Research Argument Essay: Cancel Culture
This text’s audience may have seen hashtags such as “#*[insert person/company name]*iscanceled” or “#*[insert company/person name]*isoverparty” on Twitter. Lately, it appears that some A-list or D-list celebrity, organization, political leader, or ordinary citizen is being canceled for any reason. While it is pertinent that this entry contributes to the conversation on whether the trend is good or bad for society, it would help to refresh the audience’s minds on the concept’s meaning.
Cancel culture is the practice of boycotting a specific individual or institution’s products and services due to a perceived belief that they might have done or said something wrong or controversial. Various parties consider the concept acceptable, whereas others find it a harmful and toxic way of simplifying complex societal problems. This essay highlights the good, bad, and ugly of cancel culture with the view to show that it is a destructive notion that does more harm than good in society.
Overview and Context
Canceling a person, group, or company refers to boycotting a person or a group’s products, brands, or content due to what one may perceive as problematic or offensive, frequently involving elements of social justice and political viewpoints (Kato, 2021). Social media and cancel culture go hand in hand.
Velasco (2020) states that social media has given rise to social movements like cancel culture, a form of “wokeism” that focuses on group identity, power distribution, and oppression. The idea started as a tool for marginalized and disenfranchised communities to assert their voices and values against public and influential figures who can quickly get away with wrongdoing.
However, Romano (2021) demonstrates that in its current form, cancel culture has people questioning whether it fights for its core concern; accountability. In other words, the concept has evolved swiftly to hold different meanings to different groups. This phenomenon calls for in-depth analysis and synthesis of what the idea means to the people who think it would be apt to eliminate specific components of cancel culture.
The Toxicity of Cancel Culture
Emotional Aspect of Toxic Cancel Culture
A key component of cancel culture is the feeling of robust emotions, including aggressiveness, outrage, fear, and disgust. Bouvier & Machin (2021) assert that these emotions motivate many social media users to assume a higher moral ground and reject particular individuals and punish them due to what could be mere allegations.
An assessment by Newport Institute (2022) illustrates that the psychology of cancel culture gives cancelers the implicit permission to neglect the required phase of empathy and forgiveness in favor of punishing someone for a wrongdoing.
Velasco (2020) explains this psychology, saying that humans possess a fundamental drive to belong to a group as they feel safe in packs, and inclusion makes them proud to be part of something bigger.
Therefore, the idea of someone contradicting their opinions makes them question their beliefs’ essence, stance, and foundations. Bouvier & Machin (2021) support this, adding that it is commonplace for these groups to negate rather than accept a particular view.
The psychology of group and individual identity formation plays an integral role in exacerbating the toxicity of cancel culture. Brief research by the Newport institute (2022) focuses on young people who find it amusing to affiliate themselves with certain groups in an attempt to discover and define who they are.
However, it is common knowledge that adopting and fully subscribing to the values and norms of a specific group can alter one’s attitudes and lead one to fall into anger. This is what Velasco (2020) means when they say that cancel culture becomes toxic when practices from the perspective of collective consciousness, the lens of an “us versus them” mentality.
The change in the culture of cancellation came when people let emotions rule their judgments. It has become a disapproving force that sparks intolerance and drives people to criticize others for their slightly different views and beliefs. As Bouvier & Machin (2021) conclude, the emotional aspect of cancel culture undermines the idea’s primary objectives.
Cancel Culture and Mental Health
Newport Institute (2022) establishes a significant correlation between cancel culture and its ramifications on mental health. Healthy development among young people requires connecting with others and forming relationships beyond the family. Pretorius et al. (2019) suggest that society pays close attention to how young people express themselves.
While it is essential to encourage them to speak against undesirable behavior, such as racism, they should learn to do so in a respectable manner.
One would agree with Romano (2021) that cancellation is not an allowable teaching moment as it entails public shaming and harsh punishment. Charli and Dixie D’Amelio are examples of young internet personalities who got brutally criticized and canceled last year.
