Firstly, ‘cancel culture’ as a term is so irksome.
Secondly, what a bunch of babies. Stop crying that you get called out for saying bigoted or awful stuff, especially if you’re from a position of privilege and influence and it means your words have real harm and the backlash needs to be loud and severe.
AOB?
No time for these people. Wah someone disagreed with me on Twitter for being a bigot. Fuck off.
Here’s the full letter…
Arrogant cunts who think their voices are so important, they have the right to say whatever they want wherever they want, without consequence.
Feeling pretty low about Noam chomksy
I’m also a bit sad that Malcolm Gladwell is on there, I quite like him and as far as I’m aware he hasn’t said anything problematic
(gets immediately corrected)
I think if “cancel culture” was a thing it would be bad.
Like if there was no path for redemption or forgiveness for someone then life wouldn’t be worth living, and that’s how people who use the phrase “cancel culture” try and paint it.
But if you drill down on any of the examples, it’s always deserved and it’s always an abuse of power and the “cancelled” person is usually allowed to keep all the trappings of wealth and fame but sometimes they don’t get quite as much work? (FOR A BIT).
Sometimes truly malignant people get very cancelled (Kevin Spacey) but even then I bet he’s living a very nice life in some lovely house somewhere. He’s doing ok.
Obviously it’s mostly pricks that want to be able to say whatever they like without accountability that don’t like this but thought this was interesting and kinda verbalises what I think/can’t really express very well
oh for FFS Noam
I’ve just watched that BBC video about Manny’s experience of getting ‘cancelled’. He has nearly 5 million subscribers on YouTube and an estimated worth of of $1.2 million.
Cancelled, is it?
I think he’s the sort of person who really uncritically values the concept of free speech in that slightly irksome centrist / liberal way, where they’re really easy to sucker into narratives where the far right have kind of taken over the narrative if that makes sense.
Also of course Gladwell did that really shit podcast episode about country and rock music oh my god that episode was so fucking bizarre and terrible what the fuck was he thinking
What the fuck does JK Rowling want to change?
She’s peddling her fucking awful opinions on a massive online platform. Does she just not like that lots of people are calling those opinions awful?
I will maybe begin to believe she has been “no platformed” when she doesn’t have 14 million followers on Twitter and huge amount of media influence
This argument is just so baffling. On the one hand, you’ve got a bunch of people who for several years have been paid lots of money to write about their opinions, and on the other you have “the little people” who finally have an outlet for their opinions through Twitter and other social media.
The first bunch have spent so long believing that their opinions are the ones that matter and need to be protected, that “free speech” only applies to them. No one used to care what the little people thought because they just read the views of the big people and had no outlet for their own views. Now the little people have that space, thanks to your Twitters and your Mediums and your blogs, the big people cry “FREE SPEECH” because it’s not just them who gets to have a say.
It’s the same old story of privilege - the people who have always had a voice get angry and scared when the people who are just now finding their voice start gaining some ground, so when there’s a challenge to the status quo they say “we’re being silenced!!!”
Bullshit.
Cancel Culture does exist, but not for the people who signed this letter. It’s all about power and how the structure of our society and media allows it to be disproportionately leveraged.
None of the people who signed this letter would face serious consequences for being called out on social media - in fact, many of them haven’t done so for things that they should. It’s the members of the public, the whistleblowers, the people who challenge power, the people who make a mistake, that are truly at the mercy of cancel culture, usually wielded by those in power in the media, especially in the press.
Just look at how the likes of Guido seek to destroy anyone who questions this government, which the press and the BBC then launder into the mainstream. Hassling employers into sacking staff, harassing people who manage to buttonhole ministers on camera. We have an administration who have outsourced their authoritarianism, making people afraid of raising dissent. That is what people should be up in arms about.
This is exactly it; people do one of two things. They say something stupid and they either offer an insincere apology full of superficial claims of self-reflection and premature hindsight, or they double down and attack cancel culture and free speech and bare their cards that way. Both are flimsy in different ways. It’s hard to think of somebody really taking the time for self-reflection, self-analysis and to process constructive criticism in this situation but it would certainly dilute the possibility of being “cancelled”, at least when the issue is an ideological one. Attacking cancel culture is about as toxic as calling people snowflakes for caring about progressive issues.
This letter is just a very long way of saying “you can’t say anything anymore can you?!?!”
potw
think it’s also important to consider that we all live in an echo chamber to an extent just through social media algorithms and she probably feels like she’s ‘fighting the good fight’ in the eyes of all the people who agree with her. but, general consensus is a powerful thing, and it’s heartening that she’s getting such a negative backlash
Grossest one was that Brixton gentrifier/ ponce house DJ twat saying that opposition to his buying up Brixton was all down to “crazy cancel culture”. If you play into this lionising of freedom of speech that is ignorant of all the heirarchies that inherently limit what others can say*, that’s exactly the sort of person you’re enabling.
*for example someone pointed out that Harpers’ unpaid internships are far more damaging for freedom of speech than any bullshit about cancel culture
