Cancel culture is at times considered to be a means of holding people accountable for actions or opinions that have the potential to harm others. When I think about cancel culture my first thoughts move towards Joe Rogan getting specific podcasts taken off of Spotify for racist and sexist comments or J.K. Rowling repeatedly getting canceled on twitter for transphobic comments. To some degree, I think that cancel culture can be a good thing when used to stop hateful comments that can come from celebrities who have large platforms.
However, cancel culture exists in a smaller and more covert manner too. What about cancel culture that doesn’t include celebrities and instead exists in our social circles?
While I think that it is important to hold others accountable, it seems as though it has become the norm to resort to canceling someone if they have differing views.
I have seen friends become “canceled” within friend groups and communities. Following this they’ve admitted feeling scared to ask questions that would enable them to understand why some of their opinions may be seen as hurtful out of fear of being called out further. Because of this fear, important conversations happen less than they should.
Is this way of introducing cancel culture on a small scale counter productive? It seems that this use of cancel culture functions as a means of ignoring an issue by isolating individuals. When you cancel someone immediately, difficult conversations don’t take place. Instead of putting focus on the issue it is placed on the individual that is involved. Instead, we should be focused on spreading awareness about important topics and be open to answering questions.