Discussing the prominence of “cancelled culture”
“Nope, that’s it, he’s canceled” or “That’s it, they are officially canceled” are statements I hear in conversations just about everyday on campus.
A boy in a frat hits you up after you left the party where he didn’t talk to you the whole time? Boom, he’s “canceled.” Your professor put a question on the exam that they insisted you wouldn’t need to study? Done deal, he or she is “canceled.” This phenomena of cancellation has been dubbed by many as “canceled culture.”
So what exactly is “canceled culture?”
According to The New York Times “[canceling] is an act of withdrawing from someone whose expression — whether political, artistic or otherwise — was once welcome or at least tolerated, but no longer is.”
It seems like a straightforward concept. If an institution or an individual person does something “wrong,” then their music, their movies or the product they are heavily associated with is no longer acceptable to listen to, watch or buy.
But unfortunately, what people deem “right” or “wrong” is too subjective to definitively define. For example, some people might cancel R. Kelly due to his charges of sexual abuse and therefore delete the Ignition Remix off of their phone immediately.
And yet, there are still people who try to separate the artist from the art or the industry from the product. In their minds, yes, R. Kelly committed heinous crimes but “I Believe I Can Fly” is just too classic to stop listening to altogether. Or, yes, Chick-Fil-A is constantly in the news for leaning incredibly conservative by supporting homophobic organizations and policy, but who doesn’t love Chick-Fil-A sauce?
With this dichotomous opinion forming towards anything open to support or dissent, I can only ask, what is the point in “canceling?”
Though it is a popular saying in today’s culture, I really do feel as though “canceling” something or someone carries a significant amount of weight. It shows that there are people who are noticing the fact that what a person or a corporation does permeates into their product or art just the same.
It is quite difficult to separate the creator from its creation, and by giving your support to something that is made by an entity espousing views you don’t like or is inherently “wrong,” then you are inadvertently supporting those views or actions you don’t hold in high regard.
However, this gets hazy. People and organizations aren’t always transparent. Living in a fast-paced and interconnected world makes it increasingly more difficult to avoid these entities that you disagree with. And if everything is being nullified, then what’s left?
Well, I have to say that quite a bit is left. There are thousands of artists who are free of serious criminal charges and plenty more places to grab lunch on the way to class other than Chick-Fil-A.
So I believe it is possible to separate art from the artist or a product from the corporation. If you are able to make the conscious choice to “cancel” someone or something in the first place, then you are able to make conscious decisions a good majority of the time to try and support the views you hold to be “positive” or “good.”
That part is on you, and it’s absolutely possible to do. Pop culture is always rife for new and interesting things that people can concern themselves with. And even better, those things aren’t being accused of sexual abuse or denying people their fundamental rights.
So, I know that Chick-Fil-A sandwiches are good, but I also hold that LGBTQ rights are human rights, and thus outweigh the value of a sandwich at an insurmountable level. Boom, canceled.
