllSides Director of Marketing, Lean Right bias
Reviewers/Editors:
John Gable, AllSides CEO and Co-Founder, Lean Right bias Henry Brechter, AllSides Managing Editor, Center bias Matt Byrne, AllSides Director of Dialogue, Center bias Joseph Ratliff, AllSides Daily News Specialist, Lean Left bias Rick Wytmar, AllSides Marketing and Research Intern, Lean Left bias

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Is cancel culture a problem? Should there be social consequences for some views? Which views? Explore all perspectives and stances about cancel culture with AllStances™ by AllSides. Controversy has been raging in the United States around cancel culture, a practice in which institutions are pressured into sanctioning someone who has done or said something that is perceived to be offensive, objectionable, or harmful, either recently or in the past.

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An article which argues that cancel culture is merely a term used to "delegitimize the criticism."

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An article which argues that cancel culture is merely a term used to "delegitimize the criticism."

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-Saihari Kota

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Cancel Culture Is Not Real-At Least Not in the Way People Think

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Cancel culture became so central to the discourse in 2019 that even Obama seemed to weigh in. But here's why cancel culture isn't real.

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A CNN opinion article discussing the validity of cancel culture.

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A CNN opinion article discussing the validity of cancel culture.

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It's time to cancel this talk of 'cancel culture' | CNN

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Cancel culture, as it's understood today, isn't real. Not only do people and things allegedly "canceled" by this imaginary movement often prevail in the end, the whole concept is a smoke screen to distract from actual systemic forces of suppression.

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Although cancel culture can be used to allow smaller groups of people to voice their concern and call out someone who has caused them harm, it is often misused and instead doesn't give people a second chance to learn from their mistakes.

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Getting "canceled" frequently plays out the same way: A person - whether famous or not - says or does something controversial and the backlash on social media follows swiftly.

Whether the public punishment corresponds to the act that sparked it may be up for debate, but the growing number of such incidents has fueled controversy over what's become known as "cancel culture." Critics of cancel culture say the process stifles free expression, inhibits the exchange of ideas and keeps people from straying from their comfort zones. Others, however, argue that it has empowered people to challenge the status quo and demand accountability from those in positions of power or wealth.

The phenomenon we now know as cancel culture actually had innocuous beginnings before it morphed into a mechanism that can turn a person or a brand into a pariah in a matter of tweets.

What does "cancel culture" actually mean?

The term itself is vague and has become a catch-all for various situations with different degrees of severity and impact. Professor Anne H. Charity Hudley, an expert on African American culture and linguistics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, broke down the idea into two distinct definitions.

The first is essentially a boycott. "It is the withdrawal of financial support, political support, social, economic support, often in pop culture in the form of attention of a particular media star, a political figure, a business figure," Hudley told CBS News. "And withdrawing publicly your support in a way that informs other people that should withdraw their support as well."

"The second definition, that is silencing something or somebody," she added. "And they overlap, but it's a little bit different because one is more about withdrawing your attention and the other is actively seeking to stop someone else from speaking."

Depending on your view, she added, it can be perceived as the same thing.

How did cancel culture start?

One of the earliest pop culture references to someone being "canceled" was in late 2014, during an episode of VH1's reality show "Love and Hip-Hop: New York." Cisco Rosado, a cast member and music executive, told his then-girlfriend Diamond Strawberry, "You're canceled," after she revealed she had a daughter.

The word took on a life of its own among mostly Black users on Twitter. It was used as a way to show disapproval for a person's actions as a joke or lighthearted criticism.

Meg loves orange. She's cancelled 🙅
- Jess 🦋 (@jessstar4) October 21, 2015

If we not on good terms by 11:59 your canceled
- Chanel Brissett 🌹 (@bee_Chanel5) December 31, 2014

Lisa Nakamura, the director of the Digital Studies Institute at the University of Michigan, told CBS News that because of the pandemic, "canceling" might be happening even more often these days, bringing wider attention to the phenomenon.

"Before, I don't think it was seen as a necessarily pervasive... it was just the internet being the internet," she said. "But I really believe that post-COVID, everyone's on the internet so much that they're having to revise how important it is what you say online because no one's doing anything else."

Who gets canceled?

Over the last few years, the term became more mainstream as prominent figures and brands became targets. But Meredith Clark, a media studies professor at the University of Virginia, told CBS News that getting - and remaining - canceled "depends on who you are."

Clark said people who do not have "access to power" are the ones likely to face real consequences of cancel culture, while celebrities and people of wealth are often able to ride it out.

"They can buy their way out of the noise," she said. "They could donate their way out of the noise. So, there are a number of different avenues that they have for protecting, upholding or defending their reputation, that poor folks, that working class folks, that even middle class folks don't have."

For example, Kevin Hart dropped out of hosting the 2019 Oscars after public outcry over his old homophobic tweets resurfaced. But after some time away from the spotlight, he continued performing stand-up and getting cast in movies. The popular food writer Alison Roman was the subject of online fury after making disparaging comments about Chrissy Teigen and Marie Kondo in an interview this spring, and the New York Times put her column on hiatus. After an apology and a period of social media silence, she re-emerged with a newsletter and is using her experience to try to educate others.

This pattern of re-emergence after being "canceled" is not uncommon for people with certain levels of privilege. But for private citizens, a mistake caught on social media can follow them for years to come.

In the new CBSN Originals documentary, " Speaking Frankly: Cancel Culture," a man named Adam Smith describes how his experience of being canceled cost him his job and even drove him to thoughts of suicide. Back in 2012, upset over Chick-fil-A's stance against gay marriage, Smith filmed a video of himself berating a Chick-fil-A employee at a drive-thru and posted it on YouTube. It went viral overnight and the backlash was fierce. His employer started receiving bomb and death threats and fired him. When other companies learned of the video, job offers disappeared. Smith was "canceled" before that terminology existed.

In a viral incident from this past May, a White woman named Amy Cooper was caught on camera calling the cops and making false accusations against Christian Cooper, a Black man who was birdwatching in Central Park. She lost her lost her job in finance and even temporarily surrendered her dog to a shelter as the internet called out her actions as racist.

Mr. Cooper later expressed reservations about the extent of the public vitriol directed at her. "I don't know whether she's a racist or not," he told "CBS This Morning" co-host Gayle King. "I don't know her life. I don't know how she lives it. That act was unmistakably racist even if she didn't realize it in the moment."

"I'm not sure someone's life should be defined by 60 seconds of poor judgment," he added.

Cancel culture has taken on a political dimension, as well, as the tactic has been wielded in culture war debates on college campuses and beyond. Activists on the right, especially, have denounced it as a tool for enforcing political correctness and suppressing free speech.

The political element came to the fore last month when progressive activists targeted Goya Foods for a boycott after the company's CEO Robert Unanue praised President Donald Trump during a White House event. Unanue called the threat a "suppression of speech." Days later, Ivanka Trump posted a photo of herself holding a can of Goya beans in a show of support.

"Only the media and the cancel culture movement would criticize Ivanka for showing her personal support for a company that has been unfairly mocked, boycotted and ridiculed for supporting this administration," White House communications aide Caroline Hurley said.

These examples are just a sampling of some of the vastly different scenarios that all fall under the umbrella of "cancel culture." And critics worry that responding to each perceived instance of wrongdoing with the same punishment - social outcasting - ignores important distinctions while still upholding a culture of privilege when it comes to who suffers lasting consequences.

What does cancel culture accomplish?

Clark told CBS News that canceling can serve a purpose when it gives underrepresented groups the ability to hold the powerful to account. To her, it should be about "punching up."

"I would say that cancel culture can be effective in terms of its ability to demonstrate the perspectives of people who otherwise don't have their voices heard or their perspectives recognized," Clark said.

"If you are not a person who has access to hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars, if you're a person who doesn't have access to a major public platform... if you're not any of those people, then calling someone out via social media is one of the few tools that you have to hold them to account for any harm or damage that they may have done to you or people within your community," she continued.

However, she does think it falls short of the goal many times.

"Too often, I do think that cancel culture gets into its own obsession with the purity of someone or an idea, that if an idea or a person doesn't completely align with a set of values, then they are essentially disposable," she said.

Hudley also believes people need to be allowed to make mistakes, learn lessons and grow from the experience.
Cydney Adams contributed.
"If you made a mistake, we need to make a space for that," Hudley said. 'That's what I say to my friends who've been previously incarcerated, like you don't want to be judged on the one bad act. That's what people are nervous about."

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"Cancel culture" seems to have started as an internet joke. Now it's anything but.

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Getting "canceled" frequently plays out the same way: A person - whether famous or not - says or does something controversial and the backlash on social media follows swiftly. Whether the public punishment corresponds to the act that sparked it may be up for debate, but the growing number of such incidents has fueled controversy over what's become known as "cancel culture."

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A CBS News article discussing how works of controversial artists should be viewed.

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A CBS News article discussing how works of controversial artists should be viewed.

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Can we still laugh at the humor of comic Louis C.K., knowing he's been accused of exposing himself to women he worked with?
"A woman saying yes to a date with a man is literally insane and ill-advised. 'Yeah, I'll go out with you, alone, at night.' 'What are you, nuts?' Men, we're the number one threat to women!"
What about this scene from one of Woody Allen's earliest films, "Bananas"?
Newsstand clerk: "How much is that copy of Orgasm?"
Woody: "Just put it in the bag, will you?"
Clerk: "Orgasm! This man wants to buy a copy! How much is it?"
Woody: "I'm doing a sociological study of perversion. I'm up to advanced child molesting."
Or this, from Allen's "Manhattan," with the 42-year-old lead character dating a 17-year-old?
Woody: "I really want to see you a lot."
Mariel Hemingway: "I like it when you get an uncontrollable urge."
Woody: "Yeah, it's my best feature - my boyish impetuosity."

Can we watch it now without thinking of the scandals in Allen's own life? And how do we look at Pablo Picasso's paintings the same way, knowing about his teenage mistress, and his reportedly abusive relationships with women?

As more and more painters, writers, musicians and filmmakers are unmasked as "bad actors," we're forced to reconsider their work.

"I think what we are trying to do in this world is hold people accountable for the harm that they do," said Loretta Ross, a visiting professor at Smith College. "Because previously, only the powerful could punish the powerless, but now when anybody has a keyboard, they can become a critic."

And a powerful one. Ross said that calling out artists and performers on the internet hasn't just shamed them; it has significantly damaged careers and reputations. Louis C.K. has been dropped by HBO, F/X and Netflix; Johnny Depp lost lucrative movie deals after a very public legal battle over domestic violence allegations; and ABC canceled TV star Roseanne Barr's highly-rated television show after a tweet many considered racist.

Correspondent Erin Moriarty asked, "In some cases, doesn't the call-out culture work, and work well?"

"It can work," Ross said, "but does it achieve what you want, which is accountability? If you want to achieve punishment, it is actually a good device for just punishing people."

But to some, like art critic Aruna D'Souza, any reckoning is long overdue. "I think that lots of artists are terrible people, because being an artist allowed for a kind of latitude of behavior that included things that today we find really offensive," she said.

