Cancel Culture: A Toxic Era
In the depths of Twitter, people from all over the world take people’s actions and hold them against them—especially if they did something wrong. Cancel culture has grown into a media mass that destroys lives left and right. Deserving or not, the internet has canceled people into losing their livelihoods because of drama and past choices that are dug up and used at full force. It’s time to acknowledge the toxicity behind it.
Not only have celebrities such as Vanessa Hudgens, Ellen Degeneres, and Jimmy Falon, all been hit with the iron nail of cancel culture, but internet sensations too, like Shane Dawson. Canceling someone wasn’t always bad, because at first it was about calling celebrities out on their awful comments or gross actions; they’d apologize and we’d all move on. Now, after the apology, we attack them still and say their actions are unforgivable. We can’t let anything in the past be left in the past.
For example, in 2000, Jimmy Falon did a skit imitating Chris Rock, where he darkened his skin to portray the African-American rapper. When the clip resurfaced, he was accused of doing “blackface,” which is the practice of wearing makeup or paint to imitate the appearance of a black person. Rock himself spoke out, saying that he wasn’t offended and thought it was a bad comedy, but Falon didn’t have any racist intent. Falon apologized and Rock said it was okay and forgave him, so why can’t the internet let it go?
As humans in this generation grow, we learn to hold deep grudges. Why? Nobody really knows, but they can be held against anyone, especially celebrities and strangers. This is mostly because we have only what we first see to read and assess, so we’re quick to make judgment, like in the case of Shane Dawson. A video of Dawson surfaced recently of him from more than ten year ago using insulting humor against another celebrity, Willow Smith, who was a minor at the time. Dawson has apologized, numerous times over almost every social media platform, but still got “canceled” by Twitter. Was he disgusting and disrespectful to Willow and her family? Absolutely. But actions from over a decade ago shouldn’t be held against anybody, especially after a noticeable change in them over time.
But there are examples like Ellen Degeneres and Vanessa Hudgens, who have very recently been “canceled” because of scandals. Hudgens went live on Instagram and said people will die from COVID-19 regardless, because of frustration over Coachella’s cancellation due to the pandemic. Ellen was called out after several employees (former and current) spoke out about their mistreatment during their time working with Degeneres. These are understandable cancelations, considering how recent the actions are.
Hopefully, this era of cancel culture will come to an end as people realize there are questionable things humans do for a laugh or a joke. While unacceptable now, things that happened several years ago should be allowed to die, especially after numerous apologies have been made. As the future generation, we should be able to learn to forgive, understanding humans make mistakes. It’s okay to call someone out on actions, but cancel culture ruins lives.