Most of the cancellers in this and other cases are peers. Cancel culture often goes too far, taking a toll on young people’s mental growth and wellness. Cancellation lowers one’s sense of belonging and will likely push young people into withdrawal and indifference.
The damaging impacts of cancel culture can extend to the canceling parties and bystanders. People who regard themselves as cancelers have the right to choose what sparks their interests and set boundaries on things that they find offensive (Saint-Louis, 2021). However, cancellation does not always go as planned, as the offending person or brand may use the opportunity to further their cause and defend their ego instead of changing their beliefs (Ross, 2019).
For instance, the attempt to cancel singer R. Kelly for his gross conviction boosted his popularity and increased his songs’ on-demand streams by a considerable margin. This outcome must have caused anger and resentment among those who devoted entirely to R. Kelly’s cancellation, especially victims of sex crimes (Jenkins, 2019).
Hooks (2020) contributes to this thought, saying the idea causes fear and anxiety among the general population, who choose to withhold their opinions and emotions lest they provoke a specific party on social media.
Cancel Culture and Accountability
Anderson-Lopez et al. (2021) underline one of their respondents’ views that cancel culture focuses primarily on individual accountability. It fails to recognize the systemic issues that are often among the root causes of hateful behavior. In the process of seeking accountability, the idea ends up shaming the person into identifying some of their unacceptable individual beliefs. However, the cancelers fail to realize that there is a different, more significant level to the cancellable offenses.
Cook et al. (2021) point to the problematic and hurtful attitudes that have existed for a long time because people get so lost in what they want that these underlying issues go unchecked. In this regard, it would suffice to say that cancel culture magnifies societal issues rather than address them. Anderson-Lopez et al. (2021) add that a concept that frequently results in death threats, doxing, and online bullying is an appropriate channel for seeking accountability.
When the central objective of cancel culture inclines more towards punishment than the perceived offense, the attempt at accountability loses meaning and focus. Clark (2020) demonstrates that the nuisance caused by online harassment and “bad faith” has undermined cancel culture’s search for answerability.
Boredom, coupled with freedom of speech, the 24-hour news cycle, and social media, can only fuel the public’s consumption of cancel culture as a form of entertainment. More often than not, the cancellation addresses issues out of spite, showing the cause’s ineffectiveness.
Crișan (2022) states that such situations drive people to make unnecessary, hateful comments that would be too distressing to the potentially offending party. Researchers have found a strong correlation between online racism and poor mental health, which explains why some targeted parties feel somewhat motivated to react negatively to being called out (Del Toro & Wang, 2022). Overall, cancel culture is not the most appropriate method of holding someone accountable.
Alternative Counterarguments and Objection
Counterarguments
The debate on whether cancel culture is good for society has divided the masses into groups of those who support the idea, those who rebuke it, and a third category that feels indifferent about the phenomenon. Still, Ross (2019) confirms that cancel culture allows marginalized groups to bring specific transgressions to the justice system’s attention in explaining why the concept is detrimental to society. The idea has excelled in identifying wrongdoings such as sexual abuse and harassment and hate speech by influential personalities.
The #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter movements are among the major divisions of cancel culture that have highlighted societal issues that would have otherwise missed the justice system’s radar. Allen (2021) alludes to another positive aspect of cancel culture, advocating that it allows the disenfranchised to present their grievances and ensure an even and balanced distribution of power. The concept appears to be a new and cherished form of boycott that aims to bring social change worldwide.
Objective
This entry’s initial rebuttal pertains to the counterargument’s position that cancel culture empowers the less powerful members of society to seek accountability where criminal justice malfunctions. To employ the assessment of Cook et al. (2021), one should consider that even with the right intent, cancel culture frequently leads to severe cases of online bullying, death threats, and gratuitous incitement of violence. Significant components of cancel culture, such as MeToo and Black Lives Matter, have succeeded on numerous fronts.
However, Ferguson (2021) asserts that in bringing certain issues to the criminal justice’s attention, Black Lives Matter and other movements sometimes advocate for what is termed “utopian fantasy.” In addition to a somewhat apparent degree of implicit bias, these movements seek to champion unachievable and utterly abstract objectives such as police abolition.