D'Souza believes that both artists and the institutions that show their work need to be held accountable - like New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017, when a petition, signed by thousands, sharply criticized a Balthus exhibit with an eleven-year-old model in a sexually suggestive pose.

D'Souza asked, "Do we just keep going back to the same artists all the time, knowing that some have caused real pain in the world? Or do we take the opportunity of saying, 'I'm going to put this person aside for a minute and I'm going to look at someone else'?"

Which is the reason D'Souza questions the CBS News profile of Woody Allen that is airing now on Paramount+.

She said, "If someone is there being interviewed, they're given a kind of legitimacy just by the fact that they're being interviewed on a big newscast."

D'Souza suggests that, rather than featuring those with troubling personal lives, the media, and museums, should turn to new and overlooked artists.

Moriarty asked, "Would you not show the work of someone like Picasso because there are other artists not being recognized and you're giving too much time to Picasso?"

"Absolutely!" she replied.

But is looking away - or keeping others from seeing controversial work - the best answer?

Moriarty asked Richard Peña, who teaches film theory at Columbia University, "When you are choosing artists to study, do you ever even consider what kind of person that artist is?"

"Frankly, no," he replied. "I used to work at the New York Film Festival, so I actually know some of these artists, and some of them aren't people I'd particularly want to spend time with.

"We simply don't know the history of all the artists that we show, artists whose work I know and love, and love to present to my students. But if we're suddenly to discover some terrible fact about them, for me that would give me another way of looking at their work. I'm not sure it would make me not wanna look at their work."

As long as it's presented in context, there is a value, Peña said, in viewing and analyzing even the most problematic people and their films, like D.W. Griffith's classic - and racist - 1915 film, "Birth of a Nation."

Peña described it as "a piece of racist claptrap. Now because he's the author of that, do we negate him from film studies? It would be impossible; his contribution was too huge. I think what we have to do, though, is always be aware of who D.W. Griffith was."

Loretta Ross said, "We have to get away from this angel/devil view of humanity. We're all complicated people, and we have to assume that the people whose art we admire are at least as complicated as we are."

And cancelling films or television shows of complicated, even criminal artists, Ross said, can have unintended consequences.

"You're talking about costing a lot of people their jobs, a lot of people who get harmed mainly because of the mistakes that one person can make," she said. "I mean, let me be honest, I'd watch 'The Cosby Show' if they put it back on! I mean, 'cause that's an ensemble case. And you don't want to group-punish people because of one person's bad acts."

What is art, and what is objectionable, is often subjective, seen through the lens of our own experiences.

Ross said, "I have to honestly say I never saw 'Gone With the Wind' or 'Birth of a Nation,' because my community told me that those films were not going to be good for my soul. It was like watching a horror film when you aren't into horror. Why would I do that?"

Moriarty asked, "Is there any artist that you would say deserves being cancelled and called out?"

"Well, I heard that Hitler was an artist, and I wouldn't be bidding on his paintings!" she laughed. "But again, it's about people's ability to, not separate the art from the artist, but conceptualize the art with the artist. We're not clones. We're supposed to disagree. That's what a pluralistic society does. But what we're not supposed to do is dispose of each other because we disagree."

For more info:
Story produced by Sari Aviv. Editor: Steven Tyler.
See also:

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Canceled culture? Reconsidering the art of controversial artists

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Can we still laugh at the humor of comic Louis C.K., knowing he's been accused of exposing himself to women he worked with? "A woman saying yes to a date with a man is literally insane and ill-advised. 'Yeah, I'll go out with you, alone, at night.' 'What are you, nuts?'

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In a TV show called The Owl House, one of the antagonists, Lilith, had tried to kill the protagonist's mentor, and kept the protagonist hostage, even though the protagonist was only a child. This caused the fandom to erupt into an outrage, trying to cancel Lilith. They ignoring all the good she has done in previous episodes, which proves she can grow as a character, yet the fandom still decided to focus on this single flaw, showing the toxicity of cancel culture.

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Definition of Cancel Culture Via. Cambridge Dictionary:

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Definition of Cancel Culture Via. Cambridge Dictionary:

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"A way of behaving in a society or group, especially on social media, in which it is common to completely reject and stop supporting someone because they have said or done something that offends you"

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Former Washington Redskins changed their name after debates over the racist undertones in the logo and name. Many conservative audiences felt it was ruining something unnecessarily and was spurred by soft liberals.

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Article from the Atlantic viewing cancel culture as a trend by businesses to lure in markets and avoid systematic change by blaming issues on the individual.

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Article from the Atlantic viewing cancel culture as a trend by businesses to lure in markets and avoid systematic change by blaming issues on the individual.

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Beware splashy corporate gestures when they leave existing power structures intact.

Tumbrels are rattling through the streets of the internet. Over the past few years, online-led social movements have deposed gropers, exposed bullies-and, sometimes, ruined the lives of the innocent. Commentators warn of "mob justice," while activists exult in their newfound power to change the world.

Both groups are right, and wrong. Because the best way to see the firings, outings, and online denunciations grouped together as "cancel culture" is not through a social lens, but an economic one.

Take the fall of the film producer Harvey Weinstein, which seems inevitable in hindsight- Everyone knew he was a sex pest! There were even jokes about it on 30 Rock! But it took The New York Times months of reporting to ready its first story for publishing; the newspaper was taking on someone with deep pockets and a history of intimidating critics into silence. Then the story went off like a hand grenade. Suddenly, the mood-and the economic incentives-shifted. People who had been afraid of Weinstein were instead afraid of being taken down alongside him.

The removal of Weinstein from his company, and his subsequent conviction for rape, is a good outcome. But the mechanism it revealed is more morally ambiguous: The court of public opinion was the only forum left after workplace protections and the judicial system had failed. The writer Jon Schwarz once described the " iron law of institutions," under which people with seniority inside an institution care more about preserving their power within the institution than they do about the power of the institution as a whole. That self-preservation instinct also operates when private companies-institutions built on maximizing shareholder value, or other capitalist principles-struggle to acclimatize to life in a world where many consumers vocally support social-justice causes. Progressive values are now a powerful branding tool.

But that is, by and large, all they are. And that leads to what I call the "iron law of woke capitalism": Brands will gravitate toward low-cost, high-noise signals as a substitute for genuine reform, to ensure their survival. (I'm not using the word woke here in a sneering, pejorative sense, but to highlight that the original definition of wokeness is incompatible with capitalism. Also, I'm not taking credit for the coinage: The writer Ross Douthat got there first.) In fact, let's go further: Those with power inside institutions love splashy progressive gestures-solemn, monochrome social-media posts deploring racism; appointing their first woman to the board; firing low-level employees who attract online fury-because they help preserve their power. Those at the top-who are disproportionately white, male, wealthy, and highly educated-are not being asked to give up anything themselves.

Read: Stop firing the innocent

Perhaps the most egregious example of this is the random firings of individuals, some of whose infractions are minor, and some of whom are entirely innocent of any bad behavior. In the first group goes the graphic designer Sue Schafer, outed by The Washington Post for attending a party in ironic blackface-a tone-deaf attempt to mock Megyn Kelly for not seeing what was wrong with blackface. Schafer, a private individual, was confronted at the party over the costume, went home in tears, and apologized to the hosts the next day. When the Post ran a story naming her, she was fired. New York magazine found numerous Post reporters unwilling to defend the decision to run the story-and plenty of unease that the article seemed more interested in exonerating the Post than fighting racism. Even less understandable is the case of Niel Golightly, the communications chief at the aircraft company Boeing, who stepped down over a 33-year-old article arguing that women should not serve in the military. When Barack Obama, a notably progressive president, only changed his mind on gay marriage in the 2010s, how many Americans' views from 1987 would hold up to scrutiny by today's standards?

This mechanism is not, as it is sometimes presented, a long-overdue settling of scores by underrepresented voices. It is a reflexive jerk of the knee by the powerful, a demonstration of institutions' unwillingness to tolerate any controversy, whether those complaining are liberal or conservative. Another case where the punishment does not fit the offense is that of the police detective Florissa Fuentes, who reposted a picture from her niece taken at a Black Lives Matter protest. One of those pictured held a sign reading Who do we call when the murderer wear the badge. Another sign, according to the Times, "implied that people should shoot back at the police." Fuentes, a 30-year-old single mother of three children, deleted the post and apologized, but was fired nonetheless.

Read: Brands have nothing real to say about racism

In the second group, the blameless, lies Emmanuel Cafferty, a truck driver who appears to have been tricked into making an "okay" symbol by a driver he cut off at a traffic light. The inevitable viral video claimed that this was a deliberate use of the symbol as a white-power gesture, and he was promptly fired. Cafferty is a working-class man in his 40s from San Diego. The loss of his job hit him hard enough that he saw a counselor. "A man can learn from making a mistake," he told my colleague Yascha Mounk. "But what am I supposed to learn from this? It's like I was struck by lightning."

The phrase is haunting-not being racist is not going to save you if the lightning strikes. Nor is the fact that your comments lie decades in the past, or that they have been misinterpreted by bad-faith actors, or that you didn't make them. The ground-your life-is scorched just the same.

It is strange that "cancel culture" has become a project of the left, which spent the 20th century fighting against capricious firings of "troublesome" employees. A lack of due process does not become a moral good just because you sometimes agree with its targets. We all, I hope, want to see sexism, racism, and other forms of discrimination decrease. But we should be aware of the economic incentives here, particularly given the speed of social media, which can send a video viral, and see onlookers demand a response, before the basic facts have been established. Afraid of the reputational damage that can be incurred in minutes, companies are behaving in ways that range from thoughtless and uncaring to sadistic. For Cafferty's employer, what's one random truck driver versus the PR bump of being able to cut off a bad news cycle by saying you've fired your "white-supremacist employee"?

Let's look at another example of how woke capitalism operates. In the aftermath of George Floyd's death, and the protests that followed, White Fragility, a 2018 book by Robin DiAngelo, returned to the top of The New York Times' paperback-nonfiction chart. The author is white, and her book is for white people, encouraging them to think about what it's like to be white. So the American book-buying public's single biggest response to the Black Lives Matter movement was ... to buy a book about whiteness written by a white person.

This is worse than mere navel-gazing; it's synthetic activism. It risks making readers feel full of piety and righteousness without having actually done anything. Buying a book on white fragility improves the lives of the most marginalized far less than, say, donating to a voting-rights charity or volunteering at a food bank. It's pure hobbyism.

Why is DiAngelo's book so popular? Again, look at economics. White Fragility is a staple of formal diversity training, in universities from London to Iowa, and at publications including Britain's right-wing Telegraph newspaper, as well as The Atlantic. The client list on DiAngelo's website includes giant corporations such as Amazon and Unilever; nonprofits such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Hollywood Writers Guild, and the YMCA; and institutions and governmental bodies such as Seattle Public Schools, the City of Oakland, and the Metropolitan Council of Minneapolis.

