Cancel culture vs creators

[Shanny8]

First things first- if "cancel culture" were effective, there would be a long list of people affected by it; given the fact that you have creators who are still making a decent living afterwards pretty much says "cancel culture" isn't as effective as it is blown up to be...and if there are any creators who have been affected by it, chances are they may have deserved it.

General rule of thumb- don't be a dick. A lot of folks getting called out have engaged in racist/sexist/homophobic antics and for whatever reasons just don't handle the situation well(or double down on their stance)...an apology can go a long way(provided the individuals don't have a documented history of re-engaging in the same antics that got them called out in the first place).

I really feel like the definition for someone being "cancelled" is now used as a fear-mongering tactic by individuals who don't want to accept responsibility for their actions.

[VibrantFox]

I really feel like the definition for someone being "cancelled" is now used as a fear-mongering tactic by individuals who don't want to accept responsibility for their actions.

this sentiment specifically is something i really wish would bear more permanence in people's mind because the focus is put on concerns about being called out for certain actions rather than having the foresight to consider potential consequences of said actions

like if you think it might be bad or you know that it's bad don't do it otherwise be prepared to deal with it down the line. even more so it's one of the reasons why folks point out the importance of doing research when touching on specific topics and engaging with folks from certain communities when talking about things regarding them to avoid certain missteps and mistake and even if the situation is more on folks misinterpreting something it's better to apologize for things being missed or overlooked rather than coming out with some kind of bs excuse or deflecting

[rajillustration]

I think there's a difference between "cancelling" and "calling out." What we usually see is Call-Out Culture. Call-Out Culture thrives on negative engagement, they get lots of money when they make a Call-Out video, and they make up BS all the time in order to keep the wheel of rage moving, and that is quite bad. It's very different from Cancelling which was done to protect the black community originally. Call-Out Culture is often...with the intention of getting views on your call-out videos, lets be real. They don't care if it's exaggerated, and they don't care if they make a mob. They want the views.

Like the other day I saw this fashion influencer chick who liked a image of a trump rally by accident on instagram. People saw that and were really upset--thing is, the person who liked the image is an openly lesbian liberal. It could not more clearly be an accident because you know when you're scrolling on your phone and you see an image, you might tap it as you continue to scroll. Yet, people were so outraged, that she decided to make a 30 minute long teary eyed apology video to the entire black community (who, in the comments were like wtf are you talking about woman), burnt the bridge between her and her long time friends who were trying to get her to shut up, and if anyone said "this is insane" they were told they were being racist and had to shut up. The situation exploded in everyone's face who tried to even approach it.

Stuff like that is clearly call-out culture, which is very different, and the way to address it is to not address it. The internet can make it seem like ridiculous statements are legitimate, since all are delivered on the same platform. If you give it credence, even to say "this isn't true" then you've acknowledged that this has been a problem and you've given them ammunition to start their attack. Like there comes a point where your fans and readers need to use their damn brains and see what is probably not real.

But as far as being cancelled because you did something hella racist, that's why prevention is the best policy. Do your research so you can cite your research basically. There may be people that are mad because you may be writing something that isn't exactly about your race or identity and you have to let them talk about it. You don't have to read their articles, you don't have to acknowledge them, but yes, you have to let them discuss it.

Like the whole thing that went down with Critical Role--the person who was criticizing them was writing an opinion piece. They had no real solution to what Critical Role could do differently, they just wanted to share an opinion that they knew would get a lot of views, and it was a spicy opinion they may have deep feelings about. It was such a hot take that Critical Role doesn't even have to address it. They were not really "cancelled" so much as Called Out, and I don't think that the even author of the article against Critical Role deserved the amount of backlash they got because it's just an opinion piece on Kotaku. Sometimes you have to let your fans decide for themselves what they want to think.

[river121693]

I have a problem with using transgressiveness to excuse the harmful outcome (people sayin comedians should be able to say whatever they want for example). If your work is harmful and called out by a marginalized group (as opposed to dominant people doing it on badfaith) then it's time to take a step back and hold yourself accountable. It's definitely not black and white, but creators should always be aware of, and acknowledge the harm of their work in order to grow. Artist, after all, should uplift, not put down others.

I do agree that calling in can be a more productive way of addressing a problematic individual in your community. The issue is that sometimes problematic individuals are rich and powerful, and can just ignore you and not face any consequences. Calling out is often the only way for "victims" to bring attention to the harm.