Ferguson (2021) implies that cancel culture’s efforts are misdirected and that people should use the system’s powerful influence to foster meaningful reforms and correct structural problems in society.
In response to the contention that cancel culture is an effective channel for boycotting and pinpointing societal power imbalance, it is critical to highlight one of the idea’s top shortcomings.
Ross (2019) states that the concept is destructive and unproductive and that it is not an appropriate and goal-oriented channel of social change. Cancel culture does not equate to activism in any form or fashion, especially with the current rise of social media use. One would agree with Ross (2019) that activism takes time, hard work, meetings, signing petitions, and doing things by the book for the greater good.
Calling out and canceling people for saying using a racial epithet does not solve the root cause of racial discrimination. It only extinguishes the public’s anger for some time as the problem grows and develops. Velasco (2020) supports this, adding that sometimes, cancel culture backfires, damaging the people even more.
Conclusion
The melodramatic rhetoric from the two parties of the debate shows how provocative cancel culture has become. This study analyzes the severity of the views of both sides of the fight, and it is evident that the idea is slowly losing its original meaning. It is apparent that the political aspect is no longer on the principal ideological agenda as people have begun to use cancel culture to advance their opinions and beliefs.
The researcher contributes to the conversation, arguing that the current form of the concept only causes anger and frustration. Even worse, the path at which it is set is that of punishment, not accountability, which affirms the notion that it only amplifies people’s inability to forgive and forget.
Overall, in light of this and the emotional aspect and mental consequences of cancel culture, everyone should join the fight to change the narrative and cancel “cancel culture.”
References
Allen, R. N. (2021). From Academic Freedom to Cancel Culture: Silencing Black Women in the
Legal Academy. UCLA L. Rev., 68, 364.
Anderson-Lopez, J., Lambert, R. J., & Budaj, A. (2021). Tug of war: Social media, cancel
culture, and diversity for girls and the 100. KOME: An International Journal of Pure Communication Inquiry, 9(1), 64-84.
Bouvier, G., & Machin, D. (2021). What gets lost in Twitter ‘cancel culture’hashtags? Calling
out racists reveals some limitations of social justice campaigns. Discourse & Society, 32(3), 307-327.
Clark, M. (2020). DRAG THEM: A brief etymology of so-called “cancel
culture”. Communication and the Public, 5(3-4), 88-92.
Cook, C. L., Patel, A., Guisihan, M., & Wohn, D. Y. (2021). Whose agenda is it anyway: an
exploration of cancel culture and political affiliation in the United States. SN Social Sciences, 1(9), 1-28.
Crișan, S. (2022). Creation and Ideology: from Freedom of Opinions to” Cancel
Culture”. Theatrical Research, 3(1-2 (5-6)), 203-220.
Del Toro, J., & Wang, M. T. (2022). Online Racism and Mental Health Among Black American
Adolescents in 2020. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry.
Hooks, A. M. (2020). Cancel culture: posthuman hauntologies in digital rhetoric and the latent
values of virtual community networks (Doctoral dissertation, The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga).
Kato, B. (2021, August 31). What is cancel culture? everything to know about the toxic online
trend. New York Post.
Jenkins, C. (2019, January 18). Surviving R. Kelly and the problem with modern fan culture.
Newport Institute. (2022, March 21). How cancel culture psychology and toxic tribalism impact
young adult mental health. Newport Institute.
Pretorius, C., Chambers, D., & Coyle, D. (2019). Young people’s online help-seeking and mental
health difficulties: Systematic narrative review. Journal of medical Internet research, 21(11), e13873.
Romano, A. (2021, May 5). The second wave of “cancel culture”. Vox.
Ross, L. (2019, August 17). I’m a black feminist. I think call-out culture is toxic. The New York
Saint-Louis, H. (2021). Understanding cancel culture: Normative and unequal
sanctioning. Firstmonday, 26(7).
Velasco, J. C. (2020). You are cancelled: Virtual collective consciousness and the emergence of
cancel culture as ideological purging. Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, 12(5), 48-68.
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