If anyone knows me they’ll understand why cancel culture has been long overdue as a post. The last time I wrote something as researched as this it took about a day or so to write, this took me a solid 7 days and a lot of wondering if it was worth such investment.
Triggered
I was made aware of ‘Cancel Culture’ this year by a recent scandal about Maya Jama and her past tweets. Hordes of tweeters rejected her apologies, favouring calls for the BBC and Maybelline to cancel contracts with her.
My stance was torn, prominent misogynoir in these tweets was not to be brushed aside. But the tweets were dated and calling for her to lose her job would remove her from platforms where WOC rarely get space. There were countless women impacted by the words she wrote, but I began thinking SHE was bearing some extreme brunt too.
Was I allowed to feel sympathetic towards Jama? Who took it upon themselves to unearth the tweets? What purpose did this serve?
I put my opinion out there but left feeling like I was getting involved in something that had no relevance or impact on me – like I was just putting my two cents in for no reason whatsoever. I was not a black dark-skinned woman, I was not Maya Jama, so why did I feel like I could speak on the matter. Who gave me the right?
So in reaction to ALL of that, I decided I wanted to understand the murky waters of a movement of voices that charged Maya Jama with a crime punishable by removing her livelihood (melodrama is the best right?).
What is ‘Cancel Culture’
Celebrities and artists we enjoy have their every thought, private statement, past remark amplified on our screens daily. Snapchat uses tabloid articles in ‘Discover’, Twitter uses tabloids in its ‘Moments’ section.
We (the audience/fans/community) are eagle-eyed viewers of our favourite stars’ lives, in a hyper-vigilant society powered by Social.
Often pinned as one of the early uses of ‘cancelling’ – you may have heard it in a 2016 episode of Joanne the Scammer. Cancel culture is defined in many ways. One article holds a number of descriptions. The total disinvestment in something. The withdrawal from someone whose expression was once tolerated/welcome and now isn’t. A cultural boycott.
A boycott is most accurate. When someone is ‘cancelled’ they are abandoned by their community, their work or products ‘disgraced’. It is a conscious community decision to direct attention away from the culprit.
Celebrities being called out for their problematic behaviour is the most common situation. People often call for them to be dropped from various lines of work these celebrities pursue.
One Reddit forum discussing the implications of cancel culture in the beauty industry pointed out that it is not a bullying technique to simply choose another brand to buy from and support, we all have preferences anyway (the ‘diverting attention away’ technique). That is very different from calling for livelihoods to be taken away.
It’s not about who, it’s about why
The heart of the issue is not about the type of people who cancel people, it’s about the intentions of them. What is the reasoning behind it? Where does it begin? Is there a line we cannot cross? What consequences does it contribute to, if any?
Where does this power come from?
We hold celebrities, brands, and other public figures in high regard because they influence a great number of people. So, they are inevitably held highly accountable for all their actions. In this sense, they hand us the need to scrutinise them by being famous.
Another understanding of this is penned as ‘attention economy’. People whose power relies on the attention economy are vulnerable to cancellation. The people granting attention can call for them to be pushed out of the spotlight, boom goodbye career.
Peer pressure has huge driving power. You can be easily swayed when a tide of voices calls someone out. Whether you are right or wrong, it is hard to hold an opinion against it. Being seen on the right side of the argument is simpler, preferred.
What consequences does it bring about?
James Gunn, the Guardians of the Galaxy director, is currently at the centre of a pre-existing controversy. He wrote some highly offensive tweets joking about paedophilia and rape between 2008 and 2011.
These tweets had already been discovered and apologised for by Gunn when they surfaced in 2012 after he began gaining following as The Guardians of the Galaxy director. Disney had a chance to address this before the movie franchise gained momentum but didn’t. Disney fired Gunn when the tweets precipitated again.
Why would the controversy come up again and lead to a different set of actions by Disney?
Mike Cernovich restarted this campaign against Gunn’s and is labelled as an ‘”alt-right” media thug’ who dug up these ‘icky’ tweets again in ‘bad faith’, meaning he was trying to troll the guy.
The issue lies in many places here. Why did history repeat itself? How did Disney not act when it would have been easier to fire him and not make so many ripples? Why was a troll like Cernovich and the conspiracies involved in his campaign against Gunn so effective in swaying a corporation as opposed to the tweets themselves, was the public pressure alone enough to make them crumble?
Could this have been tactical ignorance of the issue when Disney was trying to launch a movie franchise?
The motives behind the people pulling these tweets out from internet history are important. Those thriving off of Schadenfreude give good faith actors* a bad name.
H&M also experienced cancel culture when it advertised a hoodie in an incredibly racially insensitive way. The racist undertones were hard to mistake but the calls for boycotts, which some celebrities followed through on such as The Weeknd cancelling his clothing relationship with the brand, amounted to violent protests in South African H&M stores led by the EFF party. And all of a sudden it had gone far too far, we backtrack, we criticise, we re-evaluate the consequences of such escalation and how it condoned violence against employees who had no input into the situation.
