This whole cancel culture myth

Apothic_Red

I see the Pope was on about it today, must have stopped giving out about pets.

Anyway, I want to address this myth that there's a secret body of Internet warriors who can destroy a career on a whim if someone offends their collective sensibilities.

How is this power exercised as I'm having trouble thinking of any examples where someone was "taken down" by this wave of righteousness.

Last time I looked Harry Potter books were still selling like hotcakes, Father Ted was on constant loop & Billie Jean was on all major playlists.

Can anyone share an example where someone, outside criminal behaviour, has actually been "cancelled".

Can anyone define what being cancelled actually entails.

Thelonious Monk

Louis CK? I think he asked some girls if he could jerk off in front of them and they said yes but he was still cancelled when they revealed this years later.

Also I doubt you'll be seeing JK Rowling on Graham Norton any time soon, she's kind of cancelled even though her books are selling.

Say Your Number

Anytime I hear mention of someone being "cancelled" I always get this mental image of someone being taken away by a few burly men and dumped on a deserted island, where they they have to fend for themselves, what it usually means is someone faced mild criticism on the internet after they said something stupid.

the_pen_turner

you can say what you like but there are people out there ruining the careers of people that they deem to have done something wrong.

like it or not its fact. whether its inveviduals or a group or organisation it happens

it is driven by who you are and who chooses they dont like you.

look at the amber turd situation and the cardi b situation. both 100% guilty of horrible crimes but nothing about it and definetly not canceled . but others who have done way less are canceled

silliussoddius

It’s always happened, shunning is maybe a better term. Kind of funny the people in the US who complained about it had no problem when it happened to the dixie chicks when they criticized Bush (they are also the same people who now embrace someone who claims to have been against the Iraq war) or Colin Kaepernick.

L1011

The leader of an organisation that has such a concept as excommunication needs to look a lot closer to home before trying to accuse anyone else of "cancel culture".

I suppose i wish either side of the cancel culture argument could find a little consistency about whether mean things being said on the internet are a big deal or not as opposed to each getting their strop on as and when it suited them about it

Gregor Samsa

We Irish had no problem with the concept when Parnell and the Land League "cancelled" a certain Captain Charles Boycott in 1880. In fact, that instance even gave the activity its former name.

touts

The recent 20th anniversary celebration for Harry Potter could only show two brief clips of JK Rowling and made a point of saying they were recorded in 2017 (i.e. before she was cancelled). She was basically written out of the history of the character and world she created because some people take offence at some of her beliefs unrelated to Harry Potter. It was incredibly petty and mean spirited.

El Gato De Negocios

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058227344/this-whole-cancel-culture-myth

Harry Potter is a product and the author is regularly vilified across the internet.

Father Ted is a product and the writer is regularly vilified across the internet.

Nonces / alleged nonces, very very different tbh and they shouldn't be compared to the above imo.

The reality is, the likes of Rowling and Linehan have been publicly burned by a small but extremely vocal bunch of individuals and we are now at the point that very few people in the public eye are free to voice their opinions unless said opinions align with the aforementioned small but extremely vocal bunch of individuals. Disagree and you are branded phobic. The likes of Twitter really has handed the screeching few all the power and its only going to get worse I fear.

Burt Renaults

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118458378#Comment_118458378

Whatever you think of his views, Graham Linehan is entirely the author of his own downfall. He burned himself, and continues to do so. The effect his obsessive campaign against trans people has had on his own personal life (and sadly, the lives of those around him) is quite incredible. Not a well man.

Potential-Monke

Being cancelled doesn't mean no longer making money, it means being prevented from working as one would be able to otherwise.

Liberty_Bear

Did'nt the church dabble in cancel culture via excommunication - you disagreed with their teachings, declared a heretic and excommunicated....

EmmetSpiceland

Some people should take heed of the old adage ‘If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all’.

growleaves

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118458571#Comment_118458571

In societies which are totally controlled by Catholicism, excommunication can seriously hurt your ability to make a living and get along. So I would say yeah.

But then lots of people right now don't have any strong personal commitments to radical political liberalism ('woke' or 'PC') but they have to act as if they do because employers, officials, law, academia, councils, and aggressive individuals will make trouble for them otherwise.

Liberty_Bear

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118458599#Comment_118458599

Egalitarianism and Woke culture split from each other when radical politics adopted nonsensical ideas. Everyone under the nine grounds of discrimination should not be discriminated against but none of it looks at anything through the lens of class. Woke culture is frankly egalitariansim for kids. Bourgoise D4 students and their discussions over 'Heino' down the Pav like...the idea a rich woman is discriminated against more than a man in poverty is terrible. Income inequality is the biggest cause of transphobia, homophobia, misogny, misandry. Might sound like a half woke ideal but look at it closer and it rings true.

