Let’s start simple. What is cancel culture?
Cancel culture found its rise to fame on the internet, and has become a huge phenomenon and trend over the past few years. Through cancel culture, celebrities, influencers, and even average people have become “canceled,” or essentially shunned and rejected by a group or community for a variety of reasons.
For most people on the internet, they become canceled and harassed online for saying the wrong thing, associating with the wrong person, or for something they did years ago that might not even align with who they are anymore as a person.
Herein lies the problem with cancel culture: it is quick to action and quick to assume. With cancel culture predominantly ruling over the internet, those who are canceled have little to no time to express remorse, regret, or even educate themselves before the entire online community seems to banish them from relevancy. Cancel culture offers no redemption or chance at improvement. It simply tells people they are wrong and ends the conversation right there.
Additionally, cancel culture is beginning to encourage the formation of mob mentalities, ending all originality on the internet. People are censoring themselves by avoiding trigger words, phrases, or topics that they fear may cause them to be canceled if used or approached incorrectly. People are scared to ask questions and have open conversations. You see, cancel culture doesn’t allow for many second chances or even for the expansion of knowledge. Cancel culture seems to say “This is what most people believe. This is what you should believe, and if you don’t, you’re wrong.”
Cancel culture is often defended by the idea of holding people accountable, which would be fine if it were accurate, but it’s simply not true. Cancel culture is basically just the end of someone’s reputation, and in the majority of cases, it’s irreversible.
So I call for a cancellation of cancel culture. We should instead substitute this with a system that instead offers a second chance or allows for some type of redemption that educates a person on what they have done wrong, and how to improve themselves.
Cancel culture needs to be canceled.