In the United States, diversity training is worth $8 billion a year, according to Iris Bohnet, a public-policy professor at Harvard's Kennedy School. And yet, after studying programs in both the U.S. and post-conflict countries such as Rwanda, she concluded, "sadly enough, I did not find a single study that found that diversity training in fact leads to more diversity." Part of the problem is that although those delivering them are undoubtedly well-meaning, the training programs are typically no more scientifically grounded than previous management-course favorites, such as Myers-Briggs personality classifications. "Implicit-bias tests" are controversial, and the claim that they can predict real-world behavior, never mind reduce bias, is shaky. A large-scale analysis of research in the sector found that "changes in implicit measures are possible, but those changes do not necessarily translate into changes in explicit measures or behavior." Yet metrics-obsessed companies love these forms of training. When the British Labour leader, Keir Starmer, caused offense by referring to Black Lives Matter as a "moment" rather than a movement, he announced that he would undergo implicit-bias training. It is an approach that sees bias as a moral flaw among individuals, rather than a product of systems. It encourages personal repentance, rather than institutional reform.

Bohnet suggested other methods to increase diversity, such as removing ages and photographs from job applications, and reviewing the language used for advertisements. (Men are more likely to see themselves as "assertive," she argued.) Here is another option for big companies: Put your money into paying all junior staff enough for them to live in the big city where the company is based, without needing help from their parents. That would increase the company's diversity. Hell, get your staff to read White Fragility on their own time and give your office cleaners a pay raise.

This, however, would break the iron law of woke capitalism-better to have something you can point to and say "Aren't we progressive?" than to think about the real problem. Diversity training offers the minimum possible disruption to your power structures: Don't change the board; just get your existing employees to sit through a seminar.

If this is a moment for power structures to be challenged, and old orthodoxies to be overturned, then understanding the difference between economic radicalism and social radicalism is vital. This could also be described as the difference between identity and class. That is not to dismiss the former: Many groups face discrimination on both measures. Women might not be hired because "Math isn't for girls" or because an employer doesn't want to pay for maternity leave. An employer may not see the worth of a minority applicant, because they don't speak the way the interviewer expects, or that applicant might be a second-generation immigrant whose parents can't subsidize them through several years of earning less than a living wage.

All this I've learned from feminism, where the contrast between economic and social radicalism is very apparent. Equal pay is economically radical. Hiring a female or minority CEO for the first time is socially radical. Diversity training is socially radical, at best. Providing social-housing tenants with homes not covered in flammable cladding is economically radical. Changing the name of a building at a university is socially radical; improving on its 5 percent enrollment rate for Black students-perhaps by smashing up the crazy system of legacy admissions-would be economically radical.

Read: It's not callout culture, it's accountability

In my book Difficult Women, I wrote that the only question I want to ask big companies who claim to be "empowering the female leaders of the future" is this one: Do you have on-site child care? You can have all the summits and power breakfasts you want, but unless you address the real problems holding working parents back, then it's all window dressing.

Along with anti-racism and anti-sexism efforts, LGBTQ politics suffers a similar confusion between economic and social radicalism. The arrival of Pride month brings the annual argument about how it should be a "protest, not a parade." The violence and victimization of the Stonewall-riot era risk being forgotten in today's " branded holiday," where big banks and clothing manufacturers fly the rainbow flag to boost their corporate image. In Britain and the U.S., these corporate sponsors want a depoliticized party-a generic celebration of love and acceptance-without tough questions about their views on particular domestic laws and policies, or their involvement in countries with poor records on LGBTQ rights. Some activists in Britain have tried to get Pride marches to stop allowing the arms company BAE to be a sponsor, given its arms sales to Saudi Arabia, an explicitly homophobic and sexist state. When Amazon sponsored last year's PinkNews Awards, the former Doctor Who screenwriter Russell T. Davies used his lifetime-achievement-award acceptance speech to tell the retailer to "pay your fucking taxes." That's economic radicalism.

Activists regularly challenge criticisms of "cancel culture" by saying: "Come on, we're just some people with Twitter accounts, up against governments and corporate behemoths." But when you look at the economic incentives, almost always, the capitalist imperative is to yield to activist pressure. Just a bit. Enough to get them off your back. Companies caught in the scorching light of a social-media outcry are like politicians caught lying or cheating, who promise a "judge-led inquiry": They want to do something, anything, to appear as if they are taking the problem seriously-until the spotlight moves on.

Some defenestrations are brilliant, and long overdue. Weinstein's removal from a position of power was undoubtedly a good thing. But the firing of Emmanuel Cafferty was not. For activists, the danger lies in the cheap sugar rush of tokenistic cancellations. Real institutional change is hard; like politics, it is the " slow boring of hard boards." Persuading a company to toss someone overboard for PR points risks a victory that is no victory at all. The pitchforks go down, but the corporate culture remains the same. The survivors sigh in relief. The institution goes on.

If you care about progressive causes, then woke capitalism is not your friend. It is actively impeding the cause, siphoning off energy, and deluding us into thinking that change is happening faster and deeper than it really is. When people talk about the "excesses of the left"-a phenomenon that blights the electoral prospects of progressive parties by alienating swing voters-in many cases they're talking about the jumpy overreactions of corporations that aren't left-wing at all.

Remember the iron law of woke institutions: For those looking to preserve their power, it makes sense to do the minimum amount of social radicalism necessary to survive ... and no economic radicalism at all. The latter is where activists need to apply their pressure.

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fall of the film producer harvey weinstein

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Beware splashy corporate gestures when they leave existing power structures intact. Tumbrels are rattling through the streets of the internet. Over the past few years, online-led social movements have deposed gropers, exposed bullies-and, sometimes, ruined the lives of the innocent. Commentators warn of "mob justice," while activists exult in their newfound power to change the world.

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Article from the LA Times arguing that the cancellation of Dr. Seuss is valid because of racist depictions when many conservative politicians use it as a talking point to diminish the credibility of progressive liberals.

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On Tuesday, "cancel culture" was officially promoted to "outlaw culture," which definitely would sound way cooler if it weren't so maddeningly ridiculous and offensively dangerous.

The upgrade came courtesy of California's own Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield). Arguing against a Democratic measure to expand voting rights, the House minority leader was in the midst of accusing Democrats of wanting to strip states and counties of their ability to control elections when he added, apropos of absolutely nothing, " First they outlaw Dr. Seuss and then they want to tell us what to say."

What Dr. Seuss has to do with voting rights is nothing at all. Like so many conservatives these days, McCarthy was just randomly shoving the notion of cancel culture into the mix to get his compatriots all riled up.

McCarthy could have been referring to President Biden's failure to name-check Dr. Seuss in his Read Across America Day proclamation. Coinciding with the author's birthday, Read Across America Day was for many years a joint enterprise with the National Education Assn. and Dr. Seuss Enterprises, but that partnership ended in 2018 and a year later, the Seuss brand was dimmed somewhat by a 2019 study that found the humans in his books to be overwhelmingly white; those who were not were often depicted in a racially disparaging manner.

Likewise, McCarthy might have been referencing false reports that public schools in Virginia's Loudoun County had banned the books of Dr. Seuss, which they had not.

Most probably the reason McCarthy decided to throw this "first they came for the Cat in the Hat" bomb into his argument regarding voting rights was the announcement Tuesday by Dr. Seuss Enterprises that it would no longer be publishing six of the author's less popular books because they contain offensive racial depictions.

It is possible that McCarthy genuinely cannot imagine a world without brand new editions of "And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street" or "If I Ran the Zoo," but there is no denying that the illustrations in those books of a Chinese man and two African men, respectively, are horrendously racist.

There is also no denying that none of the recent Seuss-related developments could in any way be considered "outlawing Dr. Seuss."

Honestly, it is a tiny bit worrisome when an actual law maker so obviously does not understand the definition of the word law. Dr. Seuss Enterprises is legally entitled to do whatever it wants with the books it controls, just as the NEA is legally allowed to list whatever books it chooses for Read Across America Day. Read them or don't read them; no one is going to get arrested for clinging to a copy of "If I Ran the Zoo."

In terms of literacy promotion, I don't think anyone in the world needs to be reminded on a yearly basis that "The Cat in the Hat" and "Green Eggs and Ham" are childhood classics. Which, for the record, no one is denying.

McCarthy was not the only conservative to deploy Dr. Seuss, who publicly regretted his early works that involved racist or cultural stereotypes, as the latest weapon in the right's ongoing battle against "cancel culture." This is a fight that many Republicans are blatantly promoting as the best way to reclaim power, so of course the good folks at Fox News were happy to weigh in. During several conversations there, Biden was accused of trying to "erase" Dr. Seuss from the literary lexicon (per impossibile) and liberals in general were repeatedly condemned for banishing Seuss to a cultural gulag alongside Mr. Potato Head (recently renamed Potato Head), "The Muppet Show" (to which Disney+ recently added an offensive-content disclaimer for a handful of episodes), Aunt Jemima (the brand now known as the Pearl Milling Company) and, one assumes, Little Black Sambo (rewritten, re-illustrated and renamed several times).

While Barack Obama once warned of an overzealous "cancel culture" and many liberals signed the infamous Harper's letter, no one these days loves the phrase more than conservatives, who use it as a one-size-fits-all label for what they consider the left's ongoing attempt to strip "America" from "American."

Which honestly tells you all you need to know about what certain conservatives consider "American." The right to be openly racist, obviously. I mean, what's wrong with whipping up a batch of pancakes from a box that features a smiling Black woman, named and accessorized in a way to evoke a racist stereotype? Who doesn't like pancakes?

What's wrong with having a few illustrations of random Asian characters with lines for eyes, wearing conical hats and carrying bowls of rice, or of African men who look barely human, sprinkled throughout a children's book? It's not like kids learn how to view other people and the world around them through books or anything. They learn from their parents, and if their parents believe that "inscrutable" is a perfectly legitimate way to describe an Asian person, or that no truck is complete without a flag symbolizing the attempt by certain states to destroy this country in the name of preserving slavery - well, freedom of speech is in the Constitution.

And as long as the cancel-culturistas are on the subject, what's wrong with saying the n-word, in certain contexts arbitrarily determined to be appropriate by white people who want to say it? Some guy at the New York Times apparently was forced to leave because he said it, after one of the rich high school snowflakes on some expensive Times-sponsored trip asked a question referencing the word. And while working for the liberal media is pretty inexcusable, ousting the guy doesn't seem fair at all. It's just a word, isn't it? Black people use it all the time - and if Black people can use it and white people can't, well, that's just another form of racism.

First they outlaw Dr. Seuss and then they tell us what not to say.

Look, I am a white person raised in the United States of America, albeit by fairly liberal parents, and I can say from personal experience that it is very hard and disappointing to realize that beloved books, music, movies and brand packaging once considered perfectly acceptable were and are in fact racist, sexist, homo/transphobic or otherwise offensive. That many of these "classics" were and are tools used, intentionally or unconsciously, to reinforce stereotypes that have allowed one group to dehumanize and dominate other less powerful and less privileged groups in many ways and for far too long.

