“I think the way people use ‘cancel culture’ is this shorthand way of dismissing whatever accusations are against them,” says the Times ’ Taylor Lorenz. “My general take on it is that it’s very toxic but also necessary. We are in the correction phase right now and everyone is indiscriminately calling each other out, and that’s because we’re working to set new standards and norms as a society.
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Whatever you call it—public shaming, call-out culture, or cancelation—what’s happening now is in no way a new phenomenon. The Dixie Chicks were canceled during the Iraq War for simply saying they were ashamed of George W. Bush. The Hollywood blacklist is another obvious example of cancelation before the term existed.
But what is new is the scale of it all. This isn’t just happening to public figures; it’s happening everywhere that social media exists, and you no longer have to be powerful, or even notable, to get canceled. And sometimes the offense was committed when the guilty party was just a kid.
Sounds to me like everyone has smartphones and 24/7 access to each other via massive social networks. Which is a new thing in history, hence the social turmoil.
These kids, everything they’ve ever done will be instantly indexed and searchable, forever. They will be the first generation of humans where this has ever been possible.