[UrMom]

Most of the time the people who make transgressive works are marginalized, working from their own perspective, and most of the time they're survivors or victims themselves trying to cope with their trauma via fiction and art. Like, there are legit studies I can show you that people with mental illnesses and trauma can use art and fiction to deal with that stuff, and it being an alright thing to do. Yeah, that kind of work can be harmful if it's not properly tagged with warnings and such, which many people do and still get crap for it. If the artist/writer is doing what they can to deter people who aren't their target audience, it is up to the other party to take their viewing experience into their own hands. There is a lot of greyness to the existence of transgressive work, it shouldn't be censored because it can potentially harm someone. You may as well get rid of horror, anything that deals with dark topics and all violence in fiction/games at that point because there have been cases of the consumption of those things doing harm.
Saying "Artist, after all, should uplift, not put down others." should work on both ends, you shouldn't treat someone like garbage for what they make, a person should be judged on how they treat other people. What you make =/= how you treat others.

It's like the fiction affecting reality thing. Yeah, it does, but it's not as B&W as everyone likes to make it out to be. There is nuance in how it affects people, who is affect, how many and what era they're in. Just because a piece of fiction may hurt one group doesn't mean everyone is affected the same way but it, also saying it's okay to sanitize some fiction just because it can potentially harm someone can lead to it being okay to sanitize all fiction. Which is way more harmful.

Well yeah, I agree with that, but most of the time they're indie folks who are easy targets. It's not alright to apply the same tactics used on people in power for folks who have no power, and whose lives and mental health can be affected by it.

[river121693]

if that's why you make your work, and it's properly tagged and explained, I dont think most people have an issue with it. It's part of uplifting yourself, and I make works like that myself. But those are not at all the works I'm talking about, nor the typical works being called out.

[TAMAnnoying]

As a small time creator I would simply reap the benefits of the free WoM

Cancel culture only hurts the people who are so trusting of the internet/humans to put their information out there and harmful to the mentally Ill/ already traumatized and abused victims.

People like JK rolling and James Charles only benifits from this shit

Learn what publicity is

[fsarbolaez]

Hair gummy vitamin YouTube drama? Never heard of it. What happened with that?

[NickRowler]

Some beauty YouTuber was trying to sell some sketchy gummy hair vitamins. Her and another beauty YouTuber (who later was exposed as being really racist) teamed up to throw an obnoxious teenager under the bus and build some narrative that would cause him to be cancelled. These freakin adults didn't like how the teen was so popular, so they did all these call outs because the teen was promoting a competing hair vitamin. The woman made all these fake apology videos acting like she was the victim and viewers fell for it. Shane Dawson was also involved, which makes the whole situation even more yikes.

[UrMom]

Oh trust me, I hang out in that community on social media, a lot of people do have an issue with these creators. It's enough of a problem there are posts almost every week about trauma survivors getting shit for their art/stories, doesn't help that many of them create adult content for a living and are slowly being pushed off the internet on top of puritans calling them horrible people for their creations. It doesn't matter if you don't feel they're the same, they get treated the exact same way, and in the end the statement that you should treat people based on how they treat others still applies. What you create, unless it's literal propaganda, shouldn't matter because people are more complicated than that. Even if they aren't a survivor or marginalized, no one deserves to be treated like garbage unless they're massively treating others like garbage.

To clarify, I'm not equating critiquing someone's work or actions with treating someone like crap, I'm specifically talking about dogpiling and threatening someone, and/or going out of your way to treat them badly purely for creating transgressive work regardless of who they are as a person. If you think that's okay to do that's messed up, even if they don't take the proper criticism that isn't bad enough to warrant going for their throats, unless they're an absolute terrible person.

Edit: @NickRowler Wow, I think I actually saw that! The whole thing was wild, had me questioning whether those people were really adults because they were acting like babies. Kinda reminded me of this influencer who had her own make-up line, it came out that her lipsticks were dangerous, tons of reviews came out showing mold, hair and metal shards in the lipstick, along with pictures of people with infections due to the make-up. I don't remember all of it but I think she doubled down for a bit before giving up and recalling everything, with her career thoroughly tarnished.
The beauty community is something else, man.

[powerplantanimations]

All I'm going to say is forgiveness triumphs lol (saying this as a POC and someone with a mental illness).

[TAMAnnoying]

Forgive, just don’t forget

[powerplantanimations]

Hell yeh brother. Hell yeh.

WE GOT TO HOLD ON. TO WHAT WE GOT. IT DOESN'T MAKE A DIFFERENCE IF WE MAKE IT OR NOT. WE'VE GOT EACH OTHER AND THAT'S A LOT FOR LOVE.

[amortelito]

Cancel culture disgusts me. This nonsense argument that this it's "accountability culture" is just a way to justify bullying in massive scale.

Sure, people can have an opinion if you do something wrong. They can stop watching, they can comment on the issue and criticize, get down harmful or false information that's fair. I'm against the harassment and demanding apologies or bullying people to be "accountable". Who is taking YOUR accountability? This culture just empowers the idea that random strangers on the internet are more important than us and our own actions. We are in no position to "fix" people on a personal level.

If something is a CRIME it should be prosecuted. Twitter is not s tribunal.

