Now if you’ve been online in the last few years, then you have probably heard of cancel culture and cyber shaming. Someone does something that others disagree with, the internet finds out, word gets spread and suddenly people are calling for the person to get canceled, wanting it to be made right, or sometimes going as far as finding their own justice. Honestly, a little scary if you ask me!
Now in the writing of this blog, I ended up finding an article by the New York Times about the History of Cancel Culture. As I was reading this post, this quote stood out to me
Although cancel culture is not a movement — it has neither leaders nor membership, and those who take part in it do so erratically, maybe only once, and share no coherent ideology
I think that often people think that cancel culture is being lead by a group of people who are actively looking to cancel people, but often people might only participate in cancel culture once or twice in their time online.
Now, I am not saying that cyber shaming is always a bad thing. There is plenty of times that I think having the truth come out about a persons true intentions is a good thing. But sometimes, I think that people might be quick to judge and make assumptions that can cause someone a lot of struggles and in some cases, ruin their lives.
One example that stands out to me is when people tried to cancel Lizzo because of a claim from one of her backup dancers. When the allegation came out from her backup dancer, people immediately started to call her out online and said some really terrible things, but once more information came to light, it was found that Lizzo didn’t actually do what was said and the claims were false.
I think overall, people need to be a bit more patient in calling people out and they need to get all the information before they decide to make claims that could ruin someones life.