“Cancel culture” is a term that describes a movement of social justice that has become very popular as of recently on the Internet. It has become so prevalent these days that even celebrities are guilty of being canceled. Everyone has the right to feel safe while they’re online, but several recent news stories indicate that many social media users seem to be unaware of what really constitutes online harassment. This article will reflect about what you need to know and what you can do about the trend that negatively affects many people and communities.
Traditionally, Cancel Culture has been largely led by Social Media personalities. Nowadays, even some college students feel uncomfortable with Cancel Culture when classmates preemptively strike others from social activities — and say they’re familiar with the pressures of feeling like they need to cancel someone else or cancel on someone.
Cancel Culture is not harmless and it points to double standards. Many are now afraid to speak up or share an opinion because they are afraid of being ridiculed or being labeled problematic, offensive, or hurtful.
Are we setting a Double Standard in “Cancel Culture”?
We are mostly dealing with cancel culture a lot these days as Social Media plays an important role in daily life. Trend of the rising content creation from social influencers persuade most of the youths to follow the path as bloggers. Television personalities also interact with their fellow fans through social media and gaining interactions from the public raise their popularity more than ever. Together with the emerging social media, repercussions happened around people over social media. Celebrities become a source of susceptible. The major thing is the public set a double standard on celebrities, the entertainment industry, social influencers and even the general public. Public figures end up uploading endless apologies if they get canceled by public and suffers from consequences.
Mere one comment, one post or one accusation from unknown people could cost someone's life because of cancel culture. Nowadays, people would like to see all the best things from their favorite and forget that they are also human which can make mistakes in their lives. A public backlash can create all the chaos for someone who uses social media. People tend to believe some accusations towards celebrities without knowing the two sides of the stories and cancel someone based on their emotions.
Are we accountable for public shaming?
“On Twitter, we make our own decisions about who deserves obliteration. We form our own consensus, and we aren’t being influenced by the criminal justice system or the media.”, a quote from a book called “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed" written by the British Journalist Jon Ronson.
Freedom of speech is also impacted by the rise of cancel culture. Even the general public feel unsafe and hesitate to post controversial things which could expose their beliefs and rights in social media. Public shaming game becomes so strong. According to the FLI Insider Survey, people feel pressured and hesitant to express their beliefs because of the backlash of cancel culture.
One question is whether people who easily judge others are accountable or not. Many outrageous things pop up in our feeds frequently while scrolling. When we witness those things, we instantly make conclusions and add fuel to existing problems by debating with anonymous people online and posting offensive comments. Instead of spreading positive things, people tend to fall in the trap of negative posts. Even criminals who commit harmful things are sentenced to a specific amount of time and after that they could make a new life if they reflect on their mistake enough and tend to become a good person in society. For cancel culture, a wrongful thing of a particular person always comes up while searching his name through the internet and it could badly influence one's life. Internet people gang up on someone they barely know and creating unthoughtful content might lead to much damage in the long run.
Cancel “Cancel Culture”
There are a lot of people out therewho deserve to cancel culture because of their guilty behaviors. Likewise, some people deserve a second chance to become a better human being. As Asian society is known for being conservative and competitive, one who encounters such cancel culture faces challenges to be resilient in a certain time. To become a good person and good celebrity in Asian culture, a person must be an all-rounder. While western culture appreciates people by their efforts and outcomes regardless of their traits. Thus Asian people found themselves surviving with more challenges than western people. According to research, East Asian suicide ratesare higher than Western rates.
As an example, celebrities in South Korea commit suicide because of public shaming issues, depression and cyber-bullying. This is the alert of why we should implement 'Cancel “cancel culture”" in internet culture. Perfectionism should not be an essential trait in humans anymore. We all should adopt an appropriate judgment upon each other to make the world a better place.
How to be a good ally in 'Cancel Culture'
According to Teal Swan, Cancel culture is notactually about justice. It is about control. People use cancellation to force conformity to ideals." It's time to call out cancel culture's intentional blind spots. We all could be good allies in the age of “Cancel Culture” by judging someone upon reliable resources and accepting some mistakes as a human being.
We can call in someone instead of calling out by a handful of tactics from ETTOT.
People should not feel fear because of their dark past which they could not turn back time and redo it. We should create a better online community and make constructive content through our timeline. People who get canceled from the internet should also embrace the criticism and take a break sometime to reflect on wrongdoings in their lives, accept to face reality and learn to rebirth as a good ally to contribute to become a better society.