From A Better Question.
I have headlines about "Cancel Culture" coming out my ears from the news about Dr. Seuss, Pepe Le Pew, and Potato Head (which is still Mr. and Mrs. because they say you can’t please everyone but Hasbro is gonna try). It seems there’s a frenzy to stick this term on anything that moves at the moment. So, as always, I went looking for context and a better question than "the hell?"
What I found is how the term "cancel culture" actually started as "call out culture" when it applied to public shaming and our society’s mob reaction to scandal – which is an important topic and a conversation we should be having.
But that definition got a weaponized re-branding as "cancel culture" – a label to slap on anyone who disagrees with you or questions a social norm. It’s a way to avoid uncomfortable and complex conversations. It’s an easy scapegoat – an "other" to blame.
Cancel Culture best describes those in our society who depend on division and the status quo for either profit or control – who benefit from canceling those harder conversations before they start – and use this phrase as a tool to keep this world just the way it is.
Some references and further reading:
https://time.com/5735403/cancel-culture-is-not-real/ (how "cancel culture" as a label is used to silence dissenting voices)
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/07/us/cancel-culture-accountability-reality-trnd/index.html (relating cancel culture to the ‘call out’ version of public accountability vs the performative and dismissive version of ‘cancel culture’.
https://www.thecowl.com/opinion/the-reality-of-cancel-culture-is-that-it-is-not-real (same)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/facebook-old-abe-cancel-culture/2021/03/03/ad9e01fc-7b98-11eb-a976-c028a4215c78_story.html (interesting point about how this "cancel" stuff can play out. There’s legitimate fodder for conversation in this, but it also shows the sensationalism)
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/07/illiberalism-cancel-culture-free-speech-internet-ugh.html (More general article on the death of civil debate).
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/07/politics/fact-check-trump-cancel-culture-boycotts-firings/index.html (A long list of things Trump tried to get canceled – using the same definition he would apply when claiming to be the target of "cancel culture").
https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-populism/who-is-in-charge-of-cancel-culture (great piece about how the label of cancel culture has evolved – and who’s using it. ….also always nice to have my thoughts echoed by a New Yorker piece being written at the same time..)
https://plthomasedd.medium.com/fact-checking-cancel-culture-fbd1b0ebef91 (also written while I was editing this, good article about the facts of "cancel culture").
Totally forgot to add the BBC Broadcast regs, here they are:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/editorialguidelines/guidelines/politics/guidelines
https://aceproject.org/main/samples/me/mex24.pdf
