A 2022 survey by the Pew Research Center states that 61% of Americans have heard the term “cancel culture.”
But what does it mean?
Some may have heard of their favorite influencers getting canceled for certain beliefs they held or things they said. At its core, cancel culture attempts to inform another person that their beliefs are wrong. However, as the United States is one of the world’s strongest advocates for free speech, there is a debate about whether this practice is acceptable.
Does cancel culture result in negative consequences, no matter how good the intentions are?
According to Associate Professor of Marketing at Loyola University Chicago, Jenna Drenton, PhD, the umbrella term “cancel culture” can be separated into three categories: cancel culture, call-out culture, and call-in culture.
Drenton noted that cancel culture has been around for a long time, but because of social media, it has become “more amplified.” Thus, she explains the three categories in the context of social media.
“Cancel culture is often seen as more of a bandwagon attack on an individual or institution based on perceivably doing something wrong,” Drenton said. “Cancel culture happens in the retweets, reposts, and sharing.”
What Drenton means is that when people cancel someone, they try to gather the attention of others to hopefully build enough pressure to punish that person.
An example Drenton gave was of a white woman who was canceled for calling the cops on a Black man who was simply bird-watching in Central Park. The man recorded the encounter, and online viewers began to cancel the woman by sharing the video on social media, finding out who the woman was, and getting her fired. In other words, people banded together online to expose the woman’s wrongdoing to the public and punish her. This is different from the next category, call-out culture.
“Call-out culture happens mostly in the comment section of social media,” Drenton said.
An example she gave was a Heinz commercial that was called out for making an ad campaign featuring individuals with ketchup smeared all over their faces. People online thought it was reminiscent of blackface. Heinz took back the campaign, and the issue was resolved.
What separates the Heinz case from the “Bird Lady” case is that the discussion stayed within the comment section while the former case blew up and involved real-life negative consequences.
The last category is a more gentle approach than cancel and call-out culture.
“Call-in culture happens in private messaging, sort of behind the scenes,” Drenton said. “It’s more from a place of education, and so I think a lot of times it happens in private conversations rather than a public platform.”
According to Drenton, there are benefits and drawbacks to each method of communicating. She says that thinking about power dynamics is useful in deciding what method is most appropriate.
For example, calling in would be ideal if confronting a small influencer or a teenager who made a disrespectful post online.
However, against a big company or celebrity, canceling may be the best option due to the power they hold.
“Cancel culture is very parallel to boycotting. You’re not going to private message the company and say, ‘Hey Nike, can you consider improving your manufacturing facility and wastewater efforts,’” Drenton said. “They’re probably not going to pay attention to you.”
On the other hand, cancel culture can have a much more negative connotation.
“Cancel culture is a term for when people online basically insult or harass people thanks to the opinions they voice. Sometimes it kind of falls onto the idea of political correctness,” said freshman Ana Henderson, a Carlmont National Speech and Debate Club member. “It can be a bad thing, but I feel like it’s misused a lot.”
In addition, Director of Public Advocacy for the Foundation of Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) Aaron Terr says that cancel culture consists of “attempts to get people fired, disinvited, de-platformed, or otherwise punished for speech that would be protected by the first amendment.”
“In general, think of it as the tendency of society to punish individuals for expressing opinions that some people find wrong or offensive,” Terr said. “It’s something that’s been supercharged in the age of social media because digital mobs can form very quickly.”
Like Drenton, Terr explained how cancel culture affects people on a high level, such as getting someone fired from their job and other opportunities.
However, Terr believes that cancel culture is harmful because a sense of vengeance and self-righteousness fuels it.
For example, Terr said that amid the Israel-Hamas War, FIRE had seen pro-Palestinian activists get disciplined by their universities or fired from their jobs.
Terr described a more specific case of a man who was supposed to speak at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) about exoplanets but was disinvited due to his stance on an entirely different topic.
Despite Drenton’s statement of the benefits and practicalities of cancel culture, she acknowledges some downsides.
“The unintended consequences of canceling celebrities, influencers, businesses, and big institutions with lots of power is that it trickles down to everyday people,” Drenton said. “We all have the potential to cancel, but also to be canceled as well.”
She notes that this is especially true for young people on social media, which accelerates individuals to fame in a matter of hours.
“You used to be able to make a lot of mistakes. And the only people who would know about it were your immediate friends, maybe your family, maybe your community. Now, you make mistakes very publicly,” Drenton said.
Drenton also said that the media is a massive driving force of the polarization that fuels online outrage.
“It benefits mainstream media companies, social media companies, and content creators to have polarized viewpoints, sometimes what is called ‘rage bait,’ because it gets clicks and views,” Drenton said. “And even if they know it might not be the whole story, there is a financial benefit to make a story less nuanced than it is, and that sets a foundation for polarization and misinformation.”
Terr also stated that the media plays a role in this mess.
“These hot-button issues that capture the country’s attention and are deeply polarizing tend to be a cause of censorship that fuels cancel culture,” Terr said.
Change without repercussions
According to Terr, it’s essential to defend free speech as a principle, whether or not you agree with the person’s argument.
“I think cancel culture is often driven just by a few really loud voices and that most Americans don’t agree with this illiberal trend,” Terr said. “So, I would encourage more Americans who don’t believe in it to oppose it.”
He suggests that colleges and universities encourage students to join debate clubs, such as the one in Carlmont, to force people to understand the point of view of an argument they don’t necessarily agree with.
“Playing devil’s advocate can help people understand where people with different views are coming from and reduce polarization and the tendency to see others who hold different views as stupid or evil people who don’t deserve a platform,” Terr said.
If someone is passionate about defending the right to free speech, Terr encourages them to join an organization like FIRE.
“We have engagement and mobilization teams that give our supporters opportunities to take direct action to defend free speech, whether it’s signing petitions or contacting institutions,” Terr said.
Henderson emphasizes that disagreement isn’t the issue at hand, but instead, she thinks that using the negative term “cancel culture” to label such disagreements. As a debate club member, Henderson knows how to properly deal with arguing over controversial issues.
“It’s expected that there’s going to be some form of disagreement,” Henderson said. “We generally try to focus on respecting each other’s opinions. Part of convincing people is understanding that person’s point of view so that you can point out the flaws in logic.”
