Why Cancel Culture is Bullshit

For those of you who maybe don’t use twitter or prefer to scroll past any internet drama, ‘cancel culture’ is when someone who is an online personality or celebrity does something bad or makes a big mistake is then attacked by millions of people on the internet and made to be irrelevant and shamed or ‘cancelled’. 

‘Cancelling’ people on the internet has been around for what seems like a few years now. You may remember some of the classic examples such as Kat Von D being cancelled due to her feud with Jeffree Star and the fact she decided to share publicly that she would not vaccinate her child. There was also the whole James Charles scandal when beauty vlogger Tati Westbrook accused him of trying to manipulate straight men into being homosexual. There have even been some very serious cases when it came to cancelling and exposing sexual abusers on YouTube such as Sam Pepper.

Kat Von D is no stranger to YouTube Drama.

The thing is, whilst people in the public eye who have committed crimes such as sexual abuse deserve to be ‘cancelled’, exposed and shunned, this act has spiraled out of control, and now what seems like hundreds of internet personalities are being shamed to an unnecessary extent for mistakes which are a lot less significant. Human beings at the end of the day are all designed to make mistakes, it’s a fact. We screw up, everybody does it. But for some reason, because someone has shared their life online, people feel the need to relentlessly attack them when they fall short of being perfect. 

An example of this is how users on the internet can find anything. Once something has been posted, even if it was years ago, it can always be found. A lot of YouTubers have been cancelled for old tweets and old remarks from literally years if not sometimes, decades ago. While the comments made in some of these tweets and posts are disgusting, that is not to say we should assume that person still holds that view. People change. Put yourself in the same position, would you like it if somebody pulled up something you tweeted back in 2010, assuming that’s how you are as a person now? Assuming you still looked that way? Acted that way? Said things now that you said back then? It’s ludicrous! Cancelling is dangerous. Having millions of strangers on the internet shame and embarrass you is not easy to deal with; it can be soul destroying. Of course, it’s okay to tell people they have done wrong if they learn and grow from it, which in most cases, they do! Human beings naturally change their ideas, learn from their mistakes and change their behaviour and views. 

And of course, when people say that cancelling is bad, they’re not talking about the sexual abusers or criminals or adulterers, they’re talking about average people making average mistakes, especially when they happened years ago, and that person no longer holds the same views. Times have changed and there are a lot less homophobic, racist, sexist, transphobic people in the world than there perhaps was back in 2008. Mostly because there was a lack of education and things like feminism back during these times, so give people a break.

The classic YouTuber apology video will always revive some subscribers.

Just think about it, half the people who have been cancelled at some point have come back, people are doing fine. It just doesn’t work! Not only that, it’s hard to keep up! The beauty community on YouTube are the worst for it; one week we’re all supposed to hate somebody but the next, they’re bringing out a sparkly new eye shadow palette and we’re all in raptures about it and they sell like hot cakes. 

My point is, that it’s bizarre we let a bunch of strangers on the internet tell us how we should all think and feel about another stranger on the internet. It makes no sense to ruin someone’s career and potentially their life about small mistakes and things in the past. And no, people who don’t agree with cancel culture are not supporting abusers, you can ‘cancel’ them all you like. But even still, if somebody has hurt you emotionally, physically or sexually, then the right people to turn to are the police, support workers, charities, even trusted family and friends, YouTube is not the place to go.