Lets Chat “Cancel Culture”

The term ‘cancelled’ or ‘cancel culture’ has soared in popularity over the past few years. Whether it’s climbing its way up the Twitter trending page of its been spammed throughout someones Instagram comments, the truth is undeniable. It’s a key part of our online culture and is here to stay.

Personally, I find the idea of cancel culture to be really interesting. To my fellow ‘98 babies, it’s weird to cyber bulling (which was the really small scale targeting and bullying of friends) evolve into an International entity which can change the world, our society and even our politics. Technically speaking, social media users have exacted cancel culture for both good and bad.

Take Brock Turner for example, that dude was pure evil; he ruined the life off a young girl and got away with a pitiful jail sentence. Why? Because he was a rich white man of course! I remember his case being blown up after Philip Defranco covered the story, I remember him being absolutely livid that local police and press had released an image of clean cut, smiling Brock turner, rather than the typical dirty mug shot you’d normally see released. At the time it was the absolute definition of white privilege.

All of a sudden #BrockTurner was trending on the top of Twitter and devoted groups of people became determined to fix this wrong. Some found his address and camped outside his house with placards, others chose to exploit Google and Twitter, aiming to fill any search result with his mugshot (Which was released to the public after a massive outcry). They actually succeeded; mainstream press across the globe picked up the story of Brock Turner and as a result that man will never be able to do anything without people recognising his name or his face.

Thats cancel culture in its best form, its social media acting as a legal system within its own right. But just as it can do good, it can do bad as well.

Recently the term has hit the news again, Jeffree Star, Shane Dawson and a plethora of other YouTubers are being cancelled thanks to ‘Karmageddon’. But we’ll talk about them a little further down the blog.

Cancel Culture is here to stay, I’m sorry but it is. Many view it as either a mindless mob-mentality, theatre equality or virtual activism. From what I’ve seen over the past few years It completely depends on who is being cancelled at the time (Ahem Jenna Marbles cough cough).

So now is as good a time as any for me to talk about it a little on here. If you have any questions feel free to email me or pop me a message.

When did it start?

A lot of people credit the first reference of cancel culture to a 1991 film called New Jack City, in which Wesley Snipes plays a gangster named Nino Brown. In one scene, after his girlfriend breaks down because of all the violence he’s causing, he dumps her by saying, “Cancel that bitch. I’ll buy another one.”So, unfortunately it was inspired by a stupid misogynistic joke!

The next documented reference of the term was in Little Wayne’s 2010 song “I’m Single”: “Yeah, I’m single / n***a had to cancel that bitch like Nino.” This callback to the earlier sexist cancel joke probably helped the phrase percolate for a while. 

But canceling seems to have gotten its first big boost into the zeitgeist from an episode of VH1’s reality show Love and Hip-Hop: New York that aired in December 2014, in which cast member Cisco Rosado tells his love interest Diamond Strawberry during a fight, “you’re canceled.” 

During 2015, the phrase cancelled was picked up by what academic journals describe as “Black Twitter”, used as a reaction to someone doing something you disapproved of — either jokingly or seriously.

As it caught on, however, the term began to evolve into a way of responding not just to friends or acquaintances, but also to celebrities or entities whose behavior offended you. One of my favourite examples of cancel culture in 2015 was Ariana Grande and the famous DONUTGATE! I really can’t believe it was 15 years ago though.

<div class="sqs-video-wrapper" data-provider-name="YouTube" data-html="[youtube=://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kDAzYjbugo&w=854&h=480]">

Even at this very early stage, we can see people start to ‘boycott’ people on a professional standing.

Screenshot 2020-06-30 at 18.54.54.png

Even though these early examples are mostly independent and distinct from one another, they contained the seeds of what cancel culture would become: a trend of communal calls to boycott a celebrity whose offensive behaviour is perceived as going too far.

Cancel culture, and callout culture are often confused not only with each other but also with broader public shaming trends, as part of a collectivized narrative that all of these things are examples of trolling and harassment. The media sometimes refers to this idea as "outrage culture." 

