Cancel culture is a concept circulating online, often understood as a simple attack on a person one disagrees with or a new type of online protest. It is, however, a complex societal principle mirroring the fears and flaws of human beings and their unhealthy habit of flipping a good intention into a bad one. This article does not seek to defend any hurtful or illegal action online, but rather to analyse how we, as a society, choose to react to it and how that reaction may undeniably escalate beyond control.
What is Cancel Culture?
The term originates from the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), where an informal Black community used “cancelling” as a way to highlight social issues online. With the rise of the #MeToo movement, the concept rose in popularity and became used in broader contexts. Cancel culture or call-out culture is then used by specific communities to stand against a particular person, company, brand, or idea that is deemed by that same community as socially wrong for a specific action or merely by virtue of being. The aim of this phenomenon is to create a social refusal from that community towards the targeted person, leading them to ultimately become ostracized. These campaigns flourish on social media, a space where multiple communities share different opinions.
As quoted by EBSCO, Anne H. Charity Hudley, professor at the University of California, identifies two types of cancel culture: First, the general boycott of a target that is no longer supported by the boycotting community, and second, the silencing of the target, aiming for their total removal from society by limiting their ways of expression. In both cases, “cancelling” is started by a disagreement over an action regarded as needing to face repercussions.
Today, this concept is well known both in American society and the world. The following table, showcasing data collected by the Pew Research Centre in 2020, reveals the prominence of the term:
44% of Americans report having heard of the term, of which 22% who have come to know “a great deal” about it. This data implies that almost half the American population is indeed aware of the existence of “cancel culture”, although 38% have never heard about it. The table also shows an important age factor where 64% of the people familiar with the term are between 18 and 29 years old, and an educational component, as most people that know the term have at least “some college” education. A political difference can also be highlighted as Liberal Democrats are the most likely to be familiar with cancel culture as opposed to Republicans.
Cancel culture is a widespread concept that can affect anyone and anything. One specific example of “cancelling” would be the comedian Kevin Hart’s removal from hosting the 2019 Oscar over homophobic comments made between 2010 and 2011. The online response was clear: Hart made socially unacceptable comments and should therefore be punished for it. He was eventually excluded from the Oscars after multiple comments online. This example shows the range of cancel culture impacting very influential spheres. The approach was initiated by spheres identifying as progressive, though it can be found on all sides of the political spectrum. For instance, in April 2023, the beer brand Bud Light was “cancelled” to the extent that its sales were impacted after the hire of Dylan Mulvaney, a transgender social media influencer, for a publicity spot. Even if in this case the initial action was not widely perceived as socially hurtful, the conservative audience did not approve of the selection and started cyberattacks against the influencer and a boycott of the brand that eventually removed the publicity spot. In a further turn of events, Bud Light was targeted again for its actions under perceived “transphobic pressure”, creating a total marketing nightmare. In this instance, a brand rather than a person was impacted, but the expected outcome and process of “cancelling” was the same.
A Community: The Central Roles in “cancelling”
To understand what “cancelling” consists of, it is important to discern the multiple actors it needs to function. As developed in the chapter Complex Dynamics of Cancel Culture in the Media by Joanne L. Broder, cancel culture is brought to life by multiple actors that perform distinctive roles. First, the “target” starts the whole chain of “cancelling” by either representing an idea or doing an action deemed as not acceptable for society, which could include “hate, abuse, scandal, contradiction, abandoning stakeholders, or differences of opinion.” The second crucial role is the “instigator,” responsible for pointing out an issue against the target and directing a movement against them. A domino effect is created through the third actors, the “trolls,” that reinforce the “instigator’s” campaign with reactions to the “target,” either with likes, comments, and re-publications. This sequence is made easier by the fertile ground for hatred existing on social platforms, where “trolls” are often subjected to the Online Disinhibition Effect (ODE), that makes the platform users be more active as they are hidden by anonymity. Therefore, “trolls” can easily participate in the movement created by the instigator, ultimately amplifying it and spreading it to other users. Lastly, acting as a passive audience, the “bystanders” complete the act of “cancelling” through total abstraction of intervention, neither endorsing nor opposing.
Both the “trolls” and the “bystanders” are included in a community, and their reaction can ultimately be peer pressured to behave as they do. Fear plays an important part in cancel culture: it scares the audience into being in the target’s position, which limits the audience to either passivity or following the “instigator’s” lead. Social media has created a sphere where communities are central and often created in opposition to others, creating strict norms that must be followed by the group to be accepted in it. The user wants to belong to a community and not be ostracized from it through online persecution; they then end up complying with the instigator’s “cancelling” campaign.
