Cancel Culture, a term that is often thrown around without a second thought. It’s happened time and time again, and it all instances result in someone’s livelihood been destroyed justly or unjustly. When you ask someone about what they think of this phenomenon that is cancel culture, you’ll get a polarizing response. It’s not unanimous, and that’s the biggest problem with it. It gives this surreal amount of power to a mass of irresponsible flock, and it all starts with one Shepherd making the call.
I’m sure that if you’ve spent enough time on the internet, you’d have heard social media buzz about someone being cancelled. Hashtags would trend and people would act like executioners, dealing out sentences before any concrete facts or reliable information has been presented. In some instances, they can be justified once sufficient evidence and irrefutable facts has surfaced. Most of the time however, that’s not the case. What tends to happen is, one person says something online, and if it catches enough traction or if the person has enough influence, spirals into a snowball of catastrophic magnitude for whoever it’s about. Rumors and he say, she say turns in facts, and people will find you guilty before you’re even aware of whats going on. And if you’re someone who’s building a business and have business partners, that all can be taken away from you in a matter of days.
From an average guy to and entity such as media outlets, news, YouTube and social media. It can start from any of these outputs and generate a whirlpool of confusion and lies.
And by the time you’ve proven you’re innocence, it’s too late! The damage has already been done and life’s have been destroyed. People involved will just move on and the person that was the target of the cancel culture is left standing in the ruins of everything he/she has worked so hard to build. No compensation, no apology. This is a massive problem, a problem that needs to faced and addressed head on. So how do we deal with this type of behavior? Well, it’s not that easy.
Some of the common reasons for why cancel cultures begin stems from what’s discussed. Rape, Sexual assault, or anything of this level of sensitivity are often the core reasons of what gets everyone wanting to end someone’s life. It’s emotional driven, and because of that, logic and reasoning are often thrown out of the window in favour of believing the victim first. We live in a time where we don’t ask questions or demand some level of prove. We just believe what is being said and react emotionally. This has huge ramifications that people often times don’t seem to realise. The intentions are pure but the action that follows isn’t.
Second reason, stems from someone wanting to destroy someone for the sake of…well destruction. They’ll use either one of the above mentioned scenarios and/or will fabricate lies in order to do as much damage as possible to another person. Like I mentioned, without demanding for prove, this can lead to some huge problems. And when you add Youtube channels who report on these things without the full context, all for an effort to make a quick buck or reap the growth if gives their channel, then you have a recipe for disaster.
And lastly, responsibility! People these days can say whatever they want online thank to the anonymity some platform gives them. If shit goes wrong, they can just delete their platform and disappear for a bit. There’s no repercussion for their actions and that leads to a lot of people acting the way they do online. The only way to combat this poison is to ask question and wait. Then punish all those that had a hand in spreading false allegations, defamation and slander.
No really, when you wait for both parties (it’s usually the case that these things involve two people or more) to present their cases, that’s when judgement should be made. You have to ask the person making these claims to provide proof to their claims. It’s common sense that seems to be lost on too many people. If I went online and claimed X stole something, the burden is on me to prove that X stole that item by providing evidence or sort to back up my claim. A simple concept that can change the course of dialogue dramatically. If we let this continue on, it’s only a matter of time before someone who may have been innocent, takes their life due to this.
Making hashtags to cancel “cancel culture” does nothing, only by thinking in a more logical manner while demanding prove and evidence can we effectively combat what is otherwise a destructive behavior. I get that social media are the only place were we can hold public figures accountable, however these days, it’s getting hellishly abused to the point that it’s beginning to nullify the once just effect. Some are deserved, while others are not. We need to start using the internet more responsible.