I loved "And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street" as a child, and though I can't remember noticing the Asian character in it, that's probably because, unfortunately, offensive caricatures of all sorts of people were considered perfectly normal when I was a child ... and a teenager ... and a young adult. The Asian character, or the African ones in "If I Ran the Zoo," didn't register because their portrayals were consistent with much of what I saw in the culture around me. A culture that was just beginning to realize that "Whites Only" signs were not only unacceptable but a facet of the same problem.

It's disturbing and mortifying to realize that those Butterfly McQueen-as-Prissy imitations I did as a child were completely and horribly racist, or that Charlie Chan, whom I also adored, was a double-edged sword. Yes, he was one of a very few Asian characters allowed to be a hero lead, but only when saddled with a welter of stereotypical traits. Turns out that "Ah-so, number one son" is not something Chinese people actually said; who knew? Well, every Chinese person in America, for starters.

But being embarrassed or feeling threatened or deprived of a beloved object when the offensiveness of certain images, stories or words is pointed out doesn't give you an excuse to perpetuate or even defend them. Neither embarrassment nor that kind of deprivation is on par with the pain of living in a society that continually presents demeaning versions of people who look like you. Failing to realize that something you enjoy or take for granted is racist doesn't necessarily make you a racist; but doubling down and getting all defensive after this racism has been pointed out - well, now, in the words of my faith, you are sinning with full knowledge of the sin.

So why do so many Americans remain deeply committed to preserving words and images and symbols that inarguably are associated with forces bent on preventing millions of their fellow citizens from living freely and equally as Americans?

No doubt some actually believe the stereotype, or think it's funny and harmless and that "those people" just need to get a sense of humor. Some may be simply unwilling to let the needs of others modify their behavior in any way, and some may be lashing out at a rapidly changing culture with whatever tool is handy.

But if you're willing to die on the hill of the line-eyed, conical-hat-wearing Asian guy in "Mulberry Street," you really need to ask yourself why. And don't say you're protecting the legacy of Dr. Seuss, because the people whose job it is to protect the legacy of Dr. Seuss made the decision to retire that depiction.

Too often, the term "cancel culture" is simply a way to short-circuit arguments that would involve defending the indefensible, a sleight of hand that shifts criticism away from an offense to those who find it offensive. Don't see this as Dr. Seuss Enterprise attempting to acknowledge the potential pain caused by racist images in certain books, see it as the liberal mob attempting to cancel "One Fish, Two Fish" and everything else this country once held dear.

The cry of "cancel culture!" is too often used as a trip-wire response to combat any suggestion that our culture has not yet fulfilled its founding precept that "all men are created equal" with schoolyard taunts of "you're just a crybaby" and "you can't tell me what to do."

First they dragged Dr. Seuss into an argument against voters' rights and then they told us that we could not object to what they were saying.

In other words, the only person who attempted to "erase" Dr. Seuss this week was Kevin McCarthy.

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Column: The Dr. Seuss 'cancel culture' backlash is a distraction. Here's the real issue

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On Tuesday, "cancel culture" was officially promoted to "outlaw culture," which definitely would sound way cooler if it weren't so maddeningly ridiculous and offensively dangerous. The upgrade came courtesy of California's own Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield).

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Chris Pratt was cancelled for giving away his cat and for political views he never voiced.

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Chris Pratt was cancelled for giving away his cat and for political views he never voiced.

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Proving an overly sensitive generation and increased polarization of political factions.

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Chris Pratt, formerly known as "the worst Chris." (Photo by Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic)
FilmMagic

Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt has been trending on Twitter for the past few days, after TV writer Amy Berg tweeted this:

It was nothing more than a lighthearted joke, but the "poll" results sparked a meme - out of the four famous Chrises, Pratt has become known as "the worst Chris," which snowballed into a soft cancellation.

The backlash inspired several of Pratt's MCU co-stars to speak out in his defense, which prompted further criticism, considering that none of them (with the exception of Don Cheadle) spoke out against Brie Larson's backlash, which was significantly more spiteful.
Why is Pratt suddenly so unpopular?
Pratt enjoyed a long period of popularity, after appearing in Parks and Recreation and Guardians of the Galaxy, despite his obnoxious onscreen persona. But a backlash began brewing after Ellen Page called out Pratt for supporting a religious organization (Hillsong Church) that reportedly discriminates against the LGBT community.

Faith-based bigotry isn't exactly uncommon, but to be fair to Pratt, the man has never publicly voiced a hateful opinion, and claims that his church is an accepting environment that doesn't discriminate. At least ... not against him.

A 2015 post by Hillsong's global senior pastor, Brian Houston, clarifies the Church's position. In said post, Houston states that the church "welcomes ALL people" but does not "affirm all lifestyles," including the "gay lifestyle."

So, it sounds as though they're anti-LGBT.

Many members of the public have chosen to interpret Pratt's faith as a worldview intertwined with Trumpism, which, again, Pratt has never publicly voiced support for. But one can easily imagine a potential connection, and that assumption, combined with Pratt following some outspoken conservatives on Twitter, has led to the belief that Pratt is secretly a Trump supporter.

The fact that Pratt didn't attend a recent virtual fundraiser for Joe Biden, attended by his fellow Avengers stars, reinforced this assumption. But Pratt wasn't the only missing Avenger - both Robert Downey Jr. and Brie Larson were also absent, and no one seemed to care.

To clarify, all of this is complete speculation; it seems as though Pratt belongs to a socially regressive religious group, but has never voiced support for faith-based discrimination, or for Donald Trump.
Is that it?
On top of that, Pratt has been demonized for, ummm ... giving away his cat.

After becoming a father, Pratt reckoned that keeping his elderly, incontinent cat in the same house as a baby wasn't a good idea, and gave the cat away to a stranger he found through Twitter.

Seems fair enough to me, but terminally online animal-lovers can be a pretty aggressive group, and have never forgiven Pratt for his transgression.

So, that's it. That's why Chris Pratt is cancelled.
Does any of this matter?
Nope. Not even a little bit - it's just internet gossip. No one is going to skip the next Guardians of the Galaxy because Pratt is a suspected Trump supporter. He is simply, "the worst Chris."

But to be fair, compared to Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth, I think most Chrises might fall a bit short.

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The Big Backlash Against Chris Pratt, Explained

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Guardians of the Galaxy star Chris Pratt has been trending on Twitter for the past few days, after TV writer Amy Berg tweeted this: It was nothing more than a lighthearted joke, but the "poll" results sparked a meme - out of the four famous Chrises, Pratt has become known as "the worst Chris," which snowballed into a soft cancellation.

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Actress Gina Carano was fired from the Mandalorain when her political opinions contradicted those of her company, also for one insensitive tweet. However, Disney refuses to acknowledge their similarly controversial past.

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The Social Dilemma exposed us to the reality behind our social media usage and how we have been manipulated without knowing it. I believe this is the number one factor contributing to Cancel Culture. Growing up with your face in a screen and being polarized more and more everyday by being fed two sides of a coin, being pushed to the extreme reaction of being a morality cop on social media no long seems drastic.

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People are now saying receiving percussions for being racist or a bigot is being "cancelled", when in reality is it facing consequences for your actions. 

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People are now saying receiving percussions for being racist or a bigot is being "cancelled", when in reality is it facing consequences for your actions. 

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https://time.com/5735403/cancel-culture-is-not-real/
What does it truly mean to be canceled?

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When Republicans Attack 'Cancel Culture,' What Does It Mean?

Why is cancel culture becoming a political, and even partisan issue?

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‘Minari’ wins best foreign-language film, but not without controversy.

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‘Minari’ wins best foreign-language film, but not without controversy.

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"Minari," Lee Isaac Chung's semi-autobiographical story about a Korean-American family seeking the American dream in rural Arkansas during the 1980s, was the favorite for the best foreign-language film Golden Globe, and on Sunday night, it secured the trophy.

"This one here, she's the reason I made this film," Chung said in his acceptance speech, while tightly hugging his young daughter. "Minari is about a family. It's a family trying to learn how to speak a language of its own," he said. "It goes deeper than any American language and any foreign language; it's a language of the heart."

His message was a nod to the controversy surrounding his movie. The film did not meet the Globes's 50 percent English language requirement - the characters mostly speak Korean - so it was entered under the foreign-language category, even though Chung, 42, is an American director, the movie was filmed in the United States and it was financed by American companies.

And because "Minari" was in the foreign-language film category, it could not contend for the either best-picture awards. (Worth noting, the film's distributor, A24, submitted "Minari" in the foreign-language category.) The cast of "Minari" was eligible for acting nominations but did not receive any.

The classification drew accusations of racism and favoritism - Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds" (2009), for example, did not meet the English language requirement either, and yet was nominated for a best-picture prize - and calls for changes to the rules.

"Maybe the positive side of all of this is that we've made a film that challenges some of those existing categories, and adds to the idea that an American film might look and sound very differently from what we're used to," Chung recently told The New York Times. "It's hard to say, 'I demand a seat at a table for best picture.'"

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'Minari' wins best foreign-language film, but not without controversy.

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"Minari," Lee Isaac Chung's semi-autobiographical story about a Korean-American family seeking the American dream in rural Arkansas during the 1980s, was the favorite for the best foreign-language film Golden Globe, and on Sunday night, it secured the trophy. "This one here, she's the reason I made this film," Chung said in his acceptance speech, while tightly hugging his young daughter.

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Cancel Culture will destroy the fabrics of our society if we keep letting social media feed us lies that we persecute people for.

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Shane Dawson will not be able to make money on YouTube, after his apology for offensive content

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Shane Dawson will not be able to make money on YouTube, after his apology for offensive content

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Shane Dawson speaks at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif., in 2016. (Mike Windle/Getty Images for Dick Clark Productions)

YouTube confirmed on Tuesday that it has stopped allowing Shane Dawson to make money from ads on his three channels, and Target announced it will no longer carry books written by the controversial vlogger. Also on Tuesday, YouTuber Tati Westbrook published a 40-minute-video in which she accuses Dawson and fellow YouTuber Jeffree Star of manipulating her and creating tension between her and YouTuber James Charles.

The moves came as part of the aftermath of a video Dawson posted on Friday titled "Taking Accountability." Throughout its more than 20-minute run time, he apologizes for a career of offensive content, including but not limited to wearing blackface, using racial slurs, insulting people living with disabilities, joking about pedophilia and speaking hypothetically about murdering a woman.

"I should lose everything," he said in the video. "I have put so much hate on the Internet."

Shane Dawson apologizes for his offensive YouTube content, from blackface to murder fantasies

Dawson became one of the platform's original - and most popular - stars after joining YouTube in 2008. He has long been a divisive figure, known for comedy he likened to that of radio shock jocks.

According to YouTube, the suspension of Dawson's ability to include ads on his channels is indefinite and came after a review of his on- and off-platform actions.

A spokesperson for Target said, "We're committed to creating an experience in which all guests feel welcomed and respected. We're in the process of removing these books from our assortment." When asked why the decision came now, even though much of Dawson's content has been publicly available for years, the spokesperson refused to comment.

Westbrook's video, meanwhile, focused on a specific series of dramatic incidents that occurred on YouTube last year involving herself, Dawson, Star and Charles.

