To break the fourth wall, when I was briefed on my topic for this month’s edition of the mag, I paused. Cancel culture has been a contentious subject for a decade now, and it’s a rather large can of worms to open. How do you do it without getting swept up into the hurricane of it all?
I only have so many words I can use to fill a page, and I can guarantee there are going to be aspects that I don’t touch on or are merely scraped on the surface, but let’s do our best, shall we?
Social media is a blessing and a curse — we all know this by now. It brings us together, and while in many instances this can be great, it can also be pretty horrendous.
I’m not going to explain how cancel culture works to you because it’s pretty common knowledge at this point. But while cancel culture originally started out as a way to condemn authoritative figures for committing heinous acts, such as Harvey Weinstein at the hands of the ‘Me Too’ movement, it has evolved into something almost unrecognisable than its original intent.
It’s shifted into calling out influencers.
And I’m not talking about the peak YouTube era of Jeffree Star, Tati Westbrook, Shane Dawson and James Charles. That was a whole other world of drama (and entertainment).
James Charles “No More Lies” video in response to the Tati Westbrook allegations
I’m talking about TikTok, and how effortless it is to cancel someone these days.
It’s never been easier to make your opinion about someone known. Disagreeing with a content creator on a topic that at its core, really isn’t that deep, turns into a personal attack on someone’s character in the comment section. Disliking someone’s content style becomes a series of videos picking them to the bone.
We love putting someone on a pedestal and building them higher and higher, because who doesn’t love a success story, right? But I’m not entirely sure it’s about the success anymore. Once the star of the moment shines a little too brightly, the internet loves finding any excuse to rip that platform from underneath them.
For what reason? It varies. And to be honest, I don’t think cancelling is even the right term anymore.
One example of unnecessary cancellation earlier this year was the whole New York City influencer saga. TikTok user @martinifeeny called out a bunch of NYC content creators for all being ‘boring’, looking the same, having the same lifestyle and delivering the exact same types of content every single day.
From that, the internet banded together to bully these women that did nothing wrong, they were simply existing. TikTok videos popped up left, right and centre of people promoting boycotts of the group, comment sections were flooded with snarky remarks that weren’t typed with the intention of calling the influencers out, but bullying them.
The line between accountability and cruelty isn’t blurry anymore — it doesn’t exist.
And I can’t help but notice women bear the brunt of it.
Don’t get me wrong, there are still creators that are being cancelled for valid reasons. But if you take a long, hard look at today’s social media landscape, you’ll notice women are being called out for far more trivial things than men.
It makes me wonder if cancel culture is less about accountability these days, and more about control. About policing how women show up online, what they wear, how they speak, and even what they post. It’s no longer about justice, it’s about judgement. And if the internet can find even the smallest excuse to pick on a creator and turn it into a fun little game, they’ll grab the opportunity with both hands.
I also don’t even think ‘cancellation’ is the right term for it anymore — for most instances, anyway. When cancel culture was originally gaining momentum, once someone was cancelled, they stayed that way. Society would shun then, not support their work, and make an active effort not to engage with them.
Now, a creator spends a couple months laying low, and suddenly they’re back and better than ever as soon as the internet has moved onto their next victim. The term has lost its impact. Now, it’s something that’s loosely thrown around in conversation.
And maybe that’s the scariest part — not that cancel culture ruins people forever, but that it’s become this revolving door of public humiliation. People’s careers and mental health are treated like disposable entertainment. We don’t really ‘cancel’ people anymore; we chew them up, spit them out, and wait for the next trending name to take their place.
Which begs the question: what does this say about us? Not only about the way we consume content, but the way we treat each other? Just because we’re perceiving somebody through a screen, doesn’t mean they’re not a real person. And I think we tend to forget that.
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