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118457759#Comment_118457759

Louis CK was also accused of masturbating while on the phone to women (without asking them), and he was accused of repeatedly asking a woman who worked on one of his shows if he could masturbate in front of her (and therefore, she said no, and he kept asking).

He and his agent were also accused of damaging the careers of women who did come forward about Louis CK.

Louis CK in his apology letter, said the accusations against him were true.

He's been touring for the last few years and recently released a new comedy special.

Louis CK has not been "cancelled".

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058227344/this-whole-cancel-culture-myth

Cancel culture is just a conservative myth designed to mask the fact that conservatism as an ideology is intellectually and morally bankrupt. Nothing more.

There is, however, a braying mob on Twitter that people really should be ignoring. Instead, we've concentrated vast swathes of market power in the hands of a tiny few global corporations and then complain when their CEO's take the path of least resistance.

Take "The Germans" episode of Fawlty Towers for instance. Let's say a the CEO's of the 5 or so biggest tech firms decide that the whole show is racist because of one scene in that episode. You know the one I'm talking about. That happens and you'd never see that show again unless you see it on DVD at a thrift shop. That's where we are. Virtually every aspect of our lives, our communications, our food, our entertainment, our money and even our culture is at the whims of a few CEO's. There's your problem. Pretending that some right wing c*nt is a victim when they prove yet again that they're a c*nt just ignores the rail problem.

Slutmonkey57b

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118458447#Comment_118458447

What if someone doesn't think his views are "against trans people"?

Not sure your post backs up what you're pretending to get at, there. If I recall "the effect on the lives of those around him" was ... vocal activists targetting his wife's business, and his writing partner's activities, who hadn't done or said anything. If he wasn't a well man, then the lives of the people around him would have been affected in private by his own actions. Instead, they were affected by strangers attacking them for no reason other than to get at Linehan by proxy.

"Cancel culture" is just a new phrasing for the idea that if you go against a given orthodoxy held by a social group, that social group will push you out. Linehan is actually an excellent example. Kaepernick was "cancelled" (forced out) for holding views a social group (conservative billionaires) didn't want to hear. Linehan was the same, only the social group was activist TRA's. Supposedly opposite sides of the political spectrum, but the same human "one of us or we'll kill your career, we like the power" response.

Effects

How's George Hook's show doing at the moment? 😂

[Deleted User]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058227344/this-whole-cancel-culture-myth

Kathleen Stock

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Stock

it’s fairly confined to Twitter and (much worse) university, but seeping throughout society. I feel free speech being chilled, for every voice actually silenced, a thousand remain silent

chrissb8

The thing is, it's the same reason why Art/Music/books from controversial figures over history still sell. It's good. Great art is not the preserve of "good" people, bad people make great things. If you went through most people's consumption of various forms of media/art you would probably find someone who could be marked for "cancelled" grounds.

That is what people on twitter don't understand. You don't elevate the person you objectively appreciate the production of these controversial figures. As it has been and always been. JK Rowling is an author, Michael Jackson is a musical genius and Kevin Spacey is a brilliant actor. These are statements that are simply beyond reproach.

Strumms

What did Linehan say ?

“Trans men aren't women tho”

you can agree, disagree with the statement… in fact in a ‘democracy’ I’d rather people have that ability… something quite fûcking grim that a social media platform can just ninja you into the ether because you say that…I’ve no side in the argument but it’s depressing that you can get banned for expressing that view…

I just read the Twitter ‘hateful conduct policy’…

https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/hateful-conduct-policy

in other words you probably can’t disagree with certain groups and their ideology / views as it is now classified as hate…

Hate for centuries has been defined as..

hate

/heɪt

verb

1. feel intense dislike for.

now ‘hate’… is being muscled out of its centuries old definition to basically mean disagreeing??? What the fûck? Basically Twitter attempt at rewriting or redefining the words in the dictionary..

what next, we won’t be able to write a review on a gig we went to, it will be seen as ‘hating’ the band or artist ?

Tell me how

Cancel culture is mildly interesting in that today, as it seems to be used and understood, it is a much bigger monster in the minds of people than it is in real life. Of course there are people who can point to having been targeted, or removed from their position because they have become the focus of enough people for one reason or another and often they resign citing this attention or their employer decides to let them go because of the negative attention. (This is a much bigger issue in the US than it is in Europe due to the employment laws (or lack thereof) such as 'at will employment' which can mean that someone can legally be let go for any reason. Frequently this is done by companies at short notice, without any sort of compensatory payment and it doesn't cause a blink of an eye. )

But when it happens because someone used a racial slur or was abusive or violent on a night out, it is frequently now deemed to be 'cancel culture' when it is closer to being a case of them being held responsible for their actions. And this type of thing happens to people of all backgrounds, gender, race, etc etc. And always has, what has changed has been what people consider to be unacceptable as the argument for insulting, belittling someone or having a laugh at their expense is becoming less and less tolerated.