Charles and Westbrook, two stars of the YouTube beauty and makeup community, had long been friends, with Charles referring to her as "like a mother." Then, in May 2019, Westbrook released a 43-minute video in which she accused him of using his fame to "manipulate someone's sexuality," referring to straight men. Charles vehemently denied this charge in a video of his own, and for a while, the two continued releasing videos about each other, centered on their fraying friendship.

The generally accepted narrative involved Charles promoting a competitor of Westbrook. As Vox reported at the time, "Charles, 19, shilled for a beauty supplement brand, SugarBear, that also happens to be Westbrook's top competitor. Westbrook, 37, took major offense ..."

But in Tuesday's tearful video, Westbrook apologized to Charles and said, "I did not make my video because of vitamins. I made it as a result of all of the poisonous lies that were fed to me by Shane Dawson and Jeffree Star."

In a since-deleted Instagram live video posted Tuesday, Dawson denied Westbrook's claims. Dawson has not yet responded to a request for comment. It does not appear that Star has responded, and The Washington Post has reached out for comment.

All of this comes amid something of a reckoning on YouTube, which began last week with Jenna Marbles apologizing for making racist jokes in the past and announcing that she was quitting her channel. Her video ostensibly inspired Dawson to create his own apology, though the past four days haven't gone well for him. The backlash he - and Star - have received has been termed " Karmageddon " by some users.

It began immediately when a clip resurfaced in which he pretends to masturbate while looking at a poster of 11-year-old pop singer Willow Smith, prompting her mother, Jada Pinkett Smith, and brother Jaden Smith to publicly criticize Dawson.

"To Shane Dawson ... I'm done with the excuses," Jada tweeted, while Jaden wrote, "SHANE DAWSON I AM DISGUSTED BY YOU. YOU SEXUALIZING AN 11 YEAR OLD GIRL WHO HAPPENS TO BE MY SISTER!!!!!! IS THE FURTHEST THING FROM FUNNY AND NOT OKAY IN THE SLIGHTEST BIT."

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Shane Dawson will not be able to make money on YouTube, after his apology for offensive content

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YouTube confirmed on Tuesday that it has stopped allowing Shane Dawson to make money from ads on his three channels, and Target announced it will no longer carry books written by the controversial vlogger. Also on Tuesday, YouTuber Tati Westbrook published a 40-minute-video in which she accuses Dawson and fellow YouTuber Jeffree Star of manipulating her and creating tension between her and YouTuber James Charles.

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Anonymous on the sandal of Jerry Harris from Netflix hit, 'Cheer'

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Anonymous on the sandal of Jerry Harris from Netflix hit, 'Cheer'

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I hope this is untrue. I reserve my opinion, which is worth zero – what is important is that this young man is INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY. just a friendly reminder to the hordes of mouth breathers who have no idea what justice really is anymore.

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Getting cancelled vs being held accountable

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Getting cancelled vs being held accountable

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Nick Jr's show Paw Patrol gets cancelled for having a dog, Chase, being a good cop after the BLM protests

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Nick Jr's show Paw Patrol gets cancelled for having a dog, Chase, being a good cop after the BLM protests

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All right, this time they've gone too far.

As part of a sweeping reassessment of all things either favorable to the police or upsetting to the black community, the latest target is "Paw Patrol."

That's right. No less an authority than the New York Times informs us that the Nick Jr. cartoon--featuring a squad of canines running around helping other creatures--is too positive toward the cops.

After the show tweeted an appeal for black voices to be heard, the commenters started growling: "Defund the paw patrol." "Euthanize the police dog." "All dogs go to heaven, except the class traitors in the Paw Patrol."
NERVOUS REPUBLICANS STRUGGLE ON VOLATILE POLITICS OF POLICE REFORM
If this sounds like all bark and no bite, guess again. The cancel culture is roaring across America and claiming new victims, while also prompting some overdue soul-searching.

The trigger seemed to be HBO Max's decision to shelve "Gone With the Wind," the classic 1939 film set in part on a plantation in Atlanta during and after the Civil War. Suddenly Clark Gable and Vivian Leigh were enemies of the state. The network said the movie was unacceptable because of "racist depictions" that "were wrong then and are wrong today."

Instead, the Washington Post says, the movie will return and packaged with an African-American scholar who will presumably decry its awful elements.

Sorry, but this is ludicrous. The film, eight decades old, is what it is. Are we now going to junk every book, play and song from the past because it no longer meets the woke standards of 2020? The debate has been going on since Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn," but has now taken on new urgency.

In similar fashion, Paramount has canceled "Cops," once a Fox show, after 32 seasons, and A&E is dropping "Live P.D." Sometimes television programs outlive their era, but I'm pretty sure these would remain on the air were it not for the national uproar over George Floyd's killing.

As one wag tweeted, is the "Andy Griffith Show" next? Weren't he and Don Knotts an all-white sheriff's office?

And surely this backlash is out of control when Lego has to stop marketing the "Lego City Police Station" and "Police Highway Arrest" sets.

The decades-old battle over Confederate symbols is also being weaponized. NASCAR, which has just one fulltime black driver, has just banned Confederate flags from its events. The Marines have banned its troops from displaying the flag. Yet with public figures from David Petraeus to Nancy Pelosi calling for 10 military bases named for Confederate generals to be renamed, President Trump says he won't even consider it.

And protesters are taking matters into their own hands. In Richmond, demonstrators forcibly removed a statue of Jefferson Davis, president of the confederacy. In Portsmouth, Va., protesters attacked a Confederate monument with spray paint and bolt cutters--as local officials and police looked on.

I've long heard the arguments that these statues, monuments and street names are merely a matter of southern pride and heritage. But the fact remains that they honor traitors who rebelled against the United States and fought to preserve an economic system rooted in slavery. That's an increasingly difficult case to sustain.

And yet the lines can get fuzzy: Should we remove George Washington and Thomas Jefferson from our currency because they owned slaves? (Just for good measure, statues of Christopher Columbus were also toppled in Richmond and other cities.)

But if this surging wave of national introspection has claimed victims both worthy and absurd, it has also triggered some accountability and apologies.

Adam Rapoport, editor of Conde Nast's Bon Appetite, resigned after the surfacing of an old photo showing him dressed as a stereotypical Puerto Rican. He said he wanted "to reflect on the work that I need to do as a human being and allow Bon Appetit to get to a better place."
SUBSCRIBE TO HOWIE'S MEDIA BUZZMETER PODCAST, A RIFF OF THE DAY'S HOTTEST STORIES
And longtime Vogue editor Anna Wintour told staffers she takes full responsibility for "mistakes" in publishing stories and images that have been "hurtful and intolerant," as reported by the New York Post:

"I want to start by acknowledging your feelings and expressing my empathy towards what so many of you are going through: sadness, hurt, and anger too. I want to say this especially to the Black members of our team...I also know that the hurt, and violence, and injustice we're seeing and talking about have been around for a long time. Recognizing it and doing something about it is overdue."

Perhaps it was a preemptive move. The cancel culture's verdict can be so swift that New York Times editorial page editor James Bennet and Philadelphia Inquirer editor Stan Wischnowski were ousted for minor moves that ran afoul of their liberal newsrooms.

But if everyone from journalists to entertainers to cartoon characters can be jettisoned simply because one group or another is offended, any sense of fairness will indeed be gone with the wind.

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Cancel culture goes crazy, claiming classics, cartoons and the confederacy

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All right, this time they've gone too far. As part of a sweeping reassessment of all things either favorable to the police or upsetting to the black community, the latest target is "Paw Patrol." That's right. No less an authority than the New York Times informs us that the Nick Jr.

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Fans of the new show The Falcon and The Winter Soldier attack the new "Captain America" on twitter

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Fans of the new show The Falcon and The Winter Soldier attack the new "Captain America" on twitter

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Verified twitter users share their thoughts on "cancel culture"

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Verified twitter users share their thoughts on "cancel culture"

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Sia cancelled for her new movie "Music" when she chose Maddie Ziegler to play a person with autism after getting rid of an autistic person to play the role

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Sia cancelled for her new movie "Music" when she chose Maddie Ziegler to play a person with autism after getting rid of an autistic person to play the role

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Sia's "Music" is hitting a very sour note with thousands of online social justice warriors.

The singer-songwriter's feature directorial debut has already been widely panned by critics and otherwise concerned viewers, but that hasn't stopped the masses from rushing to sign a petition to have the film officially condemned by the industry - by way of removing its two 2021 Golden Globe award nominations.

The Change.org campaign has already amassed 55,000 signatures since the petition was launched by allies of the autism community last week - 50,000 of which came only in the last 24 hours. Related petitions on the website have also garnered substantial support.

In "Music," starring Best Actress Golden Globe nominee Kate Hudson and Leslie Odom Jr., former "Dance Moms" star Maddie Ziegler plays a nonverbal autistic teenager. Critics take aim primarily with the casting of neurotypical Ziegler, despite the available autistic actors.

Representatives for the film did not immediately respond to The Post's request for comment about the growing online backlash.

"The fact that 'Music' has been nominated for two Golden Globes awards illustrates the complete disregard the entire entertainment industry has for inclusivity and minority representation," wrote Nina Skov Jensen and Rosanna Kataja, creators of one of the popular anti-"Music" petitions. "It will only use autism as inspirational porn to make neurotypicals feel good about their supposed 'superiority.' "

"Despite claiming her movie to be a 'love letter to caregivers and to the autism community', she is actually telling the autistic community that she doesn't care about them," they wrote.

Another campaign called Sia's actions "inaccurate and [a] hurtful betrayal of the community."

"Stereotypes are used throughout the trailer, and the visuals are nauseating to autistic people who would've wanted to see the film," wrote petition writer Hannah Marshall.

Across the board, advocates for autistic people have lambasted the film, focusing on the "inhumane treatment" of autistic people in the movie, as the petition alleges.

Zoe Gross, director of advocacy at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, said in a recent statement, "The autistic community has been fighting for decades to end the use of restraints that traumatize and kill."

In Sia's feature-length directorial debut, also starring Kate Hudson (right) and Leslie Odom Jr., "Dance Moms" star Maddie Ziegler (left) plays a nonverbal autistic teenager. Critics take aim primarily with the casting of neurotypical Ziegler, despite the available autistic actors.

Courtesy Everett Collection

The National Autism Association has characterized Ziegler's performance and Sia's direction as "dangerous and abusive," particularly for the scenes involving restraint and seclusion of Ziegler's character - forms of control that are known to exacerbate and upset those with autism.

In a January interview on YouTube, the "Chandelier" singer attempted to change her tune, insisting that she couldn't "do the project without" Ziegler, a frequent collaborator who has already starred in a number of Sia videos. The pop star also revealed that her lead actor had previously admitted her own fears of inadvertently making a mockery of autistic people, but Sia assured Ziegler she would not "let that happen."

"How does one act autistic, you may ask," the Change.org campaign continues. "If we look at Ziegler's portrayal, the answer is by stereotypically mimicking autistic people the exact same way autistic people have been bullied and mocked their entire lives."

