Opinion | It’s not time to cancel ‘cancel culture’

Mady Dever, Opinions Editor

Almost every day, I find myself casually scrolling through Twitter, reading one dumb tweet after the next, only to find another “#(insert name here)isoverparty” or “cancel so-and-so.” 

There’s always memes and jokes that emerge when these hashtags surface. People fear that their favorite celebrity has been canceled and breathe a sigh of relief when it’s just a glittery fancam of BTS or Blackpink. But I always click on those trending hashtags, inevitably falling into the trap of sensationalism when it comes to gossip on someone getting canceled. 

It seems “cancel culture” emerged because of social media and how technology has made our generation so toxic. I sometimes wish I could experience a world without all this digital madness. But I know this isn’t a first for cancellations in the history of humankind, and it won’t be the last. 

Consider Salem, Massachusetts, 1692. The Salem Witch Trials. Yes, I’m bringing The Crucible into this (I had two lines when I performed it in high school, no big deal). In all seriousness, this moment in history was a prime example of cancel culture that wasn’t centered around social media. 

This all began when a group of girls claimed to be possessed by the devil and began accusing women in town of practicing witchcraft. Once women like Tituba, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne were arrested, accusations spread like wildfire. A frenzy of hysteria emerged, as the mob waved pitchforks, pointing fingers and tossing around accusations of witchcraft. If Twitter existed then, #RebeccaNurseisoverparty would have been trending. 

Comparing cancel culture today to the Salem Witch Trials may seem silly and extreme, but stay with me. There are a lot of similarities since society jumps on bandwagons and people can be quick to assume, solely because something is trending, whether on Twitter or whispered through the streets of Salem. 

What confuses me the most about cancel culture is that there doesn’t seem to be any specific set of rules for being canceled. One person may treat co-stars poorly, say an offensive joke or dress up in an offensive Halloween costume that damages their career. Meanwhile, another can be accused of sexual assault and come out the other side like nothing happened. They might even win an Oscar. There’s this tendency in cancel culture to pick and choose who will be canceled that week, yet the past offenses of others are forgotten. To me, this is the biggest problem.

We walk a dangerous tightrope, finding balance between what is right and wrong. We risk falling off during this balancing act, trying to figure out what our criteria for a “bad person” is. What is the difference between a big mistake and an unforgivable action that harms other people?

With social media taking over our lives constantly, it’s easy to see people as less human. We see perfection. We see face-tuned photos. We see influencers living seemingly picture-perfect lives. We can curate our timelines with a view of the world we want to see. Perhaps humanity has been cropped out of the photo and we forget that people make mistakes. Just as we were taught when we were little, we shouldn’t regret mistakes; we can learn from them. 

At the end of the day, whether a mistake or not, we absolutely cannot mitigate the trauma that some individuals in the public eye have caused others. Choosing to cancel an artist, politician or public figure because they are a sexual predator, for example, will always be justified, and further, one always has the power to choose who they support. Even the term “canceling” seems a meager and childish description, given the acts of some people like Harvey Weinstein. 

There needs to be more of a line between what is wrong and right that doesn’t have anything to do with someone’s social status or power but with their actions. If we see one person get away with something terrible, how can we teach others what’s right? Cancel culture isn’t going anywhere any time soon. And it shouldn't. Because although we may get lost in a jungle of accusations and cancellations that don’t seem justified and we can choose whether or not to believe it, there are serious problems within corporations or individuals. If the world wasn’t watching, some people would get away with some pretty bad things.