A clearer look at “Cancel Culture.”

Cancel culture, simply put is denouncing people (usually those with status) for offensive behaviour or words.

Contribution by Kene Obienu.

Cancel culture, simply put is denouncing people (usually those with status) for offensive behaviour or words. It can range from demanding a public apology or even attempting to hinder an artist’s career. Essentially, trying to stop public support for people with influence if they have offended or said something harmful to or about, marginalised communities.

By 2015, cancelling had become a widespread concept and since then it’s only become more prominent. We can literally find ‘top 10’ lists of celebrities who have been cancelled in 2021 alone but rest assured there will be a new top 10 list every other week for the foreseeable future.

Why?

I understand cancel culture stems from a place of care, especially because we live in a time where people are loudly celebrating and accepting their identities, be it race, sexual orientation, or gender. With all of this comes the responsibility to respect others, educate others and hold each other accountable for things such as racial, gender, and religious discrimination and violence.

However, in recent years it’s been very clear to see that cancel culture has evolved into a lot of self-righteous finger-pointing and it’s happening so often to the point where when a celebrity is cancelled, it’s relatively trivial and it can be for things that don’t warrant ‘cancellation’.

Digging up someone’s tweets from over a decade ago and attempting to cancel them is not activism. There are too many examples of this. Type the name of your favourite celebrity or athlete into Google and put ‘cancelled’ after their name, and press enter, best believe you’ll find some results.

Let’s take this Kevin Hart tweet for example.

This was in 2011, just over 10 years ago, when discourse surrounding the LGBTQ+ community was nowhere near as nuanced as it is now, as is the case with the race too. Am I condoning his words, not at all, but do I think digging up old celebrity tweets and sending them verbal abuse is productive? Not at all.

This Kevin Hart tweet was one of several examples, and unfortunately, that’s what the majority of ‘cancel culture’ is; shaming celebrities publicly, harassing them, bullying them on blog pages etc. It has me wondering whether all of this is genuine care or just self-righteous rage. Rarely are there even conversations in this cancel culture era. Social media platforms are full of colour and variety, but when it comes to having a conversation, things are shockingly black and white.

Equating status with character

The reason so many people are shocked when influential people say or do something offensive is that to some extent, many of us equate talent and status with good character, whether it’s subconscious or otherwise. We need to stop this. Talent and character are in no way synonymous. Get a pen and write down how many talented people are just not good people, and you’ll start to realise. Next time you ride with the mob to cancel the next celebrity, ask yourself why you’re so surprised. Is it because you want to hold people with influence accountable for their actions? Or is it because you too equate talent and status with good character? If it’s the former, then keep that same energy for your friends and family. If it’s the latter, then maybe re-evaluate a few things.

Let’s check ourselves

Yes, it’s fine to be angry at injustice, and it’s natural to feel some kind of way when someone says something negative about your community. Yes, it’s necessary to hold people accountable for their words and actions, especially those in positions of power and influence. Words from people with status generally hold more weight, so no, it isn’t unwise to hold them to a certain standard.

That being said, if we want the world to be a better place if we actually care about the world as much as we all claim. It’s imperative, that we hold each other to the same standard. It’s easy to point the finger at public figures, we don’t know them personally, so we’re removed from the discomfort and awkwardness that many of us feel when calling out friends and family. How often have you heard a family member (usually older) or friend say something outlandish and you don’t say anything?

We also need to be honest with ourselves, about whether we’re any better than some of the people that get cancelled. Imagine yourself 10 years ago, even just a year ago. It’s extremely likely that you are much more understanding and culturally sensitive than you were back then. I know for a fact I tweeted and said some questionable things when I was 13-14 years old, and I know I’m not the only one. I would hope that some things I said when I was young and stupid don’t make me a terrible person who’s not worthy of love and support.

Even if I said something crazy yesterday at 22 years old, I’d hope when I know better than someone would acknowledge the fact that it was most likely not from a place of malice, rather a lack of understanding and education.

Now some people reading might be thinking to themselves “It’s 2021, age and lack of education are no excuse”. Probably due to the fact that there is an endless stream of information about different cultures and communities at the tap of a button, and so anyone who makes any culturally insensitive comments deserves what’s coming to them. This is where we need to dig deeper and talk about echo chambers in the social media space and how they affect what information we take in and how we process it.