"It also enforces the idea that autistic people are not good enough and that their autism is better portrayed by someone with no concept of what it is to be autistic."

The backlash finally prompted Sia to tweet "sorry" for listening to "the wrong people" during the making of the film - an 180-degree turn from her original defense, which saw the debut filmmaker lash out at one actor with autism who auditioned for the role, suggesting "maybe you're just a bad actor" for not landing the part. She has also since pledged to add a disclaimer to her movie, although reports have been mixed as to whether the warning is yet in place.

"MUSIC in no way condones or recommends the use of restraint on autistic people," the new warning reportedly reads. "There are autistic occupational therapists that specialize in sensory processing who can be consulted to explain safe ways to provide proprioceptive, deep-pressure feedback to help [with] meltdown safety."

However, the disclaimer was nowhere to be seen by the time the Autisticats, an autism advocacy group on social media, delivered their thorough take on the film last weekend, paying close attention to Ziegler's physical portrayal of autism.

"There is absolutely nothing wrong with the ways autistic people move, or the ways we make facial expressions," they wrote, referencing Zielger's exaggerated performance.

"I also want to emphasize that, while I mention Ziegler frequently in this post because she is the actress portraying the autistic character, this whole fiasco is not her fault. She was only 14 at the time that filming began," the Autisticats said. "The blame lies with Sia and the other members of this project who did not stop this before it got out of hand."

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More than 55,000 critics 'cancel' Sia's 'Music' amid autism backlash

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Sia's "Music" is hitting a very sour note with thousands of online social justice warriors. The singer-songwriter's feature directorial debut has already been widely panned by critics and otherwise concerned viewers, but that hasn't stopped the masses from rushing to sign a petition to have the film officially condemned by the industry - by way of removing its two 2021 Golden Globe award nominations.

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Rachel Kirkconnell cancelled after images arise from her past with underlying racism. Does this end her relationship with Matt?

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Rachel Kirkconnell cancelled after images arise from her past with underlying racism. Does this end her relationship with Matt?

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Rachael Kirkconnell is speaking out. Thecontestant took to Instagram on Thursday to address the allegations of racism leveled against her.

Rachael was an early frontrunner when Matt James' season of The Bachelor premiered last month. However, just after the premiere, a TikTok user accused Rachael of bullying her in the past for dating Black men, and last week, another user accused Rachael of liking racist photos. Pics have also surfaced of Rachael at an Old South plantation-themed party while in college.

Her statement comes one day after Bachelor host Chris Harrison issued an apology for "wrongly speaking in a manner that perpetuates racism" by defending Rachael in an interview with former Bachelorette Rachel Lindsay. See Rachael's full statement below:
"While there have been rumors circulating, there have also been truths that have come to light that I need to address. I hear you, and I'm here to say I was wrong. At one point, I didn't recognize how offensive and racist my actions were, but that doesn't excuse them. My age or when it happened does not excuse anything. They are not acceptable or okay in any sense. I was ignorant, but my ignorance was racist. I am sorry to the communities and individuals that my actions harmed and offended. I am ashamed about my lack of education, but it is no one's responsibility to educate me. I am learning and will continue to learn how to be antiracist, because it's important to speak up in the moment and not after you're called out. If you are a person who doesn't understand the offense in question, I urge you to use them as a teachable moment." As for my family, I love them and how they raised me to be my own individual. They have always encouraged me to have my own views, opinions, and beliefs. As I was thinking about what I wanted to say, I couldn't help but think about how sick people must be of reading these kinds of statements; how a person didn't realize the trauma that their actions would inflict on other people. It must get so exhausting. I want to put my energy towards preventing people from making the same offensive mistakes that I made in the first place, and I hope I can prove this to you moving forward. Racial progress and unity are impossible without (white) accountability, and I deserve to be held accountable for my actions. I will never grow unless I recognize what I have done is wrong. I don't think one apology means that I deserve your forgiveness, but rather I hope that I can earn your forgiveness through my future actions."
Hours later, she posted another statement on her Instagram Story.

"My statement and apology is for people of color that I have offended, if you do not identify as BIPOC then it is not your apology to accept or not," she wrote. "Please be respectful to those who have been affected."

In an interview with ET last week, Matt encouraged fans not to jump to conclusions about Rachael.

"I have not spoken to anybody since the show ended, but I would say that you have to be really careful about what you are doing on social media," he said. "Rumors are dark and nasty and can ruin people's lives. So I would give people the benefit of the doubt, and hopefully she will have her time to speak on that."

"There's a lot of stuff going around about the women that were involved in the show," he added. "I would just give them a chance to kind of have their piece, whether that is someone who was gone night one or someone who went home last night. Everyone has a story, and I would just be receptive to that."

The Bachelor airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.
RELATED CONTENT: Chris Harrison Apologizes for Defending Alleged Racist Behavior 'Bachelor' Matt James on Rachael and That Spotify Like
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'Bachelor's Rachael Addresses 'Offensive and Racist' Actions

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Rachael Kirkconnell is speaking out. Thecontestant took to Instagram on Thursday to address the allegations of racism leveled against her. Rachael was an early frontrunner when Matt James' season of The Bachelor premiered last month.

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The D'Amelios were cancelled for being rude and impolite to a chef in their youtube video.

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The D'Amelios were cancelled for being rude and impolite to a chef in their youtube video.

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https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2020/11/19/damelios-cancelled/

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Dixie D'Amelio being cancelled for spitting out a snail cooked for her by their personal chef

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Dixie D'Amelio being cancelled for spitting out a snail cooked for her by their personal chef

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Dixie D'amelio RUDE to chef and THROWS UP after eating snail..

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Why 2020 was the year of backlash against Ellen DeGeneres

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Why 2020 was the year of backlash against Ellen DeGeneres

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The talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres is known for her goofy, friendly, and charming persona on the air, but recent accusations by crew members and a guest on her show have led to a string of bad press.

In late March, the Dutch beauty YouTuber Nikkie de Jager, who goes by NikkieTutorials, said during a talk show in her home country that DeGeneres had been "cold and distant" during de Jager's appearance on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show."

From there, a Twitter thread asking for stories about DeGeneres being "one of the meanest people alive" quickly spread, garnering more than 2,000 replies.

And DeGeneres has also been accused by former crew members of not communicating with them about payment during the coronavirus shutdown.

Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

The talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres has long been considered a beloved celebrity for her friendly and funny public demeanor. But in 2020, that all could change as complaints of inconsiderate behavior have popped up in recent news stories.

The Dutch beauty YouTuber Nikkie de Jager, also known as NikkieTutorials, was one of the first people to call out DeGeneres, saying on a talk show in her home country that the beloved host was "cold and distant" during de Jager's appearance on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show."

In April, a Twitter thread asking for stories about DeGeneres being "one of the meanest people alive" was widely shared, garnering more than 2,000 replies of people describing uncomfortable or off-putting experiences with the host.

Crew members for "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" also spoke out this month, saying they had not received any communication from DeGeneres or show executives about their pay or working hours during the coronavirus pandemic.

With accusations of unkind or inconsiderate behavior swirling around the talk-show host, it can be hard to keep track of all the controversy. Below, we broke down all the backlash DeGeneres has received this year.

NikkieTutorials in February was one of the first people to speak out

The Dutch beauty vlogger first visited "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" in January to discuss her experience as a transgender woman after coming out earlier that month.

But de Jager said during an appearance on the Dutch talk show "De Wereld Draait Door" in February that it hadn't been a completely positive experience for her.

"Let me say that there's a big difference between this show and Ellen DeGeneres, and I'm saying that in favor of this show," de Jager told the host Matthijs van Nieuwkerk, according to a translation by the YouTuber Sebastian Williams, a native Dutch speaker. "It's nice that you say 'hi' before the show. She didn't."

When van Nieuwkerk asked de Jager whether DeGeneres was "cold and distant," the beauty YouTuber agreed.

And on Thursday, another interview with de Jager came to light in which she expanded on her experience with DeGeneres and DeGeneres' show. De Jager reportedly told &C Magazine that the friendly, welcoming atmosphere portrayed to viewers wasn't the reality in the studio.

-Pop Crave (@PopCrave) April 16, 2020

"Maybe I'm being naive, but I expected them to welcome me with confetti: Welcome to 'The Ellen DeGeneres Show'!" she said in the interview seen by Pop Crave. "But instead I got greeted by an angry intern, who was a bit overworked. I expected a Disney show, but I got a 'Teletubbies' after dark."

According to de Jager, she didn't receive the same VIP treatment as other celebrity guests on the show, despite having millions of views on her YouTube videos.

"Every guest at Ellen had a private toilet, but I didn't," she said, referring to a bathroom. "I couldn't even use the closest toilet to me because it was reserved for the Jonas brothers."

In April, a Twitter thread asking for stories about DeGeneres being 'one of the meanest people alive' received more than 2,000 responses

A comedian named Kevin T. Porter crowdsourced "insane stories you've heard about Ellen being mean" in exchange for $2 donations to the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank - and received thousands of responses.

-Kevin T. Porter (@KevinTPorter) March 20, 2020

While the accuracy of the stories is impossible to verify from tweets alone, news outlets including Insider picked up on the thread. One Twitter user accused DeGeneres of using her fan art as a prop, while another described her getting mad at a server with chipped nail polish who waited on the host and her wife, Portia, at brunch.

-Danielle Acevedo (@daniianita96) March 23, 2020

-Chris Farah (@ChrisLFarah) March 20, 2020

There were also stories about DeGeneres' behavior while filming, including accusations that she wouldn't let crew members eat meat, that she fired an autistic custodian for greeting her, and that she made anyone entering her office chew gum from a bowl outside her door since she had a "sensitive nose."

DeGeneres hasn't responded publicly to any of the accusations. A representative for the talk-show host didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment regarding this story.

-Alison Freer ✂️ (@AlisonVFreer) March 20, 2020

-Josh Levesque (@JoshBLevesque) March 20, 2020

-Benjamin Siemon (@BenjaminJS) March 20, 2020

The host also faced backlash after joking that self-isolating in her mansion was 'like being in jail'

On her April 6 show, DeGeneres compared self-isolating in her California mansion to being in prison - and Twitter users were quick to call out the talk-show host for what they felt was an insensitive remark.

"One thing I've learned from being in quarantine is that people - this is like being in jail, is what this is," DeGeneres said during the segment, adding, "It's mostly because I've been wearing the same clothes for 10 days, and everyone in here is gay."

DeGeneres seemed amused by her comparison, smiling and remarking, "The jokes that I have."

After DeGeneres shared the clip on Twitter, users were quick to call out the host for her remarks about prisons, especially during a time when prison inmates are at an increased risk of contracting COVID-19. Some pointed out that inmates in prisons were far more likely to die from the novel coronavirus than the larger population - especially wealthy people like DeGeneres.

-Mike Sington (@MikeSington) April 6, 2020

-itsagundam (@GundamIsHere) April 7, 2020

-blackness everdeen 🐺 (@traceyecorder) April 7, 2020

-Rebecca Kavanagh (@DrRJKavanagh) April 8, 2020

In April, news broke that DeGeneres' crew was 'furious' about a lack of communication over their pay during the coronavirus shutdown

Variety cited two anonymous sources as saying that the long-running talk show's core stage crew - which consists of more than 30 employees - had not received any communication about the status of their working hours or pay and that producers had not checked in about their mental and physical health.

