Am I? I personally haven't met a single left-leaning adult who doesn't think Twitter's "cancel culture" has gotten out of hand. However, I've never lived in the bay area, where I understand things may be different.
Can you say anything to demonstrate to me that it really is more than just a vocal minority of people?
Perhaps we have different definitions of "cancel culture"? I don't consider the fall of e.g. Louis C.K. to be an example of cancel culture, but rather a clear-cut case of someone in a position of authority abusing their power, and rightfully losing public support for it. I do think the master vs main issue is silly, though. I'm not sure where you draw draw the line between "cancel culture" and "social consequences for toxic / abusive behavior in public".
People on the right participate in cancel culture all the time. It is truly deafening to hear them complain about things they do from their pulpits at FOX, Congress, and Senate.
Anyone who watched TV in the late 90s and early 2000s should be very familiar with how right-wing[0] cancel culture works thanks to organizations like the AFA.
“cancel culture” isn't an actual thing, it's just the new term the Right has come up with for replace “political correctness” to make, almost word for word, the exact same complaints they've been making since the 1980s about the left doing...exactly the same thing the right has always done as much as it can get away with to everyone who publicly disagrees with them.
edit: I've re-read your comment, and I'm no longer sure which "side" of this you fall on, I think my point stands alone anyway, so I'll leave it:
You've not met me, but I'm a left-leaning individual who thinks the drama about "cancel culture" is mostly invented.
There's lots of people doing crappy thing on the internet generally and on twitter in particular.
In a world where you can get anonymous death threats for pretty much any reason, I've not seen any evidence that "the left" or "cancel culture" is an actual problem in this regard beyond the baseline of people being nasty when anonymous.
I have seen people, often on both sides of the same issue, point to unpleasant people on the other side and make some kind of argument that "those people" are all crazy. Some of the individual stories are horrifying but I've never found any of them convincing at the level of settling the argument (whichever argument it is invoke in). It's just used as a way to circle the wagons against the other side.
Indeed. My point is that "cancel culture" is a problem on Twitter, since Twitter intentionally amplifies the voices of the people who participate. So, "cancel culture" on Twitter is not representative of how real people on "the left" (or "the right") feel about current events.
For instance the vast majority of working professionals I know don't get themselves regularly involved in political arguments on Twitter, since they see it as unproductive.
So it is simultaneously true that:
* cancel culture is "a thing" on Twitter, in the sense that it's easy to find examples
* cancel culture "doesn't exist", in the sense that no one you are likely to encounter in real life is ok with cancelling people for tweets they made as a teenager
The argument "I haven't met a single..." is equally as strong as an unqualified "You are misinformed.", which I was responding to. Note that I asked for clarification :)
Since I have you here, would you mind elaborating a bit more about your stance on "cancel culture"? I'll also elaborate a bit more on my stance.
I think most people would agree that mobs by definition have no united agenda. It's a bunch of disorganized people with their own goals and motivations who all briefly get fired up about the same topic. Twitter mobs are a tornado of confirmation bias, where people in echo chambers spin up hot takes of current events to confirm their own worldview. The amount of meaningful debate that can be had in 280-character chunks is negligible.
When people talk about "cancel culture", my impression is not that they think there is any sort of coordinated attack on right-leaning figures by prominent left-leaning figures -- only fringe conspiracy theorists believe that George Soros is sending out weekly lists of names that should be "cancelled" this week.
It's that they believe Twitter is a place which has developed a culture of criticizing and ridiculing other users, public figures especially. I think it's undeniable that any time a public figure missteps, a vocal minority of people (e.g. angsty teenagers) on Twitter calls for the person to be fired or otherwise deplatformed, even before they have a chance to respond. Some people also receive death threats.
So, I don't think it's unreasonable to label that sort of behavior as "cancel culture". To me, it clearly exists, but there is room for debate about how prevalent it is, as well as how good vs bad it is.
I think we agree that "cancel culture" is not as prevalent as Fox / MSNBC would have their viewers believe. Twitter magnifies the opinions of their angry users to drive engagement, and then news organizations pick it up to serve one political narrative or the other.
Personally, I have seen many positive examples of public figures being called out for toxic or abusive behavior, and I'm all in favor. Louis CK was "cancelled" for extremely-scummy-but-not-necessarily-illegal behavior. Heck, #metoo is all about cancelling rapists, and that's a good thing! I also think that the JK Rowling controversy was for good cause, and led to both productive [1,2] and unproductive public discussion.
However, to me, the whole master vs main debate is silly. I don't see it as a driver of positive change.
My stance is: "Cancle culture" does not exist. The behaviour you describe existed before and there is no new development, that indicates the need of a new word. Death threats are not okay and that's totally independent of them being within or outside of something you call "cancel culture". And criticism doesn't get more or less reasonable if it is framed with "cancel culture".
I'm from germany. Here the phrase had a short burst of infamy as a comedian ("Dieter Nuhr") claimed people want to "cancel" him. By now the word is rarely used. And the discussion is better for it.
The only successful "cancelling" I witnessed was a left leaning twitter account, that was about fascism in austria. The woman behind it got death threats against her children and deleted the account. I think the use of the phrase "cancel culture" in this case is playing down the problem.
And if public figures try to silence criticism by the use of the phrase, than it's playing up the problem.
When and where - if ever - "cancel culture" is a useful term I don't know.
It is interesting you call it the "master vs main" debate. The problem is the combination of the words master and slave. You - maybe unconsciously - left the word slave out.
And there is not really a debate. I do not believe anybody was bullied to change that. It was a decision that was made independently. And now in the aftermath people shout about it as if it is utterly impossible that this could have happened without some mobbing or a big "culture" that made this a unjust decision. Because: "I know not a single adult that like that change." Well, maybe the majority likes it. The majority just does not participate in online discussions, so it's invisible. Hard to tell.
Yes, large portions of the company I work for fall into this category. 4 out of 7 in our team fit the description.
> I don't consider the fall of e.g. Louis C.K. to be an example of cancel culture, but rather a clear-cut case of someone in a position of authority abusing their power, and rightfully losing public support for it.
That is cancel culture.. its just not an example of cancel culture run amuck which is what the problem has always been, not cancel culture itself which is widely accepted by most people for the most egregious behaviors.