Echo chambers and Social media

We hear all the time about how fake social media is and how it’s not real life, but unfortunately for us that mainly applies to how people look and the lifestyle they portray. When it comes to news, media and whose opinions people choose to listen to, social media is more reflective of the real world than we’d care to admit. Most of us, if not all exist within what’s referred to as an ‘echo chamber’. It’s usually not intentional, it’s just the way humans group together and always have.

This is the definition of an echo chamber according to Wikipedia:

‘An echo chamber refers to situations in which beliefs are amplified or reinforced by communication and repetition inside a closed system and insulated from rebuttal’.

I’ll use myself as an example and I’ll keep it honest. Pretty much of my friends are heterosexual, I don’t have any close friends within the LGBTQ+ community. Does this mean I have a problem with people who identify as such? Not at all. Does it mean I’m more prone to saying something potentially insensitive if I’m around someone from that community or asking a dumb question? Probably. Does that make me a bad person? I hope not. It does make me less educated on the LGBTQ+ however.

On Twitter, what shows up on your feed is what your friends like and retweet, the same goes for Instagram. Chances are your friends have relatively similar political and cultural views and opinions to you and as a result, what you see on your social media will reflect that. Especially because of the way the algorithms are set up. Day in, day out your own beliefs are being reinforced by what the people around you share and like. Consequently, when people encounter alternative views more often than not it turns into a shouting match of personal attacks and profanity. Many of us only have a sensationalised understanding of those on the other side of the political or cultural spectrum, there’s not enough nuance on our daily feeds to have constructive conversations.

In 2020, after George Floyd was killed, the global outrage and ‘support’ for Black Lives Matter looked promising. For a couple of weeks. Educational resources were being shared, everybody was showing solidarity, many people thought it was a turning point for race relations. For me it was a matter of ‘When will all this performativity stop?’. What happened in the summer of 2020 was people being dragged out of their echo chambers by the foot, kicking and screaming, sharing books and educational posts that they weren’t even reading themselves.

One thing I took away from that period was that just because the information is out there, does not mean people are actually reading it. Just because people are sharing it, does not mean people are reading it. Social media CAN educate people if used properly, but if we’re being honest, it isn’t doing much educating.

This applies to real life. There are white people in multicultural areas, that have no friends of colour, and vice versa. That’s just not their circle. This may come as a surprise, but you don’t get to understand someone just by looking at them on a daily basis. Geographical proximity does not entail understanding or even tolerance. In the same way, being on social media in 2021 doesn’t automatically mean you understand every culture, race and sexuality, although you may be aware of their existence.

Let’s talk

Educating involves conversations, where both sides are listened to regardless of how objectively ‘wrong’ one side seems. Social media echo chambers, and the rise of cancel culture are making effective conversations increasingly difficult. It might sound like I’m going easy on the racists and homophobes but trust me that’s not it.

I spent 7 years in boarding schools as one of the only black kids, and usually, there are only a few options. Ignore the nonsense, fight it, or have conversations and confront it. All of them were difficult, but I found that on the rare occasion that I had fruitful conversations I was far more fulfilled than the times where I beat up a racist.

Cancel culture is the equivalent of beating up a racist and forcing them into submission.  It feels good at the moment, but fundamentally it doesn’t change anything in 20 years we’ll wonder why there are still racists. That probably won’t say anything out loud anymore, but behind closed doors they’re saying the same thing, voting for the same policies and passing down racist behaviours to their children. Then that cycle repeats, and we’ll ask ourselves why nothing has changed.

I don’t want to live in that kind of world, and I don’t want my children to live in that kind of world either. I’m aware that all of this is so much easier said than done, and often times the anger is justified, but if we really want change, we have to do the hard work of having difficult conversations with ourselves and with others, as opposed to lashing out.

At the end of the day…

Laws and legislation can keep changing and you can scare racists and homophobes into hiding, but it will always rear its head in different ways. We have to address the unwritten rules, in our minds, and behind closed doors in the places where nobody can tell us what to do, say, or think. In my opinion, cancel culture, has not changed a thing and is taking us towards a place that lacks integrity and understanding. It sounds cringe-worthy, but I’d much rather prefer ‘conversation culture’. I’m black, I’m not going to walk up to a KKK rally with a pen, pad and a smile, I think it’s pretty clear where they stand. However, I’d much rather have a real conversation with some grand wizard than a fake conversation with a closet racist. That’s just me though.

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