Furthermore, the report said crew members were left in the dark about how much they would be paid, or whether they would be paid at all, for more than two weeks.

DeGeneres' show has continued to air, with the host recording from her home in California, but Variety reported that only four members of the core crew were working on the show's lockdown edition, with a nonunion tech company being brought on to help as well.

And despite a statement from Warner Bros. Television saying the crew had been paid at a consistent rate (albeit at reduced hours), crew members are still said to be upset about a lack of personal care from the show - and feel the way they have been treated is not in keeping with DeGeneres' famous "be kind" advice.

Such reports are a stark contrast with other shows. Stage hands on ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" were paid by the host Jimmy Kimmel himself during initial COVID-19 shutdowns, for example, and are now being paid their full rates by ABC after returning to the air remotely. "Last Week Tonight With John Oliver" and "Full Frontal With Samantha Bee" have also been transparent in their communication with staff and crew and are paying full rates.

A former bodyguard for the host said his experience with her at the 2014 Oscars was 'kind of demeaning'

Tom Majercak was hired to protect DeGeneres, her mother, and her wife Portia de Rossi as they attended the 86th Academy awards, which DeGeneres was hosting.

But the bodyguard told Fox News in April that his experience with DeGeneres was less than ideal.

"I'm holding their hands and walking them through individuals and large groups of people. Ellen is the one person that I've been assigned to - and I've been assigned to quite a few celebrities - that has never taken the time to say hi to me," Majercak said.

According to the bodyguard, DeGeneres' wife de Rossi was "very pleasant" throughout the evening and "carried on a conversation," but things "started going negatively" when de Rossi introduced him to the talk show host.

"Ellen pretty much just gave me a side glance out of her eye and didn't even say 'hello,' or 'thank you for protecting my mother, my wife and me,'" Majercak told Fox News, adding, "It was very cold and it was very sly and it was actually kind of demeaning in the way that she treats people other than those who are in her circle."

A former producer for DeGeneres' show said that the host once called Steve Jobs to complain about the font size on iPhones

Speaking to the New York Post, the producer, who wasn't named in the Post's May 9 story, said the call to Jobs came after DeGeneres had lost her glasses, and couldn't read a text on her phone.

"She stopped everything and made a call. Next thing we know, we literally hear Steve Jobs pick up and say, 'Hi, Ellen' ... Ellen told him the iPhone should have a bigger font," the producer said.

"That's her," the former producer continued. "It's not that she's some demon. She just lives in an incredibly privileged bubble and is out of touch with the real world."

In early July, the hashtag "#RIPEllen" began trending on Twitter - even though DeGeneres was alive and well

After speculation that DeGeneres' popular talk show was going to be canceled, some Twitter users reportedly took things further by spreading false news of DeGeneres' "death."

According to a story from the New York Post published on July 7, people on social media claimed the host had taken her own life in response to the impending "cancellation" of her show - even though the host was still very much alive.

Producers also confirmed with the Post that DeGeneres' show was not, in fact, going to be canceled.

But that didn't stop users from continuing to use the "#RIPEllen" hashtag in their tweets.

Some people shared photos of DeGeneres' celebrity lookalikes (including Jane Lynch's character from "Glee" and Katy Perry), along with their joking condolences for the talk show host. Others noted that the death hoax came after a turbulent past few months for DeGeneres.

News broke in late July that WarnerMedia, the distributor of 'The Ellen Show,' was launching an internal investigation into the show's workplace culture

Variety reported an "employee relations group and a third party firm" would conduct the investigation, interviewing current and former employees about their time on set.

The investigation came after a turbulent past few months for DeGeneres, the show, and some of its employees, who were reportedly left in the dark about pay and hours during the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

Shortly thereafter, an Australian radio host said he was instructed not to look at or talk to DeGeneres when working with her in 2013

During a segment on his radio show "4BC Breakfast" on July 28, Neil Breen said he worked as an executive producer on the Australian "Today" show at the time.

According to Breen, DeGeneres' involvement on the episode "got watered-down" from co-hosting to doing a sit-down interview in Melbourne, where Breen and his crew had to fly ("at our own expense") to tape the segment.

Australian TV presenter Richard Wilkins was set to interview DeGeneres, but Breen said that he and the rest of his team received a very specific set of rules when working with her.

"Because it's 'The Ellen Show,' they controlled everything," Breen explained. "They controlled the interview seats, the lights, how it would work, everything."

"The producers called us aside and said, 'This is how it's going to work here this morning. Ellen's going to arrive at 10:15, and she'll be sitting in this chair here. And Richard, you'll be sitting in this chair here,'" he continued.

According to Breen, DeGeneres' team told him, "Neil, no one's to talk to Ellen. You don't talk to her, you don't approach her, you don't look at her. She'll come in, she'll sit down, she'll talk to Richard, then Ellen will leave."

Breen said he found the whole thing "bizarre."

"I'm not blaming Ellen, because I didn't get to talk to her. I don't know whether she's a nice person or not. I wouldn't have a clue," he said. "But I can tell you, the people who worked with her walked on eggshells the whole time."

DeGeneres addressed 'issues' at her show with a letter to staff in late July

In the letter, obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, DeGeneres takes responsibility for the overall issues on her set. She does not directly address any allegations of her personal actions but says she was "disappointed to learn" that people working for her did not feel happy or respected on set.

"As we've grown exponentially, I've not been able to stay on top of everything and relied on others to do their jobs as they knew I'd want them done," DeGeneres wrote. "Clearly some didn't. That will now change and I'm committed to ensuring this does not happen again."

The host referenced the ongoing investigation by WarnerMedia, and apologized at the beginning and end of the letter to anyone who was not treated with fairness and respect.

'Everybody Loves Raymond' star Brad Garrett said DeGeneres mistreating people is 'common knowledge'

"Sorry but it comes from the top @TheEllenShow. Know more than one who were treated horribly by her.⁩ Common knowledge," Garrett tweeted on July 30.

-Brad Garrett (@RealBradGarrett) July 31, 2020

And "Back to the Future" star Lea Thompson agreed, responding to a tweet from People magazine about Garrett's comments.

"True story. It is," she tweeted.

-Lea Thompson (@LeaKThompson) July 31, 2020

Scooter Braun came to DeGeneres' defense on August 1, and a producer for the show said 'nobody is going off the air' in reference to cancellation rumors

Braun, who manages stars like Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande, defended the comedian in a series of tweets on Friday.

"People love to take shots at people. They love to see people fall. How quickly so many forget," he wrote.

Braun continued to call DeGeneres a "kind, thoughtful, courageous human being who stands for what is right" and "has helped change the views for equality." He explained that he felt compelled to speak up since he has a "first hand" perspective of how DeGeneres "helps so many" both on and off her show.

"She isn't about what is popular she is about what is right. Sending love to Ellen today," Braun wrote.

-Scooter Braun (@scooterbraun) July 31, 2020

And in response to a tweet by a fan about DeGeneres' show potentially getting canceled, executive producer Andy Lassner said, "Nobody is going off the air."

-andy lassner (@andylassner) July 30, 2020

A report suggested that James Corden could replace DeGeneres should her show go off the air

A British newspaper reported on August 1 that James Corden was "in line" to replace Ellen DeGeneres should she quit her namesake show. The report led some people on Twitter to share stories in which they accused the "Late Late Show" host of behaving in a problematic way, too.

The Sun reported that Corden appeared to be in contention as a "long-term successor" to DeGeneres, citing an anonymous source at NBC who said Corden "was being eyed for Ellen's job in the long term" before any of the complaints against her "came to light."

The Sun's source described Corden as "a natural fit" for DeGeneres' job.

In early August, several other ex-employees of DeGeneres came forward to share their experiences with her on set

Former producer Hedda Muskat told The Wrap about an incident during a staff meeting where new-at-the-time executive producers Ed Glavin and Mary Connelly were introduced to the rest of the existing team.

Muskat said Glavin screamed at one member of staff in front of everybody else. "He just went off on them. His whole face turned red... We were stunned."

"I was waiting for Ellen to say something. 'Whoa, Ed, don't talk like that,'" Muskat said. "Do you know what she did? She giggled. She crossed her legs up on the chair and she said, 'Well, I guess every production needs their dog.' And from then we knew. Ed was going to be the barking dog - her dog."

"I had never seen this before. I had never been around a toxic host," she added.

And former DJ for "The Ellen Show" Tony Okungbowa shared a statement about his experience shortly thereafter.

"While I am grateful for the opportunity it afforded me, I did experience and feel the toxicity of the environment and I stand with my former colleagues in their quest to create a healthier and more inclusive workplace as the show moves forward," Okungbowa wrote on Instagram.

'The Ellen Show' had its season premiere in September, and DeGeneres addressed the allegations in her opening monologue

"I learned that things happened here that never should have happened. I take that very seriously," DeGeneres began. "I want to say I am so sorry to the people who were affected."

"I know that I'm in a position of privilege and power. And I realized that with that comes responsibility," she continued. "And I take responsibility for what happens at my show. This is 'The Ellen DeGeneres Show.'"

"We have had a lot of conversations over the last few weeks about the show, our workplace, and what we want for the future. We have made the necessary changes and today, we are starting a new chapter," DeGeneres said.

"The Ellen DeGeneres Show" returned on September 21 after a summer hiatus.

Celebrities like Ashton Kutcher, Katy Perry, and DeGeneres' wife Portia de Rossi have spoken out in support of the embattled host

"I haven't spoken with @TheEllenShow and can only speak from my own experience," Kutcher tweeted in early August. "She & her team have only treated me & my team w/ respect & kindness. She never pandered to celebrity which I always saw as a refreshing honesty. When things aren't right she handles it and fixes."

-ashton kutcher (@aplusk) August 5, 2020

Kutcher was subsequently called out by fans who accused him of letting his celebrity status potentially influence his opinion.

Other stars who voiced support for DeGeneres included Katy Perry, who tweeted that she has "only ever had positive takeaways from my time with Ellen & on the @theellenshow," and DeGeneres' wife De Rossi, who shared an uplifting message to Instagram.

-KATY PERRY (@katyperry) August 4, 2020

-KATY PERRY (@katyperry) August 4, 2020

But other stars, like Brad Garrett and Ryan Phillippe, haven't been as supportive

In late October, Ryan Phillippe mocked Ellen DeGeneres' famous "be kind" mantra on social media.

The "Cruel Intentions" actor shared a picture of himself posing in front of a poster of DeGeneres to his Instagram story, with the caption, "And remember to be kind... wait."

"Everybody Loves Raymond" star Brad Garrett said in July that DeGeneres mistreating people is "common knowledge."

"Sorry but it comes from the top @TheEllenShow. Know more than one who were treated horribly by her.⁩ Common knowledge," Garrett tweeted on July 30.

