I thought there was a good 2 part podcast from the NYT on Cancel Culture that shows it's a pretty nuanced discussion. But like everything that once had some nuance it's been bludgeoned to hell by the conservative movement enough that CPAC's subtitle was CPAC 2021: UNCANCEL AMERICA.
It's the dumbest shit ever
Here's the Epi from The Daily, but take note it's from last summer and obviously the world has changed a bit even since August 2020. I like that the episode goes into the etymology of the phrase too, because, like, it was a joke.
Many people claim to have been “canceled.” What does that mean? And how did it start?
www.nytimes.com
Cancel culture does not exist in the way that the American right claims it does. E.g., "The Muppets are now cancelled!" ... Why? Because in reissuing the entire muppet collection on UHD bluray, 2 episodes were removed, one of which was (IIRC) for a license violation because they didn't have the rights to reproduce a song from the episode. And then Don Jr goes on Fox and Friends and tells America "The left is cancelling the muppets!" Well ... no.
But I think there's a analogous situation which might not be "cancel culture," but certainly is this system of immediate judgement and demand for consequences without knowing all of the facts. This isn't new, but I think the rate that it has accellerated in the last 5-10 years is now very fast. There's a couple situations that I think of. One is with Bruce Springsteen. Bruce Springsteen, love him or don't love him, has generally been a progressive music artist writing songs for the little guy over the last 40+ years. He then does a pretty lame voice over for a Jeep commercial basically calling on Americans to "come back to the middle," or what have you, instead of going to the extremes. As a political statement, it's tone deaf given the last 4 years of American politics and especially the last 3 months and ESPECIALLY in light of the capitol siege. Now, I think Springsteen deserves some criticism for that, it's a dumb ad and while it was likely recorded before January 6, I'm sure he cashed the check for that ad appearance too. I think the eye-rolling criticism is valid, but then the turn it takes with this supposed drunk driving incident takes it up another notch. Springsteen suddenly has something leaked that he was booked for drunk driving in ~october or november, it's likely leaked by a right-wing police department, it's picked up by the right-wing New York Post, and I think rather than waiting for the facts, that permission structure to drag Bruce Springsteen because of the lame, centrist Jeep commercial is out for red blood. There's no facts, no information about it, but it doesn't matter, and he gets dragged, not just because of the allegations of drunk driving -- none of which was verifiable and was being reported by the NY Post from a leaked police department (not exactly allies of most folks in this forum) -- but also likely because of that lame ad. The initial post here dragging him gets hundreds of replies and is a top story, everybody's enjoying dunking on him based on the few facts that they know and also having a great time zinging him for songs that relate to the lame jeep ad. But then, the retraction comes quietly a few weeks later ... he wasn't drunk driving, he wasn't even driving, he wasn't even drunk. What was he actually booked for? ... Having a drink on a remote beach that was a national recreation preserve. I personally have drank alcohol at a busier public beaches dozens and dozens of times in my life, I've smoked weed (A FEDERAL CRIME!) on public beaches. After 250+ posts in the initial thread about the false charge, there's only about 10 when he's cleared and it's clearly shown to be bunk. Am I shedding any tears for Bruce Springsteen? No, not really, he's mega rich and is doing a podcast with Obama, he's not "Cancelled," and I don't really believe in "cancel culture," but I think we do have a system of quick-to-reach-judgement consequences.
I think this sort of quick-to-judge consequences system goes far beyond celebrities, but celebrities are just the example that's easies to think of. The true victims of the quick-to-judge consequences system is like the victims of the Boston Marathon Bombing... not the victims who were killed or horribly maimed, but the victims who also happened to be present that day in that place that internet "sleuths" pinned for the crime, and then a newspaper ran the headline "BAGMEN" the next day. Ultimate the NYP or Herald, whoever ran that, got sued for it, but it was the culture of internet sleuthing, finding people to blame, and trusting this sort of decentralized internet police squad that actually rushed to judgement, and none of those "sleuths" had consequences. This isn't "cancel culture" -- sure those two victims had their lives ruined -- but cancel culture and whatever that is derive from the same quest for vengeance without consequence: Lob an internet-bomb and reap the social media capital if you're right, and duck into the crowd without consequence if you're wrong.
Personally I think that Obama was right about "
Callout culture," that we -- young, generally liberal, generally millennials and younger -- mistake calling people out as activism. I think he's right, and I'm not a religious person but I think we're like the pharisees when we do that, mistaking sanctimony for activism. But even in making that point that "Obama is onto something with this," I expect a sanctimonious reply of, "Well of course that's something a war criminal
would say." Being sanctimonious is not being an activist, it's not being progressive, but I think that sanctimony masquerades as progressive activism frequently on the internet.
What's more, sometimes saying, "Well let's wait for all of the facts before reaching judgement" ends up being conflated as providing permission for bad behavior or being complicit in bad behavior. You saw it in the Bruce Springsteen thread, where a few people were like, "well, hmmm, does this pass the smell test...?" and there's even some pushback against that. Like unless you're racing to condemn, you're part of the problem.