Ras­sis­mus, Homo­pho­bie. Miso­gy­nie: Kann schlich­te sozia­le Igno­ranz all die­se Pro­ble­me wirk­lich lösen?

In recent years, the gene­ral public has beco­me more awa­re of social jus­ti­ce and inher­ent­ly mista­kes and actions of cele­bri­ties or famous peo­p­le. This has led to a phe­no­me­non cal­led „can­cel culture”.

Hold people of their actions

The idea of “can­cel cul­tu­re” is to hold peo­p­le of their actions, which can vary from racism, homo­pho­bia, miso­gy­ny and trans­pho­bia, accoun­ta­ble. This has, in theo­ry, ulti­m­ate­ly led to peo­p­le being “can­cel­led”, which means peo­p­le stop­ping to sup­port and to boy­cott them. On one hand, hol­ding peo­p­le accoun­ta­ble for their actions is some­thing that is vital for a func­tio­ning socie­ty, but cri­tics cla­im that this “can­cel cul­tu­re” is toxic and des­troys peo­p­le and their lives.  But how real is “can­cel cul­tu­re” actual­ly? Can it real­ly end someone’s care­er? And how important is someone’s can­cel­la­ti­on for the people? 

“Cancel culture” in practice

Well, like most things the­re isn’t one right ans­wer.  Being can­cel­led often depends on who you are, why you are can­cel­led, and how many peo­p­le can­cel you. The­re have been cele­bri­ties, who have been can­cel­led, and becau­se of that their care­ers have suf­fe­r­ed or the­re were con­se­quen­ces from actu­al law enforce­ment. A good exam­p­le for this is R. Kel­ly, as his actions of sexu­al mis­con­duct were actual­ly hor­ri­ble enough for him to be impri­so­ned.  But in most cases, one would have to say, that “can­cel cul­tu­re” isn’t as effec­ti­ve as cri­tics cla­im it to be.

Often famous peo­p­le get „can­cel­led” by a too small group of peo­p­le for some­thing that isn’t dee­med as bad enough to effec­tively get someone can­cel­led or the per­son who is being can­cel­led is almost immu­ne to can­cel­la­ti­on. An exam­p­le for that would be Logan Paul, an Ame­ri­can you­tuber, who has been can­cel­led num­e­rous times, ran­ging from having ques­tionable views on abor­ti­on to the ext­ent of film­ing a dead body and put­ting it on his You­Tube chan­nel. Even though he has been dee­med as can­cel­led num­e­rous times, he still has over 21 mil­li­on sub­scri­bers to this date.

It has to be said that in com­pa­ri­son to all the peo­p­le who watch You­Tube, watch TV, lis­ten to music or just gene­ral­ly sup­port famous peo­p­le in a way, the peo­p­le who can­cel peo­p­le are part of a mino­ri­ty. This leads to peo­p­le not always kno­wing that the per­son, who­se art or pro­duct they’­re enjoy­ing and con­sum­ing, did some­thing sub­jec­tively bad. An example

for that is Woo­dy Allen, as he is one of the most influ­en­ti­al and suc­cessful direc­tors of the past few deca­des, but has been accu­sed for sexu­al mis­con­duct, which hasn’t stop­ped his movies from being suc­cessful.  One might say that “can­cel­ling” peo­p­le only works, if their tar­get audi­ence is made of peo­p­le who are awa­re of “can­cel cul­tu­re”, aka youn­ger people.

But even peo­p­le, who­se tar­get audi­ence is teens, don’t always get can­cel­led, in a way that their care­ers are affec­ted. This appli­es to Jef­f­ree Star, ano­ther you­tuber, who has made incre­di­bly racist and sexist state­ments and has been cal­led out mul­ti­ple times for bas­hing peo­p­le and say­ing things that can be con­side­red as bul­ly­ing, while still having over 18 mil­li­on sub­scri­bers on his You­Tube chan­nel. Or Chris Brown, who didn’t only assault Rihan­na in 2009, until she had to be hos­pi­ta­li­zed, but also had mul­ti­ple con­firm­ed accu­sa­ti­ons of dome­stic abu­se and fel­o­ny assault, but still to this day has a thri­ving music care­er and over 27 mil­li­on month­ly lis­ten­ers on Spotify.

Not as effective as desired

In con­clu­si­on, it can be said, that, even though at times can­cel cul­tu­re leads to peo­p­le losing fans and actual­ly expe­ri­en­cing con­se­quen­ces from their actions, most times it leads to peo­p­le eit­her only being “can­cel­led” for a short peri­od of time, so that their care­ers aren’t effec­ted, or only being seen as “can­cel­led” by not enough peo­p­le for it to actual­ly make a dif­fe­rence. So, even though the con­stant cal­ling out of peo­p­le for may­be even small mista­kes may be seen as toxic, the actu­al dama­ge “can­cel cul­tu­re” does to most cele­bri­ties is very small. In my per­so­nal opi­ni­on, “can­cel cul­tu­re” isn’t as effec­ti­ve at des­troy­ing peo­p­le, as peo­p­le cla­im it to be, as we can see mul­ti­ple cele­bri­ties doing sub­jec­tively wrong and bad things, but not actual­ly suf­fe­ring under the power of “can­cel cul­tu­re” and still having a thri­ving career.

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