Is Cancel Culture The Internet We Deserve?
Dictionary.com defines cancel culture as “the popular practice of withdrawing support for (canceling) public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive.”
Basically, cancel culture is a form of social boycott, where internet denizens try to hold a powerful entity accountable for a purported wrongdoing. Usually this entity is a “celebrity” — in an age where anyone with a social media following is famous to some extent. Cancelling is also a powerful act of social performance — through comments, take-downs, and unfollows, the online world literally shouts “shame shame” a la Game of Thrones to Cersei Lannister.
But is this the healthiest way to express dissent? Has cancel culture gone too far? Should we cancel cancel culture?
Why are we canceling more than ever?
Let’s face it — we’re all lonely during quarantine, some of us solo in apartments with just our cats for company. Particularly in today’s moment of Instagram lives and TikTok challenges, celebrities provide the illusion of intimacy. They take us into their bedrooms and kitchens enough to make us feel like we know them. and we’re turning to them for comfort during these tough times. And then when they reveal their internalized sexism, racism, and classism, no matter the degree of harm, the internet descends on them like the locusts on East Africa and like the statue of Christopher Columbus and his ilk, we want to throw them into the ocean.
Psychologists have sounded the alarm that in addition to contracting COVID-19, the public also runs the risk of developing severe mental health issues because of the intense isolation of quarantine and general anxiety of living through such a sweeping crisis. In an Insider article published in May, Karen North, a Clinical Professor of Communication at the University of Southern California, explained how canceling can be a way for people online to find community and solace. She says that in these unprecedented conditions, public figures serve as an ideal common enemy and that the “appeal of angry activities online is probably amplified by people’s frustration and misery in today’s environment.”
Quarantine + Lockdown = More Cancelling
As everyone has been going crazy inside for the last 93ish days of quarantine — you can only make banana bread so many times — it has proved to be particularly fertile ground for cancelling. Spurred by boredom and internet rabbit holes, Internet citizens have been eager to cancel everyone from YouTube comedians to Bollywood celebrities. Google Trends showing the global rise in searches for cancel culture in the last 90 days.
Justification for cancelling
In Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion, author Jia Tolentino reflects on five interlocking traps of social media, “First, how the internet is built to distend our sense of identity; second, how it encourages us to overvalue our opinions; third, how it maximizes our sense of opposition; fourth, how it cheapens our understanding of solidarity; and, finally, how it destroys our sense of scale.”
Social media has made us into television pundits with our own multimedia platforms and in the same vein as Indian news channels, the argument is negligent and it’s all about who can shout the loudest. And in a world where social media platforms monetize our online presence, it’s not in the interest of powers that be to counter internet mobs of hate.
Cancelling can be a meaningful act of social performance but there’s a fine line between critiquing power and spreading vitriol. While cancel culture is primarily used to call out public figures, normal citizens have occasionally been caught in the quagmire. If this is primarily a means to call out powerful people, to uproot systemic change, why are people with one tone-deaf tweet cancelled?
And then there’s also the matter of actually cancelling human beings. “When you say someone is canceled, it’s not a TV show. It’s a human being,” Swift told Vogue last summer. “You’re sending mass amounts of messaging to this person to either shut up, disappear, or it could also be perceived as, kill yourself.” Comedian Tanmay Bhat has spoken at length about his depression following the collapse of AIB. Some would say, no matter how rich or famous, we are all human beings with emotions at the end of the day?
As it exists, cancel culture offers limited space for nuance or reform. A Hindustan Times article summed it up by saying, “[Cancel culture] is exclusionary, often disproportionate, and divisive — and in effect, defeats its own purpose. If we allow it to continue, we — as imperfect human beings navigating through rapidly changing social norms and conventions — will only find ourselves more separated and alone.”
Is cancel culture the Internet we deserve?
Cancel culture is a byproduct of a flawed, unequal society and the internet, in particular social media, reflects, reiterates and magnifies the oppressive structures of society. In the early days of the internet, it was thought of as a problem-free haven from the real world. That idea has vanished. People are exhausted and struggling, now more than ever during the current lockdown, and they’re turning to the internet to express their anger. They are trying to cancel injustice through online activity.
As controversial as cancel culture is, it’s here to stay. Sharing opinions — however angrily or bombastically will continue to take place on the internet because it’s the place where normal people come to speak and be heard. It’s the imperfect, modern modus operandi of holding people accountable. When an influencer starts an insensitive mental health initiative or a comedian says an offensive slur, internet culture has the ability to call out behavior that is deemed problematic and in need of changing.
At the root of cancel culture, it’s asking: what does it mean to be good?
We, the internetwallahs, are deciding who is good and who is bad. By cancelling a celebrity or anyone on the internet, we also choose what it means to be good and moral for us as a society. We are all individually responsible for creating an online community which condones, even encourages, bullying, petty-mindedness and hate.
There is more at play here — including how social media companies monetize cancel culture for profit — but it’s up to each of us individually every time we write a tweet or comment: are we speaking truth to power by sharing a necessary critique or contributing to the mob of hate? At the end of the day, we make the internet. Is this the best way to respond to oppression and inequality in an unequal society? In our quest for holding people accountable, are we making hasty indictments? Are we building walls to keep people out? And is this really the best we can do?
