When Boris Johnson announced the first lockdown ordering people to “stay at home” he did not realise the profound impact he would have on social media. As a result of all of us sitting at home with nothing to do other than school work, TikTok, Instagram and many other social media platforms became very appealing. From screen times rising up to 12 hours a day ,to individuals finding themselves blowing up for making up a dance, social media affected everyone in some way. And with the general population glued to their screens, cancel culture was born.
According to Dictionary.com cancel culture is “the phenomenon or practice of publicly rejecting, boycotting or ending support for particular people or groups because of their socially or morally unacceptable views or action” – which begs the questions what is a “socially or morally unacceptable view or action”? And who gets to decide what is a “socially or morally unacceptable view or action”? The answer -anyone. As shown over the last 3 years, anyone can post a tweet or a TikTok accusing someone to have said or done something “morally unacceptable”. Although this does bring some reality to the phrase ‘power to the people’ the ‘power’ in question is quite literally life destroying. Moreover the degree in which people are being cancelled” is becoming more radical the more people are chronologically online. From cancelling child rapists (such as R.Kelly) to the bipolar reaction to Johnny Depp and Amber Heard (resulting in both parties now being cancelled).
However, cancel culture is not all negative after all, it does allow us to be able to hold people accountable (who otherwise would not have been) and gives a voice to marginalised communities. Arguably the rise of the #metoo and BLM movements largely was because of the media attention given to them -on the back of influencers cancelling public figures.
So, what do you think- are we getting too sensitive and rejecting people from society for little to no reason? Or is cancel culture an important stance against people with obsolete views and “unacceptable” actions.
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