Research Essay Example on Cancel Culture

In April of 2021, James Charles, a prominent beauty influencer, was “canceled” after admitting to sending sexually inappropriate messages to minors who he believed were adults, even though he hadn’t taken the responsibility to confirm their actual ages. After receiving copious backlash to an awful apology that was directed towards his audience and not the minors involved, he disappeared from all of his social media platforms, only to return as if nothing had happened. Now, his posts still receive millions of likes and positive comments as they were before, and there is little to no mention as to what happened. Many recognize and recall this situation, which is a notorious instance of ineffective cancel culture by the internet. Cancel culture is infamously known as modern day ostracism, meaning that it involves the boycotting or shunning of an individual, group of individuals, or a corporation. This is carried out by not promoting or supporting the perpetrator, and by profusely sharing context, which is not always accurate, as to what they did. Acts of “canceling” can be done towards influencers and those without any social media presence alike; this is primarily accomplished on the internet.

“Canceling” can also be referred to as deplatforming, or the prohibiting of an individual from using their social media platform; this term is specifically used when speaking of influencers. Considering its notorious reputation for being ineffective and harmful, “cancel culture” is more detrimental than beneficial for our society. To elaborate, cancel culture is primarily negative because “canceling” potentially targets the wrong people and although it spreads awareness about certain topics, there are other, more progressive ways of doing so on the internet.

To begin with, cancel culture is more detrimental than not because it could potentially and unjustifiably target those that are not deserving of hate. In “Walking away from Omelas,” an essay where Lindsay Ellis expresses her frustration with cancel culture, she writes, “I’m weaponizing my ‘fragile white womanhood’ or whatever to say that having thousands upon thousands of people who you have never met hate you and say whatever will get them the most updoots is traumatizing” (Ellis 2022). To put this quote into context, Ellis had been experiencing an excessive amount of criticism for comparing a movie and television show that were both influenced by Asian culture, Raya and the Last Dragon and Avatar: The Last Airbender. She was repeatedly accused of racism and shared her distress in her essay. While I personally cannot speak on the issue itself because I am not of the Asian community, it is important to acknowledge that she is not in the right, especially for never directly apologizing and not attempting to understand those that criticized her. Rather, she resorted to defending herself.

However, she did receive a disproportionate amount of hate compared to those of her even more problematic male counterparts, that are often times white and cis. PewDiePie, for example, who is a Youtuber with a problematic history and has apologized for only a few of his actions, receives minimal hate and remains having a large following. There is a lot of sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism and antisemitism on the internet that makes those who experience any of these forms of bigotry more vulnerable to being “canceled.” Ellis further elaborates on how targeted cancel culture is in the following quote of her essay, “The good, progressive cis, wealthy white men keep on trucking and coming out on top because they know that the systems they profess to stand against exist to benefit them” (Ellis 2022). This quote further supports the claim that cancel culture is primarily harmful because, just like every other system put in place, cancel culture targets minorities, specifically people of color, and benefits white cis men in the upper class. People of color are more vulnerable to falling victim to unjustifiable “canceling,” and it is an evident example of how racism is ingrained into our society. In essence, cancel culture, which unjustifiably targets certain people and benefits others, is inherently racist and antisemitic. Those on the internet that participate in “canceling” are far more likely to pursue people of color, and systems like these should indisputably not be supported.

Furthermore, while it is argued that cancel culture spreads awareness about problematic individuals, ideologies, groups, and more, it is more socially pernicious than beneficial because it is futile and ineffective when educating the public or the perpetrators. In the illustration, “The Paradox of Tolerance,” Karl Popper uses the Nazis as an exteme instance in which tolerating those that are intolerant can lead to catastrophe, and in this particular situation, genocide. While it is true that tolerating the intolerant will have disastrous effects, there are other ways to show disapproval of bigotry that are more effective than cancel culture. Cancel culture is seldom productive in actuality; no influencer or person is ever really canceled and no one actually learns from it. Cancel culture revolves around pessimism and leaves little opportunity for people to educate themselves. In an article in the New York Times, “Why ‘Cancel Culture’ Is a Distraction,” Jonah E. Bromwich mentions that “…people can lose their reputations and in some cases their jobs, all because a mob has taken undue offense to a clumsy or out-of-context remark.” In this quote, Bromwich essentially states that cancel culture can be viewed negatively because of the extensive consequences individuals can experience for minor mistakes compared to those of others. In this manner of consequence, nobody is learning anything and it is therefore unproductive. Instead of canceling individuals, they should be corrected, but not praised for doing the bare minimum of learning their own faults. This, of course refers to those that misspoke because they were uneducated, and not individuals who committed heinous crimes or anything to that extent. Fundamentally, cancel culture is inherently unproductive because there is no room for educating those that enacted problematic behavior or for others on the internet.

Rather than utilizing cancel culture, social media users should collectively educate the perpetrators, which would allow for social growth and development. All things considered, cancel culture is far more inimical than it is favorable for society because of how it disproportionately affects minorities and because it is inefficient when actually educating the public or holding people accountable. Reflecting on the James Charles situation, an example in which cancel culture was not effective, it is essential to note that anything involving serious issues such as sexual harrassment should not be treated lightly. However, on social media, the entire situation was treated as if it were gossip, rather than as what it was: sexual harrassment of minors. As a white man, Charles experienced few consequences, but continues to thrive on social media. However, people of color such as DaBaby, who is homophobic, has become irrelevant and now receives a fraction of the number of views he used to. His behavior is inexcusable, but so is that of white creators such as James Charles and PewDiePie, who are still successful and prominent. Really, we should not be asking ourselves whether cancel culture is effective, but rather, there should be discussion regarding who is actually affected by this system.