Cancel What? Culture? Oh, Cancel Culture
Cancel Culture. What is it? Who can get involved? Where did it come from? Just a few of the many questions that come to mind when you think of the term. It can be confusing, but putting it into context can make the whole thing a lot easier to understand, and understanding it will allow you to acknowledge why it is happening.
Studiers of Cancel Culture can trace the term back to “Black Twitter”. If you are unfamiliar with the term Black Twitter, it is defined by Donovan Ramsey as “The term is used to describe a large network of black Twitter users and their loosely coordinated interactions, many of which accumulate into trending topics due to the network’s size, interconnectedness, and unique activity.” Basically, it is a subculture within the social media platform Twitter. The term “canceled” developed a new meaning from users of this subTwitter jokingly talking about people, or products that disappointed them, made an out of color joke, or didn’t work properly. From there the term eventually found its way to the mainstream media, and Cancel Culture became a rising trend throughout many different topics, professions and cultures. What I mean by this is that cancelling is not just used for well-known celebrities or athletes, everyday people have been exposed and fallen victim to cancelling. How is this possible? According to Jonah Bromwich, A Domestic Correspondent at the New York Times, Cancel Culture is so hot and possible now because of the easy access every day users have to discussions and issues on Twitter and other social platforms. People are able to come together, or apart to speak their piece about any topic, and if a group of users can get enough people together they can be the cause of the cancelling of somebody’s reputation.
If you pay attention to news within your favorite hobbies or activities then I would guess that you have seen someone from that culture experience the fate of being cancelled. One culture I have been a part of for the greater part of the last decade of my life has been skateboarding. In the last year or so I have seen a number of pro skateboarders go from popularity, having pro boards and shoes to being “exposed” for a negative action or comment and then vanishing from the skating industry. Five years ago, this would have never happened. Why? A couple of reasons. First; skating has always been known for the characters who party, drink, smoke and break the rules. For a long time this was one of the coolest things for a lot of kids to see in the videos that companies would produce, wanting to live and party like their idols. Well, in recent years skating has seen a huge progression in its popularity, and this is something that I personally have lived through and seen the changes happen. As more people begin to enjoy skating, and begin to partake in the culture of it has become more mainstream, and platforms like Instagram and Twitter have led to a decrease in the ability of what these pro skaters can get away with. Another reason the industry has seen these cultures is because these platforms allow people to speak out about their experiences. Many of the skaters that have faced cancellation have been exposed about their actions from years before. A lot of them have since changed their opinions and lifestyles, but if we look at examples of cancelations we can see that there is no time constraint when it comes to callouts. Victims from the past are beginning to speak up about what has happened to them, and like a domino effect, it allows for more and more victims to come out with their experiences. Having a space for people to speak up about pro skaters, musicians, celebrities has led to many victims of negative actions to have a comfortable place to tell their stories.
