So and so is cancelled

Cancel culture – Does it work?

“So and so is cancelled” is a term we as members of social media are becoming increasingly accustomed to. Whilst I couldn’t exactly pinpoint the first case of an individual or company being “cancelled”, like most social phenomena, it gained phenomenal social media traction seemingly out of nowhere. I intend to explore this phenomenon and its effectiveness, does it really solve anything? Or are they just modern day witch-hunts?

Firstly, what does it mean to be “cancelled”? The term is a crude way to express public dissatisfaction with a well-known figure or company. Anything from a distasteful joke to a sexual assault allegation can warrant an individual or company to be “cancelled”. Ideally, the individual or company is boycotted and their work invalidated by said blunder(s). The latest case at the time of writing is Gina Carano, the MMA fighter turned Hollywood actress, whose string of politically-charged social media posts landed her in hot water with the Twitter police. Carano was subsequently dropped from her role in The Mandalorian.

The power of Cancel Culture is on clear display, it is the ability to render someone unemployed and publicly shamed - literally in a click of a button. [SEND TWEET]

My intention is not to defend the actions of Gina Carano or anyone like her (I personally couldn’t care less who they recast on the show as long as it isn’t Bill Burr), but rather to question if branding these people “cancelled” is any form of activism, or god forbid any form of justice. A prime is example is a celebrity whose history of sexual abuse and overall deplorability, is too exhaustive to lay out. The hip-hop artist R. Kelly, despite