Today the phrase seems to be, for the most part, used by those more of a conservative nature along with their other favourite buzzwords of 'woke agenda' and 'politically correct' and they throw this phrases at anyone they consider to be progressive so as to dismiss any argument that might be presented to them our of hand without having to engage or come up with an appropriate response.

I wish they'd stop to think long enough to see that it isn't just a particular demographic who engages in this. Were the people booing Colin Kapernick and calling him to be fired not engaging in Cancel Culture? How about the people who destroyed their Gillette products on social media claiming they would never again buy another thing from them because the company ran an ad campaign that outraged them? Or how about the country music stations that refused to play music from the Dixie Chicks because of a comment they made about George Bush? Or Texas banning abortions, is that not cancel culture? Or the Tories in the UK introducing legislation restricting peoples right to protest? Is that cancel culture? Or how about people targeting school boards and telling them that they know where they live during debates about the wearing of masks, is that cancel culture? Or banning any subject matter that could be deemed to be trying to portrary a historical narrative that black people in America were mistreated. How about that?

On here, we have people decrying cancel culture in one breath and in the next saying that RTE should fire half its staff before burning the building with the rest of them in it. There isn't a politician in the country that doesn't have a line of people willing to stand up and tell them how useless they are and should be nowhere near Dail Eireann. A thread about a radio show on here was full with outraged posters the last few days because the show had a staff of all women presenting about sports over the weekend. We see threads almost daily with people giving out about trans rights, multiculturalism, non-traditional couples on TV etc etc but if there was one suggesting something should be done to help a particular community or to support someone who has been targeted or mistreated in public it would very quickly fill up with claims that said topic was another BS woke idea by a snowflake and it should be stopped immediately. But apparently that isn't cancel culture, that's just calling it as you see it.

animalinside

Well the pope is around a decade behind everything as a rule, the fact that he even knows what "cancel culture" is is impressive for him.

The idea of "cancel culture" probably hit its peak in around 2018-2019 when social media stars would see dramatic swings in their popularity due to something that they did. For example, the Logan Paul suicide forest controversy or the Pewdiepie vs WJS controversy. Social media stars are particularly at risk for it because a lot of young people can unsubscribe immediately so you see a big effect on their income straightaway. Trying to "cancel" JK Rowling is a bit harder because there isn't that instant effect for the person boycotting her as much. It's also a lot easier to cancel smaller social media people because they are dime a dozen and don't have the staying power or hardcore fans propping them up.

Brooke Houts is an example of an actually cancelled person - she was a girl who was found abusing her dog behind the camera and she was effectively "cancelled" (and rightly so). Romeo Lacoste was also "cancelled" and lost a lot of money because of allegations about him. Toby Turner is another. Of course they always tend to try to make some comeback. The case against Toby Turner seemed particularly flimsy though.

But apart from those few examples that ruined some people's lives, "cancel culture" never took off in a very strong way with heads periodically rolling as some seemed to believe. I haven't heard the term in a while.

silliussoddius

There was the time the BSharps said they were bigger than Jesus.

Strumms

We’ll probably start seeing it in workplaces…. Kevin doesn’t like xxxx, expresses so in at a meeting and Andy, Caroline, John and Tom disagree….to the point of being offended as their sensibilities are challenged , So Kevin gets not invited to anything social, lunch, drinks on Friday… always has to make his own tea….etc..

hes cancelled, or aka. Bullied… which is what cancelling is. A culture of bullying.

Donald Trump, Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopolous, Gavin McInnes, Laurence Fox, JK Rowling, Graham Linehan.

All of them blacklisted and cancelled for having the wrong opinions. Trumped up charges then retrospectively applied at the discretion of the woke mob.

ancapailldorcha

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118459312#Comment_118459312

Trump incited a fascist coup, Jones was responsible for the mass harassment of parents of murdered children and Yiannopoulous is an apologist for child molesters. Nice attempt at gaslighting though.

mfceiling

Read Jon Ronson's "so you've been publicly shamed".

Twitter pile on's are all the go. Problem is nowadays if you don't agree with someone, rather than debate with them and have a reasoned argument, it's easier to stick your fingers in your ears and cry that the other person is wrong.

RobbieTheRobber

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118459255#Comment_118459255

So should we force people to socialise with people they don't like?