by By: Sara Macholz
Cancel culture has quickly become a daily occurrence with the abundance of media that is produced and consumed every day.
What is cancel culture? According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary, cancel culture is defined as the “practice or tendency of engaging in mass canceling as a way of expressing disapproval and exerting social pressure”.
A recent example of a media personality being canceled includes Chris Harrison, the longtime host of The Bachelor. During the most recent season of The Bachelor, Matt James was featured as the franchise’s first Black Bachelor. This was an obvious step forward as a response to backlash surrounding the lack of diversity represented in the show.
The Bachelor franchise took one step forward and two steps back when host Chris Harrison publicly defended the racially insensitive actions of the season’s front runner Rachel Kirkconnell. During the season there were pictures leaked of Rachel Kirkconnell attending a Southern antebellum plantation party, and dressing up in culturally appropriated costumes. After the interview aired where Chris Harrisson defends her actions, I didn’t take long for him and the show as a whole to be “canceled” across social media.
As seen in the video, the backlash regarding Kirkconnell’s actions and Harrison’s interview made it so they have to take accountability their wrongful words and actions. In this specific situation there is a lot of education that can be done to better understand the damage that they caused.
The great thing about cancel culture or call-out culture is that at its core it holds people accountable for their words and actions, especially when they are harmful to other groups or individuals. Yet there are many instances where it goes too far.
People become bold behind their screens, willing to say horrible things to people. This happens more often than not when people get “canceled” online. What could be used as a moment of education and consequence, turns into a violent backlash often including death threats.
The different types of people who participate in canceling others online are often grouped together even though intentions and execution are very different. The intention of calling a person out to better themselves is much different than telling them to harm themselves.
This is what fuels the heated debate over cancel culture. Is it a tool for holding people accountable or does it foster a toxic online environment fueled by mob mentality? Cancel culture has become a new normal in our online world. We most likely will continue to see the good, bad and the ugly as a result.
Cancel Culture is defiantly the new normal. I’m no longer surprised when I see a new person being canceled. I wonder when if ever there is room for a person to grow rather than immediately being canceled. Because canceling happens so fast and is widespread on social media, there is often not enough time to formulate an appropriate response, which leads to a terrible apology and more canceling.
I think initially cancel culture was a good way to call out people on the internet for saying inappropriate or insensitive things, but now it has changed to a form of bullying. When cancel culture first started, to me it seemed like a way to make people feel bad for being rude or insensitive. Now it seems like it someone says one wrong thing or is not educated on a sensitive topic and they try to talk about it people on the internet start calling for them to be cancelled. I do think it is important to hold people accountable on the internet, but cancel culture has gone too far at this point and people are too quick to cancel others.
I think that cancel culture started off as a powerful tool that held people accountable for words and actions that had been brushed under the rug for years, but I think it has turned into more of a toxic trend at this point. I think it’s important to note one thing you explained about the Chris Harrison drama- that pressure from the public made it so that he was forced to take accountability for the harm his words caused and the situation as a whole forced him and Rachel to educated themselves on important topics. However, in other cases, it seems like people are going out of their way and looking for things to dig up about celebrities to cancel. In this case, it seems like less of a platform for growing and educating and more of a malicious intent.
Great article! You refer to cancel culture as “call-out culture” which is very insightful because the term explains the true meaning of the action of cancelling and holding people accountable for their behaviors. The example you show of Chris Harrison is exactly that. I think there are levels to cancel culture that do deem it necessary for callouts to be taken to the extreme especially when it it revolves around inequality or injustices. This isn’t a bad thing but a revolution for people to start doing the work it takes to undo the history that got us to this point now.
Nice blog post! I think cancel culture has evolved and changed in so many ways since its beginning. First when someone was “cancelled” it was a way to hold our peers accountable like in the example with Chris Harrison. Cancel culture has recently become more negative and often times toxic. Like you mentioned people are constantly being “called-out” for doing something they don’t agree with. People are now looking for any reason to cancel an influencer or celebrity. In many ways it seems “cancelling” as become its own form of content creation. I find it interesting that there are whole Youtube channels dedicated to online drama and feuds. I believe we need to focus more on educating people on what they can do to change a situation if someone is cancelled instead of trying to profit off their mistakes.
Great blog post! You mentioned that cancel culture is meant to hold individuals accountable for their words or actions. However, individuals feel invisible when negatively commenting or calling out people on social media. This has caused a misconstrued idea of the purpose of cancel culture which no longer educates or holds the individual accountable. When used correctly, I believe that cancel culture can be helpful because it allows individuals to be aware of what they are posting. The example you provided about Chris Harrison is a great choice because it is a recent and relevant situation that many individuals our age group are aware of. I think it was best for the show to remove Chris Harrison because his role was to make the contestants feel welcomed and appreciated but if he is uneducated about how to handle racially insensitive conversations then he does not deserve this position.
Great blog post! I enjoyed how you broke down what it is and how it can effectively be used to hold people accountable for their actions but I do see how toxic it can become. Recently in my line of work I’ve seen a large push back from older generations who quite don’t understand how it works and take it as an “attack on their beliefs.” But honestly, it is a great tool to use if used responsibly.
This was a great blog post that clearly outlined both the positives and negatives that come with cancel culture. I feel like we often see only the negative side being discussed, so to hear that it started with good intent I think is refreshing. Your choice of using Chris Harrison as an example was really helpful, as a reader, to understand a positive cancel culture example.
I really enjoyed reading your post and I think it was a very clear explanation on what cancel culture means. I think you did and excellent job of laying out all the positives and negatives. I think it is great that people are help accountable for their actions because hopefully they realize what they did was wrong and will change in the future, but I do not think people should be threatened. People hid behind a screen and become cyberbullies, so I think the idea of cancel culture is okay but what is has turned into is not.
Great article! I really enjoyed reading about the positives and negatives of cancel culture. I thought it started off as a powerful tool to highlight actions that have been swept under the rug for far too. However, as time goes on and “canceling” becomes an everyday thing, I feel like it is loosing its effect that it was meant to have. Almost everyday I find out someone new who has been canceled and half the time I have never even heard of the person. I think we should still be calling out people when they do something wrong, but give them a chance to do better.
Hello Sara!
I really enjoyed reading your post! I think cancel culture definitely has some positives and negatives. While I feel as though people need to be held accountable for their actions, I also think that sometimes the cancel culture punishments can be a bit too harsh. I think we, as an online community, are quick to ‘cancel’ people before we know the whole story.