Essay Sample about Cancel Culture

“Cancel Culture” has an interesting rise to popularity in the age of the internet. The term is often wrongfully used and it can be comical. Some despise it, others adore it. While “Cancel Culture'' admittedly can be toxic, it is important and useful as it de-platforms, educates offenders, and educates the general public on their mistakes while making room for improvement. “Cancel Culture” can be used as an important tool in our society, however only if it’s used correctly and with no foul intent. 

The popularization of the slang terms “cancelled” and “cancel culture” in the sense of celebrity/public-figure culture is very interesting, and at times quite ironic due to it’s weird background. “Canceling is an expression of agency, a choice to withdraw one’s attention from someone or something whose values, (in)action, or speech are so offensive, one no longer wishes to grace them with their presence, time, and money.”  The term “cancelling” was first written in a song by Nile Rodgers, and released by Chic, titled “Your Love is Cancelled”. According to an interview with the Washington Post, Rodgers explained that he wrote this song after a bad date experience with a narcissistic woman who attempted to use his new-found stardom to explotiate others at a club and restaurant. Though the song was not popular during the time of its release, it did create the metaphor; being able to “cancel” or detest someone for their inappropriate or unacceptable behavior. However there was a larger contribution of the popularization of the term from Barry Michael Cooper, a screenwriter and journalist. He included the term of “cancelling” a person while he was writing the screenplay for “New Jack City,” a popular gangster movie today. The character that used this term was named Nino Brown, a Harlem drug-lord (Nino Brown was played by Wesley Snipes). Nino Brown sacrificed the life of a child to save his own, and finds himself in an argument with his current girlfriend. Suddenly and angrily, he grabbed her by the head, threw her onto a nearby table and dumped her in the champagne in his hand. After, he said the iconic line, “Cancel that b****!” and “I’ll buy another one,” as she is ushered out by another person in the room. The real question was how this term evolved from a song lyric and line from a movie to a theme of conferences and speeches in American politics and a common discussion topic.

“Cancel Culture” explained by Meredith D. Clark, an assistant professor of media studies at the University of Virginia (largely including topics like Black Twitter, “cancel culture”, and systemic racism in US news media); “Canceling is an expression of agency, a choice to withdraw one’s attention from someone or something whose values, (in)action, or speech are so offensive, one no longer wishes to grace them with their presence, time, and money.” (16 October, 2020) Meaning, “Cancel Culture” gives agency and power to not support a public figure if they feel the need to do so. According to Merriam Webster, cancelling a person (usually a celebrity or public figure) means to “stop giving support to that person”. This can vary in many ways, due to that person’s career. For example, when cancelled a public figure’s work will most likely be boycotted as a majority of people no longer want to support this person after their offense. The reasons that a person was cancelled vary as well, however it is most likely that they offended or disagreed with another person or group with an unacceptable opinion, speech, or an action. These opinions, speech, or actions are usually so offensive or derogatory that a majority of people collectively form a negative opinion about the situation. While some people will disagree with the claim the “cancel culture'' is important and useful because it brings attention to the public figure; this is easily disputed and objectionable because it only brings them  to the spotlight in a negative light and not in the public eye’s favor. This sudden attention also allows more people to see their offense. While a celebrity being canceled does not always end their successes, it still hurts their reputation and career to the point that it will continue to follow and affect them in the future. “Cancel culture” has become so well-known and recognized that it has become a part of our lives, media, and strangely politics; where politicians have made whole speeches discussing and usually criticizing on the topic. It’s so interesting to see, as this can most likely be traced back to pop culture references and the popularization of public social networking services, like Twitter. 

One important feature about the cancellation of a public figure or celebrity is the ability to give power to the general public to express their opinion or belief on a given situation or “scandal”. One of the biggest social media platforms used when opening a discussion to the media and public is Twitter. According to Wikipedia’s definition, “Twitter is an American microblogging and social networking service on which users post and interact with messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and retweet tweets, but unregistered users can only read those that are publicly available.” According to OMNICORE Agency, a healthcare marketing and advertising agency that gives different business stats, demographics and fun facts, the number of US adults who use Twitter is one in five. (March, 2020) Twitter is one of the largest social media platforms that people use to discuss a public figure’s actions or speech. Twitter has shown to play a positive role in social justice campaigns with its providing of coverage in mainstream media, call-outs, and commentary. As seen before, due to the app’s large audience and platform, information is able to spread and more importantly, help educate others on the discussions and commentary. This just opens the discussion even further, and allows others to share their own opinion, knowledge, and experiences. 

The Me Too movement (or #MeToo) is a movement against sexual harassment and assault, espeacially in the workplace and other professional settings. (Bun-Hee Lee, 2018) The #MeToo Movement media attention and popularization can be heavily credited to the encouragement for people to share their stories and experiences of sexual violence and harasement on social media platflorms like Twitter to show the severity and magnitude of the issue. This hashtag started by Tarana Burke, an African American women’s right activist; the hashtag started trending  in October 2017. (Sandra E. Garcia, 2017) However, after actress Alyssa Milano used it as a hashtag to start a global movement against sexual assault after Harvey Weinstein was first facing sexual harassment allegations. (Stephanie Zacharek, Eliana Dockterman, and Haley Sweetland Edwars, 2017) The positive impact this hashtag created was and still is unimaginable; due to this there has been more people turning towards online and social media platforms to create dialogue, connect and organize against injustices. (Kaitylnn Mendes, Jessica Ringrise, Jessalyn Keller, 2018)  Improvements made in today’s time could not be possible without the “cancel culture” created by the people. 

Though no great things are without it’s problems, people are often concerned about certain things involving “cancel culture”. More specifically: it’s effectiveness, over-sensitivity, and freedom of speech. There has been more discourse and anger surrounding people attacking leftists for being rightfully skeptical (America UnCancelled; though the word is wrongfully used, concerns are valid). When problems like such arise, it is important to remember that most public figures who seem so angry and frustrated towards “cancel culture” have been called out for doing harmful things towards other people. There is especially nothing wrong with marginalized groups choosing to boycott a celebrity or company that actively uses their power to hurt or spread harmful misinformation about different people in society, especially those without protection. Using “cancel culture” in order to protect marginalized groups of people can sometimes be written off as being “too sensitive”, however small behaviors, words, or microaggressions can manifest into something more violent and detrimental.  In order to improve from here, people should use and learn from other people’s mistakes and hold themselves accountable to make the world a safer and better place for everyone. In order to make positive improvements, “cancel culture” should not be considered something to cast people away from society and their professions. Instead it should be considered like some form of rehabilitation system. 

“Cancel Culture” should be used in a positive way;  similar to the increase during recent years where more people begin to acknowledge their faults and recognize social justice issues. While “cancel culture” is very interesting, it can be alarming to others.  It’s been seen that lots of people with privilege and power do not realize the responsibility that comes with that, and their actions and speech can affect lots of other people. Actions have consequences and the internet is open and available to almost everyone. It can be a useful tool in our future, as it is important to create dialogue, network, and educate others.