If it happened to me I would either ignore or delete my presence, I hate that crap

[powerplantanimations]

Ngl I was struggling to write a post earlier but I didn't even bother, but I just wanted to let you know because you nailed it on the effen head.

[AmazementComics]

Cancel culture from what I’ve seen is a method instigators used to to diminish the reputation of of public figures or brands that have a platform. Unfortunately, too often, the inflammatory remarks of one person can spread like wildfire which mostly results in said brand being tarnished.

I’ll give an example, and this happened here on the forums by the way. One person, let’s call them “X” tried to oust me for a comment I made about 2 years. I’ll admit that I was naive about the underlying nature of the comment I posted and I was contacted by a forums moderator about the situation, and understood my wrongdoing. It was a swift and peaceful settlement and I have learned my lesson from that issue henceforth. I then come to find out that 3 months after the whole debacle, this person named X told me off to some other creators who I was in the middle of playing a Roleplaying game with in private. The owner of said RP reached out to me about what X told them, and I might get voted of the RP due to the repercussions of what was stated. I explained my case to the owner privately and when it came time to iron out this issue with X face to face with the owner demanding us to find common ground, X decided he was better off excusing himself from the RP in an attempt to escape the issue THEY caused all because he didn’t want to face backlash from me. So the both of us ended up leaving the RP to avoid further conflict.

The reason I bring this up is because that in of itself is my firsthand experience delving into the muddy waters of “cancel culture”. Sometimes, when people are ostracized on social platforms, people who were support of the brand they subscribed to end up leaving due to misinformation. Is it more appropriate to be “the bigger person” in such as case and keep the ball rolling? Sure. However I would argue that by simply ignoring trolls who seek to ruin your reputation for an incident that happened way off in the past (especially when you acknowledge and learn why scrutiny was there in the first place) you have to be aggressive with said trolls because in the off chance that they try to make you lose followers or find a reason to hate on you, you have every right to stand your ground against those who may prove to be an obstacle to your success.

[masi]

Like I know cancel culture is being demonized by certain group as this fearful thing the left does, and it’s mostly not true. But I just cannot help but when people hungry for drama used it to create brownie points for themselves. And twitter is very toxic place with very limited room for nuance. Cancel culture is a tool, and just like every other tool it can be used to do its function properly, or people would do it badly, and harmfully. Like, the level of outrage these people throwing against people who in real life would agree with atleast 95% of their position in politics is just mindblowing. It’s not like they murder someone or rape someone or start an unjustified invasion/war. Get a grip people.

[TheLemmaLlama]

I don't know what the empirical facts are with respect to what percentage of 'cancelling' incidents were harmful towards a relatively innocent person vs helpful by calling out a genuinely harmful person, but I do feel the need to say this:

It's dumb to expect an immediate AND genuine apology from the 'transgressor'. If you push someone to respond immediately, how tf do you expect them to understand what they've done wrong? Genuine remorse comes with time and self-reflection, something we stupidly don't allow others to have whether or not it's a 'cancel culture' situation. It just really grinds my gears when people are like APOLOGISE NOW, and then when they do apologise, they're like WHAT A NON-APOLOGY, NOT GENUINE AT ALL. Like, what did you expect? If you don't want someone to throw out a non-apology to cover their ass, let them apologise when they've actually had time to reflect on their actions

[GumshoeComix]

I'd probably make my bf deal with it haha
I've been terminally online since 2009 there's a good chance I've said something stupid within those 10+ years but I was a teenager then, and a lot of people can't seem to wrap that around their head.
Even so, I'm not in a good headspace, I have to go to therapy 2-3 times a week and I have neurological issues that make my cognitive functioning lower than your typical person. So it takes me a while to make a cohesive sentence.
Plus with the content of my story being about CSA and childhood trauma, it's bound to make someone upset, even with the disclaimers and age warnings, some people ignore them and choose to be upset and angry.
So unless it was constructive criticism, I really would just dip for a while and let my bf handle it.
I hardly use my social media anymore anyway cause people always wanted to argue with me °~° it's not worth it.

[Zhengo]

"Cancel Culture" is mostly a buzzword these days for whenever a creator even receives the most minor of criticisms, but I can't imagine anything I've seen from people who've participated in actively cancelling someone as healthy or even a form of social justice.

As a POC (and woman), I don't get the notion of how "cancel culture" is somehow empowering for POC to make white creators accountable when numerous POC and women have fallen victim to being "cancelled" from the slightest transgressions, sometimes much more easily so than their white male counterparts. Plenty of people use the moral high ground of "cancelling" as an excuse to harass women and POC when they're really just sexist/racist.

If you want to call out or criticize someone, want to hold someone "accountable", write your piece to let others know, unfollow them, and be done with it. There's a different between criticizing someone and looking for an excuse to bully