Cancel culture, also known as “call-out culture,” is a cultural phenomenon in which people on the internet criticize a famous person or company for not taking accountability and using the platform for public shaming, and boycotting the company’s or individual’s platforms. But is cancel culture actually effective?
The idea itself isn’t new; people have always faced the consequences of bad behavior. What has changed about this idea in recent years is the rapid spread of information online.
The term “cancel culture” gained popularity in the mid-to-late 2010s. It grew even larger in 2017 around the #MeToo movement.
The #MeToo movement began in 2006 to raise awareness and provide support for survivors of sexual assault and harassment. It gained global fame in 2017 after actress Alyssa Milano encouraged people to share their experiences using the hashtag #MeToo in their captions.
In this movement, there were multiple allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein, which was the start of cancel culture. These movements gave people who didn’t have much power a way to make themselves heard. Cancel culture began to be seen as a tool for justice and accountability.
Over time, the meaning of cancel culture began to blur. What began as an effort to get individuals to take accountability turned into public shaming and what could be seen as “ruining someone’s life,” even if that person made a simple mistake.
During 2020, a time when the world seemed to be in constant distress, the term became more open to light as big influencers like James Charles, Trisha Paytas, David Dobrik, etc, faced backlash for controversial allegations.
For example, James Charles was cancelled in 2021 for grooming allegations against a 16-year-old minor. This “tarnished” the image of James, especially his starting makeup palette collab with Morphe called “Morphe x James Charles Artistry Palette”.
Even though James received backlash and the palette was removed from the market by Morphe, James Charles’ reputation didn’t tarnish; in fact, the situation seems to be forgotten years later, as he has released a new company called “Painted” two years after the attempt to cancel him.
Another influencer or TikTok star, Nessa Barrett, was cancelled for dancing to the Quran prayer and then proceeding to upload a Video on the platform TikTok with the caption, “I’m muslim. And I oop-” Nessa went live to apologize for the incident, saying, “For whoever was offended, I think I’m sorry.”
This isn’t Nessa’s first time being cancelled; in fact, Nessa Barret was later cancelled for saying a derogatory slur, the n-word, and was exposed for mocking and making fun of people with disabilities on her fake Instagram account. At the time, Nessa received tons of backlash, even losing supporters and fans, but now, Nessa is an upcoming pop star with a platform on TikTok of 19.5 million followers.
Although cancel culture has its benefits and has worked before, it’s not effective in most cases because we continue to give companies, influencers, and individuals their platforms back instead of taking them away.