Cancel Culture: Pseudo-Morality Hiding Behind the Thin Veil of Progressiveness

This essay was written by Crescencia, 1st winner of the annual ESPRESSO discussion event’s essay competition.

History of the Cancel Culture

To understand the complexity of cancel culture as an internet phenomenon, we must first dissect the history that serves as the very foundation of the social movement itself. Cancel culture plants its roots in the history of boycott as a mechanism to catalyze change during the civil rights movement. The purpose of these boycotts was to gather every individual’s voice to establish a collective effort against the oppressive establishment. Take, for example, The Montgomery Bus Boycott proposed by Martin Luther King resulted in a ruling by the federal court which stated that the segregation laws in buses were unconstitutional, with The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately agreeing¹Bond-Nelms, C., 2018. Key Events During The Civil Rights Movement. [online] AARP. Available at:<https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/history/info-2018/civil-rights-events-fd.html#quest1>. Even without the intention of toppling down a certain establishment, boycotting was a choice that individuals made to exercise their rights of expression; to simply stop engaging with a figure of authority that dehumanized them. It gave importance to the lone marginalized voice, saying that they matter.

This historical nuance made its way to social media, which was already heavily influenced by black pop culture²Luckie, M., 2016. How Black People Built Social Media. [online] Huffpost.com. Available at:<https://www.huffpost.com/entry/how-black-people-built-social-media_b_58139254e4b08301d33e08dc>. The use of AAVE, specifically the term “canceling” became popularized in mainstream media and was then unconsciously co-opted by non-black users³Luu, C., 2020. Black English Matters | JSTOR Daily. [online] JSTOR Daily. Available at:<https://daily.jstor.org/black-english-matters/>.. Simultaneously, the rise of social media led to increased social activism happening throughout social media sites⁴Shirky, C. 2011. The political power of social media: Technology, the public sphere, and political change. Foreign Affairs, 90(1), 28–41. Social media activists try to mimic their predecessors’ grassroots movements on a digital scale, which was also how pop culture facilitated society’s thirst for calling people out.

Call-out culture is distinct from cancel culture in a way that still enables the possibility of the criticized to atone for their social media sins. It has always been a mechanism to openly criticize a public figure with a certain amount of social power as a means of counterbalance for attacking marginalized people. Cancel culture and call-out culture became interchangeable, with the masses being unable to distinguish between the two.

When Criticizing Becomes Canceling

When people talk about the negative aspects of cancel culture, they would often say that it harms the entity called ‘freedom of speech.’ However, the thought process behind canceling someone extends beyond that. This phenomenon can be explained by a single word, schadenfreude, the pleasure felt at someone else’s misfortune⁵Smith, R., Powell, C., Combs, D., and Schurtz, R., 2009. Exploring The When And Why Of Schadenfreude. [online] Gruberpeplab.com. Available at:<http://www.gruberpeplab.com/teaching/psych3131_spring2015/documents/6.1_Smith2009_ExploringWh enAndWhyOfSchadenfreude.pdf> [Accessed 15 November 2020].. This malicious side of human nature, driven by jealousy, craves for other people’s misery. In the waves of social media, one person’s story can easily be twisted into another. This, coupled with the spirit of social media activists to demonize the villain, shifts the presumption of guilt onto the accused, with absolutely no chance for them to explain themselves. In that process, social media spectators will lose all the fine details and fall into the trap of abstraction. They then try to connect one dot with the other, which leads to essentialism. This concept is apparent in the case of James Charles, where Tati’s words of him “trying to trick men into thinking they’re gay” became distorted in a way that social media spectators now perceive him as a sexual predator. Apologies were neither warranted for James nor other public figures who fall into the same trap because these apologies are seen as manipulative attempts to save their reputation⁶Ng, E., 2020. No Grand Pronouncements Here…: Reflections On Cancel Culture And Digital Media Participation – Eve Ng, 2020. [online] SAGE Journals. Available at:<https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1527476420918828>..

The morality of a person can be questionable and sometimes subjective; there is no physical attribute that expresses the morality of a person. This manifests into a “holier-than-thou” attitude where they collectively rally against the person perceived as immoral. By doing so, they gain fulfillment from the validation coming from their community. which they hope will praise them for their immaculate set of morals that are now visible for everyone to see. Canceling now serves as ego-fulfillment for these types of pseudo-moralists⁷Kay, W., 1974. Morality and Social Class. Journal of Moral Education, 3(2), pp.185-187..

When canceling became the new norm, it shifted the standard from criticizing people who profit from discriminating against others to canceling public figures who show any cue of moral transgression. This harms marginalized communities the most because they can get kicked out just by stating something vaguely problematic⁸Romano, A., 2020. Why We Can’T Stop Fighting About Cancel Culture. [online] Vox. Available at:<https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/12/30/20879720/what-is-cancel-culture-explained- history-debate>.

The movement started by calling out the likes of Harvey Weinstein and R. Kelly based on sexual harassment, to calling out Jenna Marbles for seemingly using blackface seven years prior. These people use the shield of political correctness to veil their malicious intent of relishing on other people’s downfalls. They marvel at their purity and see themselves as the protectors of this type of moral purity. They denounce any possible change because they don’t want these people to regain their status in society.

Final Verdict

Cancel culture changes the narrative, that openly criticizing a person is now justified, which creates a counter-movement where anti-liberals fill in the heads of the unconvinced, convincing them that all social media activists are unaccepting. It delegitimizes the concept of constructive criticism. This ultimately derails the social movement these people so proudly stand for. Marginalized people no longer have a counterbalance for problematic public figures because defensive fans will question their intentions.

What people need to realize is that simply criticizing a public figure online does not constitute canceling them. Criticism means people understand that no one is perfect; criticism embraces and hopes for the possibility of change. It promotes understanding instead of escalation, collectiveness instead of division. Society will always have a say on whether cancel culture is good or not, but it will still persevere as a part of social media.

Editor: M Daffa Nurfauzan, A P Islamilenia

Illustrator: M Daffa Nurfauzan