And "Back to the Future" star Lea Thompson agreed, responding to a tweet from People magazine about Garrett's comments.

"True story. It is," she tweeted.

If you've had an experience with Ellen DeGeneres that you'd like to share on the record, please email ltorres@businessinsider.com.

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Why 2020 has been the year of backlash against Ellen DeGeneres

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The talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres is known for her goofy, friendly, and charming persona on the air, but recent accusations by crew members and a guest on her show have led to a string of bad press.

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People can be too quick to cancel people at times.

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People can be too quick to cancel people at times.

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Discussion about what constitutes cancel culture entails arises after Dr. Seuss books are declared "cancelled".

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Discussion about what constitutes cancel culture entails arises after Dr. Seuss books are declared "cancelled".

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Taylor Swift On How Being 'Canceled' After Kim Kardashian's Snapchats Fundamentally Changed Her

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Taylor Swift On How Being 'Canceled' After Kim Kardashian's Snapchats Fundamentally Changed Her

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Taylor Swift on How Being 'Canceled' After Kim Kardashian's Snapchats Fundamentally Changed Her

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Taylor Swift is 's September cover star, and she gave one of her most in-depth interviews in years to the outlet. Swift spoke very candidly about how being "canceled" in the aftermath of Kim Kardashian's Snapchat takedown in 2016 changed her-and why she vehemently objects to the internet's tendency to cancel anybody who does something wrong.

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In "Tales From the Teenage Cancel Culture," a teenager explains that

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In "Tales From the Teenage Cancel Culture," a teenager explains that

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“You can do something stupid when you’re 15, say one thing and 10 years later that shapes how people perceive you,” she said. “We all do cringey things and make dumb mistakes and whatever. But social media’s existence has brought that into a place where people can take something you did back then and make it who you are now.”

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Lil Nas X being cancelled for creating a pair of shoes with human blood inside of them. Buyers of Nike are now boycotting them.

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Lil Nas X being cancelled for creating a pair of shoes with human blood inside of them. Buyers of Nike are now boycotting them.

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Written by Oscar Holland, CNN

Rapper and singer Lil Nas X is launching a controversial pair of " Satan Shoes" featuring a bronze pentagram, an inverted cross and a drop of real human blood.

The black and red sneakers, part of a collaboration between Lil Nas X and New York-based art collective MSCHF, were made using Nike Air Max 97s, though the sportswear brand has distanced itself from the design.

In an emailed statement to CNN, Nike said it was not involved in creating the modified sneakers. "We do not have a relationship with Lil Nas or MSCHF," the company said. "Nike did not design or release these shoes and we do not endorse them."

Launching as a limited-edition "drop" of 666 pairs, each shoe's air bubble sole contains 60 cubic centimeters (2.03 fluid ounces) of red ink and "one drop" of human blood, according to MSCHF. They are priced at $1,018 a pair, a reference to the Bible passage Luke 10:18 that reads: "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven."

A MSCHF spokesperson said the blood had been provided by members of the art collective, adding: "We love to sacrifice for our art." The group also confirmed to CNN that Nike was "not involved in this in any capacity."

The shoes sparked outrage online over the weekend, and attracted criticism from a number of high-profile political and religious figures, including South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem and the evangelical pastor Mark Burns. The latter described the sneakers in a tweet as "evil" and "heresy." Some fans of the "Old Town Road" rapper, meanwhile, tweeted their support and desire to own a pair.

In response, Lil Nas X (whose real name is Montero Lamar Hill),posted a video to his official YouTube account titled "Lil Nas X Apologizes for Satan Shoe," which has now been viewed over 1.8 million times. But after a few seconds, the apparent apology cuts to a scene from his new music video, "Montero (Call Me By Your Name)," showing him dancing provocatively with a devil character. The rapper is then pictured snapping the devil's neck, before removing his horned crown and assuming it himself.

MSCHF is known for its irreverent "drops," a series of tongue-in-cheek art projects unveiled once every two weeks. In 2019, the collective released limited edition " Jesus Shoes" -- also made from Nike Air Max 97 sneakers -- which featured a steel crucifix and "holy water" sourced from the Jordan River.

Other drops have seen the collective sell a laptop installed with some of the world's most dangerous computer viruses for over $1.3 million. In February, meanwhile, the group ripped apart four Hermès Birkin bags in order to create a collection of sandals priced between $34,000 and $76,000.

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lil nas x releases unofficial 'satan' nike shoes containing human blood - cnn

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Lil Nas X releases unofficial 'Satan' Nikes containing human blood

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Written by Oscar Holland, CNN Rapper and singer Lil Nas X is launching a controversial pair of " Satan Shoes" featuring a bronze pentagram, an inverted cross and a drop of real human blood.

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Cancel culture erases the opportunity for growth and development.

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Cancel culture erases the opportunity for growth and development.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/31/style/cancel-culture.html

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The reputation of James Charles was ruined with one accusation from another influencer.

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The reputation of James Charles was ruined with one accusation from another influencer.

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https://seenconnects.com/insights/james-charles-power-cancel-culture/#:~:text=James%20lost%20a%20staggering%205,is%20only%2019%20years%20old.

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https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/j-k-rowling-faces-backlash-after-tweeting-support-transphobic-researcher-n1104971

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Twitter sometimes rushes to cancel people.

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Twitter sometimes rushes to cancel people.

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David Dobrik exits the "DISPO" app brand after being tied to a vlog squad scandal

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David Dobrik exits the "DISPO" app brand after being tied to a vlog squad scandal

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Off the back of a tumultuous few weeks for David Dobrik, it seems backlash surrounding the star's lack of accountability is beginning to affect his new business venture.

ICYMI, fans across the internet are calling to "cancel" David and the Vlog Squad after several former members have shared traumatic recounts of their time in the YouTube collective. Most notably, Nik "Big Nik" Keswani compared the Vlog Squad to a cult and claimed David fosters a "toxic environment" for creators. Shortly after, Seth Francois accused the three-time Kids' Choice Awards winner of sexual assault after David allegedly forced him to kiss 47-year-old Jason Nash against his will.

Nik and Seth's stories have put a magnifying glass on David's content, resulting in a domino effect of fans uncovering problematic bits, pranks, and jokes throughout the creator's vlogs over the years which include racism, ableism, misogyny, sexual assault, and bullying.

Last week, the backlash came to a head when an investigation by journalist Kat Tenbarge for found accusations of rape against former Vlog Squad member Durte Dom, real name Dominykas Zeglaitis, while David and friends allegedly enabled the assault.

David, who's slated to be a featured speaker on the NoHateTour to educate teens on bullying prevention, addressed the accusations in a 2-minute "apology" video in which he deflects blame onto his friends.

After weeks of criticism on social media, fans took to the app store to demand accountability from the star, flooding reviews for his new photo-sharing app with negative comments and poor ratings.

"The creator is choosing to ignore allegations made on him and that is just not something I'm okay with and have decided to delete this app," one user wrote under their 1-star rating.

Others accused David of stealing the app design and name for Dispo after a fan pitched him the concepts via TikTok. Six days later, David filed the trademark for Dispo and the fan was allegedly told they went in a different direction.

In response to the influx of negativity, it appears that David and his team culled hundreds of reviews criticising both the creator and the app. The app currently sits at a 2.2-star rating out of 5.

INSTANT REGRET: David Dobrik hides ratings on his "Dispo" app after getting flooded with people asking David to address allegations he had Jason Nash sexually assault Seth Francois for a prank. pic.twitter.com/VXHHnNW4ys
- Def Noodles (@defnoodles) March 13, 2021

On March 21st, Spark Capital, the lead investor in Dispo's Series A funding round, revealed they plan to "sever all ties" with the app and David.

See Also

"In light of recent news about the Vlog Squad and David Dobrik, the cofounder of Dispo, we have made the decision to sever all ties with the company," the firm tweeted. "We have stepped down from our position on the board and we are in the process of making arrangements to ensure we do not profit from our recent investment in Dispo."

2/ We have stepped down from our position on the board and we are in the process of making arrangements to ensure we do not profit from our recent investment in Dispo.
- Spark Capital (@sparkcapital) March 22, 2021

Hours later, Dispo announced that David himself would be stepping down from the board as well as existing the company. In a statement to TechCrunch, a Dispo spokesperson said: "David has chosen to step down from the board and leave the company to not distract from the company's growth. Dispo's team, product, and most importantly- our community- stand for building a diverse, inclusive, and empowering world."

While this may not be David's first internet controversy, it's seemingly the first to affect his business outside of social media. Dispo, an app which functions like a disposable camera, raised $4 million in 2020 via Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian's venture firm Seven Seven Six. Just last month, Dispo raised another $20 million in Series A funding led by Spark Capital, valuing the app at $200 million.

We wonder if the fall-out will put some pressure on the influencer to deliver a sincere apology.

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David Dobrik Exits 'Dispo' After Lead Investor Severs Ties With The App Amid Vlog Squad Scandal

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Updated: March 22nd, 2021 Off the back of a tumultuous few weeks for David Dobrik, it seems backlash surrounding the star's lack of accountability is beginning to affect his new business venture. ICYMI, fans across the internet are calling to "cancel" David and the Vlog Squad after several former members have shared traumatic recounts of...

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Amanda Marcotte writes in "Cancel Culture: The Good, The Bad, and its Impact on Social Change."

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Amanda Marcotte writes in "Cancel Culture: The Good, The Bad, and its Impact on Social Change."

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"I believe in its positive impact, but cancel culture can also get ugly, and isn’t as black and white as I have just possibly portrayed it to be. We have to allow individuals to learn from their mistakes. “Woke bashing” individuals who are willing to learn and have a desire to be an ally to marginalized communities, doesn’t serve the collective pursuit of equality; it only causes alienation and shame. I believe we need to push for critical thinking, and encourage people to read beyond the headlines and potential media manipulation. In a world where we repost moral outrage without the necessary due diligence, it’s important we read between the lines before we effectively “cancel” someone."

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Cancel culture sometimes attacks people who just have differing opinions. 

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Cancel culture sometimes attacks people who just have differing opinions. 

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Cancel culture extends to more than just an online presence, it affects peoples personal lives as well.

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Cancel culture extends to more than just an online presence, it affects peoples personal lives as well.

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https://www.news24.com/w24/selfcare/wellness/mind/cancel-culture-cost-me-my-job-and-twitter-even-dragged-my-family-into-the-mess-20210310

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David Dobrik loses sponsorships after being "cancelled" online

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David Dobrik loses sponsorships after being "cancelled" online

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https://www.newsweek.com/david-dobrik-sponsorships-canceled-brands-amid-rape-allegations-1577752

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“Because childhood isn’t canceled.”
Ad is for Destin Fort Walton Beach Florida

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What are the roots of cancel culture? What is it REALLY about?

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What are the roots of cancel culture? What is it REALLY about?

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What do we learn about our society through cancel culture?

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What do we learn about our society through cancel culture?

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If cancel culture needs to be canceled itself, what could/should replace it? What is a better and more productive alternative?

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If cancel culture needs to be canceled itself, what could/should replace it? What is a better and more productive alternative?