The Debate over Cancel Culture
The social dynamics, where fear of ostracism pressures the audience to join and escalate the initial remark made by the “instigator,” have led to a divided public perception over cancel culture. Data from the Pew Research Centre clearly illustrates this split in how Americans perceive the phenomenon by bringing out the preeminent meanings attributed to cancel culture by Americans and by political parties:
The latter indicate how 49% of Americans consider cancel culture in its original form as “actions taken to hold others accountable,” while the remaining 51% offer a different interpretation of cancel culture. A general tendency can be observed where Republicans envision “cancelling” as a form of censorship or harmful behaviour. This reveals a debate over cancel culture: is it a tool to educate and be helpful for society, or to spread hate? Well, both.
The Consequences of Cancel Culture
When the initial act of cancel culture is to expose social ills rooted in hate, its impact and goal is undeniably positive. The role of the “instigator”, most of the times is still motivated by a good intention. The difficulty for them is to highlight other’s wrongs and create consequences without having “trolls” exacerbating the issue and elevating it to the level of cyberbullying, completely dismissing the value of the initial social critique. Social media becomes an unregulated tribunal where everyone may accuse everyone of immorality, independently if an initial hateful act was committed.
Additionally, when the act of “cancelling” happens, people often look for simple, binary explanations where the target’s identity becomes restricted to their problematic action. An escalation of the original “cancelling” takes place and everything connected to the target becomes a new object of “cancellation.” Instead of “cancelling” the wrongdoing action, the target as a whole is “cancelled.” This creates a dehumanization of the “target”, creating a space legitimizing every type of hate towards them, denouncing hate with hate. Any type of nuance is erased.
Another harmful consequence of cancel culture is the ambiguity over what is justified as “cancellable” and what is not. A blurred line exists between holding people accountable for their actions and severely punishing people for their personal opinions that did not harm anyone in the first place. The situation escalates when a simple disagreement over a trivial preference becomes a reason for “cancelling”. In this case a social tribunal of pseudo-morality without clear boundaries is held. The consequence of this problematic is the creation of an atmosphere where individuals may not express themselves freely and cannot learn from their mistakes. It is important to note that this point is only valid for trivial affairs that turn into a “cancelling” and not for socially and illegally charged actions that harm others.
A further consequence of cancel culture is how it asks for an apology and justification from the “target”. The latter may not understand why they are receiving hate for their initial action and only produce an apology because cancel culture demands it, dismissing completely any educational goal. The “target” only learns how to conform to societal expectations instead of developing critical thinking. Plus, the sincerity of the apology will always be questioned by the audience, which can again engender more hate. The “target’s” reaction can then use this cyberbullying to invalidate their initial socially wrong action, again eliminating any good outcome from the “cancelling”.
These consequences can reach any “target”, but the heaviness of their impact depends heavily on the social status of the “cancelled.” Indeed, the “target” that heavily relies on the social media world, for marketing or as a full-time content creator, will be much more impacted than the target that has multiple sources of income besides online creation. If we take again the example of Kevin Hart’s “cancellation” in 2019, it did not last long before he was accepted in the public eye again. The humourist was able to provide for his needs even when he was “cancelled” because he was not dependent on the monetization of his visibility. An ordinary “target” that depends on social media or marketing would then suffer much larger consequences that can hurt their life permanently. If the beer brand Bud Light was a small business during its 2023 “cancelling,” it may well not have survived the financial burden of being “cancelled.”
Conclusion: Blurred Lines
Cancel culture should not be seen as a simple internet dispute; it is a complex social mirror reflecting a desire for justice and a troubling capacity for mob mentality. While it often starts with a virtuous aim, “cancelling” often devolves into a non-nuanced and exaggerated discourse that refutes any conversation about the initial social justice claim and rather promotes cyberbullying.
This social tribunal, exacerbated by social media, ultimately reveals two important aspects: an ill about our judicial system that entrusts matters to the public and society’s tendency to escalate everything into court trials. Evidently, hurtful or illegal actions have no place either online or in any other sphere. I would suggest that three types of “cancelling” emerge: First, for the defense of social justice, second for pure hate, and finally for insignificant and personal questions. The problem with the approach of cancel culture lies in how, without clear boundaries, one can judge what is justified, what is wrongdoing, and what is a trivial action.
The tangible impact of cancel culture is even questioned. Can anyone or anything be fully “cancelled” and ostracized from society, or is it just a moment of online bullying that solely impacts the less wealthy while shortly touching those with more resources? I would argue that someone’s complete erasure from the public sphere is ultimately impossible. The Roman senate did try damnatio memoriae on multiple emperors, yet even them, in antiquity, could not erase someone from collective memory.
The challenge at the heart of cancel culture is to find a way not to abandon seeking justice, but to create an approach that addresses wrongdoing without replicating its harms.
Carolina Silva Pereira
Sources :
- Americans and ‘Cancel Culture’:
- Cancel culture, EBSCO
- Complex Dynamics of Cancel Culture in the Media in Handbook of Media Psychology by Joanne L. Broder
- Damnatio memoriae—Roman sanctions against memory, smarthistory
- Pourquoi la « cancel culture » suscite autant la controverse, RTS
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