Essay Sample: Are You in Support of Cancel Culture?

The context of a word or statement tends to become important based on who spoke. Ostracizing individuals in someone’s personal life for minor inconveniences tends to be frowned upon in society. When does ostracization start to become seen as “okay” to society? Digging deep into someone's past solely to extort past mistakes as an excuse to shun them. Instead of spreading change and awareness about difficult matters, society decided to look for a reason to tear down famous people and belittle them for attention and for fun. Cancel culture no longer helps individuals shine awareness on societal issues, but belittles celebrities for mistakes made in their past unreasonably. Instead of acknowledging growth, influencers get shunned for past mistakes. Justifying cyberbullying social media celebrities from cancel culture shows cancel culture to be damaging and terrible.

Ostracizing an individual from the public solely for attention and to bring up someone's past is unacceptable. In some cases, digging up the past of a social media celebrity deems itself useful as the past shows an individual's true colours. More recently today fans of social media celebrities dig up whatever can be found, the fans could find in order to stir up some controversy. Instead of using cancel culture to prevent awareness, cancel culture proceeds to be used to draw up a celebrity's past mistakes, no matter the growth the celebrities displayed over the years. An article by page six released back in 2021 referencing Matt Damon's cancellation. Allegedly around the time Matt’s daughter delivered Matt got accused of saying the F-slur. Back in 2006 the statement came out. Instead of canceling him when the word first occurred, the public waited almost 15 years to crucify him. Over the past 15 years Matt Damon grew and developed personally. He even donates millions of dollars to lgbtq communities all over. Instead of focusing on Matt’s change the public focuses on a mistake made over a decade ago. Another prime example came out in 2019. Tiger Woods became canceled for an incident with a drunk driver years prior. Woods instantly became accused as the reason the other driver passed away. Tiger lost a large following and many sponsorships when the story became public in 2019. During 2019 the public knew a mistake occured when the court proved the other driver drank prior to the crash and the incident related back in no way to Tiger Woods. Each issue no matter what the issue, relates to digging up a social media celebrity's past just for the reason of creating controversy, no longer should be acceptable. Everyone famous or not grows as a person and should not be tied to their past.

Cancelation became a method of cyberbullying social media celebrities in order to gain attention from the public and shame these individuals. Cancel culture became over time used to justify cyberbullying celebrities. Viewing the article “Cancel Culture is Antithetical to Human Freedom”, written by Alexandra Desantics, she states “Cancel culture isn't just the mentality of bullies and tattle-tales. It’s a mentality adopted by culture-war obsessives who believe it's their responsibility to protect foolish people from themselves”(Desantics) Ms. Desantics establishes a strong and valid argument to the debate. Cancel culture originated to spread awareness to issues going on in the Hollywood industry. Instead of social media celebrities getting away with issues because of their fame a concept created itself to spread awareness. Overtime cancel culture became a way for fans to cyberbully social media celebrities. These fans used a mistake an individual made in order to make it okay to say horrible statements to social media celebrities. These fans, as Alexandra stated, took the mentality of cyberbullying and started to believe canceling became their responsibility now. The goal became to remove the platform of a celebrity in order to “protect” society from said celebrities' “horrible” actions. Back in 2010 Chrissy Teigen posted a few tweets expressing strong words like “I hate you” and other harmful words, but nothing too detrimental. 11 years later in 2021 Chrissy Teigen reported being canceled for her past actions. The public claimed Chrissy cyber-bullied individuals 11 years ago. To this day a year since Chrissy got canceled, she continues to receive death threats and the public belittling her on her looks, actions, and much more. For a tweet posted 11 years ago millions of people justify sending her death threats and justify the threats by claiming the words said on the matter help protect the public. Sending death threats for a few tweets from years ago deems unacceptable, and in no way helping just another form of cyberbullying.

Taking down social media celebrities from past action spreads awareness for the celebrities unacceptable actions. Some social media celebrities need to be put into place. Instead of focusing on the toxicity of cancel culture, focus on the ways cancel culture brings awareness to issues. In the article Celebrities can be canceled. Fandoms are forever, written by Alison M. Joubert and Jack Coffin, the authors state “Instead of "cancelling" public figures, we believe it is time to create a context culture. Understanding context means denouncing historical mistakes while acknowledging potential for growth. People can learn from and outgrow their past, and should be given the space to do so. A context culture does not mean giving public figures a free pass to say or do what they like; it's not giving up on holding them accountable. It means opportunities to learn and change should not be shut down prematurely”(Joubert, Coffin). In canceling social media celebrities the idea behind translates more to promoting growth. Instead of taking cancellation as shaming someone from the public eye, cancel culture should be seen as a way to promote context behind what these celebrities say and how those words can be harmful. In early 2006 a movement started in order to cancel high status men in society who believe money will solve all problems. The #MeToo movement became a way for women to speak out against their assaulters and call them out to the public. The #MeToo movement managed to cancel several different politicians and Hollywood stars. Harvey Weinstein, a well known director in Hollywood got taken down and canceled by the public when actresses from his movies joined the Metoo movement. Cancel culture brought justice to victims and individuals everywhere, keeping cancel culture strong makes immense positive changes to society.

Estorting social media celebrities for past mistakes without considering growth of these individuals' actions while using cancel culture as an excuse to cyberbully no longer needs to be necessary. Digging up issues created years prior to when the issue gets brought up brings more harm than help to social media. Cancel Culture promotes cyberbullying and gives a reason to justify saying horrible statements to public figures. Instead of using the platform the new generation received for a way to create awareness and a safe environment, the internet became a harmful place. Cancel culture no longer needs to be used and should be used very delicately instead of how cancel culture occurs today.