In the beauty world, you call for a brand/blogger to be boycotted, but in reality, this is harder to follow through. You can tweet your outrage easily, but letting go of a product used for years is a challenge. We see a superficial parrot talk culture. You’re recognised for saying the ‘right thing’ but living a different reality. We all can be whatever we want at face value.
And it is clear cancel culture is less effective in more avenues than just beauty. Johnny Depp remains working with Disney following (evidenced) 2016 abuse allegations, leading to criticism against J.K. Rowling for supporting an abuser.
A huge point here is that troubling real-life behaviour should trump inappropriate tweets at all times. But we take tweets more seriously because they’re immortalised, feel more thought out. Your mood interprets the tweet in various ways. Brushing away real crimes is easier because they’re ‘alleged’ ‘suspected’ and ‘rumoured’. How do we become judge, jury and executioner in some cases but in other cases [read sexual assault] we can’t judge the accused because we are not the law? The inconsistency is infuriating.
We either stop acting like we have the right to call for people’s heads and let actual authorities (whether the law, brands, corporations etc.) take responsibility. Or we acknowledge we can take power over any situation and allow no deviations.
Woody Allen still works in Hollywood, too many artists – Nas, Chris Brown, R Kelly – still ride their musical success. All despite opportunities for management to hear the calls from the public to ‘cancel’ them because of their behaviour.
In these cases, people are absolutely wasting their voices shouting cancel. People (read: sexual abusers) who really need to be removed from our radios, TVs, and cinema screens maintain power. Real violence against women happening now needs reams of evidence to back up the victim. But you will be fired by 10-year-old tweets. Disney’s hypocrisy is quite intense.
But where has it worked?
One hallmark of a successful cancel campaign is lower profits for the associated brand. Sometimes it is the fact this culture has provided business people with an awareness that public pressure can be detrimental to a brand, for example, very recent tweets by Elon Musk about one of the rescuers from the Thai cave incident being a paedophile led to a 3.01% drop in Tesla shares.
When Roseanna Barr released some incredible racially hateful comments on twitter Disney-owned ABC dropped her sitcom. Nice to know Disney likes to react to tweets over serious abuse allegations once again.
More directly linked to a movement of people calling for change was the ‘hashtag activism’ of the #OscarsSoWhite movement. This is something I prefer. It’s productive and less ‘pitchfork mob’-like. Founded in 2015, the hashtag criticised at the lack of diversity in Academy Awards nominations. It forced the Academy to take steps to raise diversity in membership and the actors/films they recognised.
Problematic Faves
Kanye West could be one of the single best definitions of a ‘problematic fave’. His comments about slavery being a choice did not stop his 8th studio album from topping charts around the world. He is hard to watch because he commits many problematic acts and yet as we watch him throw his own culture away with ludicrous comments his music is still listened to, still works with Adidas, he still sells more in the face of public outrage. This segues very neatly into my last point- a relevant one, considering my interests in marketing…
How are brands profiting from this?
Outrage marketing
What is the common factor for everything mentioned above?
It propels names into the public eye. Whether it’s Twitter Moments, tabloid articles, publications, or viral hashtags. Controversy boosts a brand name. No publicity is bad publicity.
An article suggests that problematic campaigns actually aim to upset specific demographics to advertise effectively off the wave of outrage following it. They note that the following steps:
- A badly thought out divisive campaign.
- Public outrage spreads the campaign around.
- The company releases an apology blaming ignorance. The public gives the company leeway to go about its business again along with increased ‘clout’.
Examples of this can be seen in campaigns by Pepsi and Doritos, the Yeezy casting call, but also more positive messages that rile right-wing commentators such as Budweiser, Coke, and Audi.
Moving forward
We ought to form our own honest opinions and support people how we want to without looking for gaining following. For this reason, Twitter is becoming a place very different to what it was maybe even 3 years ago.
One guy points out that calling out a person you once admired for their past mistakes says that you can change your opinion over time. Therefore, it is ridiculous that we judge them for the exact same thing.
A writer notes we should educate as a priority to ensure people cannot feign ignorance over issues that are inherently problematic. Another woman also follows this line of argument for the future. Punishment is not justice, in a wider sense we should believe in the ‘possibility of change, both personally and structurally’.
We’re putting our feelings before those impacted by the situation. Do I, a light-skinned South Asian, have the right to be hurt by Maya Jama’s comments about dark-skinned black girls? By speaking FOR people directly affected, do we take away from the issue at hand? And does this mentality allow keyboard warriors, who have no interest in the issue, to create a controversy for entertainment?
Comment, like, share. Most importantly tell me what your take is!
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