Cancel Culture – Top 3 Pros and Cons

Cancel culture, also known as callout culture, is the removal (“canceling”) of support for individuals and their work due to an opinion or action on their part deemed objectionable to the parties “calling” them out.   [1] 

The individuals are typically first called out on social media to magnify the public knowledge of their perceived offense, whereupon the campaign to cancel ensues. The canceling can take several forms, including the exerting of pressure on organizations to cancel the individual’s public appearances or speaking engagements and, in the case of businesses deemed offensive, organizing boycotts of their products. [1] 

Celebrities and social and political leaders are frequently the targets of cancel campaigns.  Actor and comedian Bill Cosby, who was found guilty in 2018 of drugging and sexually assaulting a woman and accused of assault by more than 50 women, is only one of many, recent, high-profile examples. [2] But everyday people can be caught in the crosshairs as well. A public relations executive, for example, tweeted an offensive joke about AIDS before boarding a plane in London and traveling to South Africa. An uproar on Twitter followed, and by the time her plane landed, she had been “called out,” “canceled,” and fired. [3]