But while these ideas seem interchangeable at a glance, they're different in meaningful ways. Callout culture predates cancel culture as a concept, with online roots in early 2010s Tumblr fandom callout blogs, like Your Fave is Problematic, and spreading from there. Callout culture is a term that arose within the fandom, used by fans of all kinds deploying criticism of pop culture or public figures, in inherent opposition to toxic online harassment mobs like Gamergate. Meanwhile, cancel culture arose within black culture and appears to channel black empowerment movements as far back as the civil rights boycotts of the 1950s and '60s.

But I'm well aware that my word count is growing and I'm yet to make the actual point. So if you do want more info on that, then I'll happily send you my dissertation.

Let's fast forward a little bit…

Ah 2019, the year sh*t hit the actual fan. I'm surprised that 'cancelled' wasn't the Oxford dictionary of the word. There were a plethora of high profile celebrities cancelled by their fans; R. Kelly, Kanye West, Scarlett Johansson, and Gina Rodriguez, Kevin Hartand Shane Gillis, who each faced public backlash after social media users unearthed homophobic and racist jokes they'd made in the past.

Plus the world of influencers came crashing into mainstream media with some horrific scandals of their own.Dramageddon 2 hit our timelines and broke records.

As someone who's been fascinated with the online world for a few years, I felt like this would change everything. Influencers have worked so hard to be viewed positively in mainstream media. Now Tati Westbrook and James Charles were being slated by the global press; it was not a good look.*

*Since writing this blog post I found out that YouTube intervened and asked Tati to put an end to the drama, saying it wasn't a good look for the platform.

If anyone else was a big fan of the beauty community, then they'll understand how big it was. But annoyingly, as I'm writing this blog, we're currently in what I hope will be the third and final segment of the saga.

Here's The Thing

I know I don't need to hammer home the point here. But cancel culture is here to stay whether you want to be apart of it or not. I've said countless times that social media is still in its infancy. The idea of the 'influencer' is only about ten years old, and the big names in the business are continually changing.

Five or six years ago, the people doing Mukbangs or tutorials had no idea of the power that they had. They were sitting in their room trying on clothes or running around with their mates and filming it. Now there are FFC laws to prevent them from misrepresenting the products they're reviewing, and countless other social media laws are being passed regularly. It's no longer the community we had back in 2009-2011.

Trust me, hardly anyone famous has access to their accounts anymore. If they do, they have managers and PR teams to evaluate everything that is put out into the world. They have social media managers, teams of security, lawyers, video editors, scriptwriters and PR people to ensure they're careers have the correct trajectory.

Why? Why can't they be authentic? The idea of being cancelled terrifies them, and they need to prepare for a worst-case scenario.

They hire the right people. I mean, can you remember the last person who was cancelled?

No? Let me ask you this, how many times has Shane Dawson been cancelled throughout his career? How many times has Jeffree Star had to apologize for his racism and how many tweets have James Charles had to say sorry for stealing artwork?

There is an endless list of people I could reference here, but I think those three make enough of a point. Every single one of these people has come back and still had a career after the scandal.

Cancel culture is complete fiction. It's theatre. The fans kick-off and boycott a brand until they're satisfied they've had justice. Shane Dawson apologized and changed his format, Jeffree Star started to include POC'S in his makeup campaigns, and James learnt how to credit people.

I recently found out that Sam Pepper, one of the first people I remember being 'cancelled', has also made a comeback. He now has 3.1m followers on TikTok.

I think cancel culture is its type of digital (or political) discourse.

Nobody gets cancelled, and half the time the drama is fabricated (by one or both sides) as a way to promote a new merch or makeup drop. The issues may be real, but why not speak out before? Why handle them in the public eye and not in a private courtroom while suing for defamation, etc.?

The other half of the time, I think people don't realize the implications of their actions. The internet comes across as this 'free for all', but there are ACTUAL LAWS that people forget to exist.

So to conclude, I ask you to think a little more into what's going on when you see someone being cancelled. The reason what are you going to accomplish? What are the involved parties accomplishing? It's overrated but entertaining as hell. But think before you dissect your makeup palettes or burn your books. You're cutting your nose off to spite your face, and I promise you'll regret it.

If you have any questions, feel free to message me on Instagram. I'm always up for a chat!