The duality of cancel culture

Image: The Lennon Wall in Prague from Shutterstock

“We’re more popular than Jesus now,” John Lennon of The Beatles said in a March 1966 interview with the London Evening Standard. There was no issue when the article was originally published in Britain. However, when the article was republished in America in July of that year, havoc ensued.

The comment did not sit well with the more openly religious America. There were Christian individuals and groups who expressed their displeasure by protesting and burning Beatles records, while some radio stations even started boycotting the band’s music.

The timing, which coincided with The Beatles’ 1966 US Tour, could not have been worse. Press conferences were cancelled, and the band even had their concerts picketed by the infamous Ku Klux Klan. The Beatles was getting cancelled.

Context is of the utmost importance in this case. The interviewer, Maureen Cleave, was a friend of Lennon’s, which explains his more relaxed and open attitude throughout the interview. And his full quote was as follows: “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that; I’m right and I’ll be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first—rock ’n’ roll or Christianity.”

Having read the full quote, it is clear that Lennon’s quote was more of a comment on the growing popularity of secularism than a self-grandiose comment through self-comparison to Jesus. Yet, as it often is with cancel culture, people were quicker to judge than to listen.

If the John Lennon example proved anything, it would be that cancel culture is not a new phenomenon. It is not something that started in the era of social media, though social media certainly perpetuates it.

Cancel culture refers to the popular practice of withdrawing support for public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive. This also applies to mistakes and missteps committed in the past, which is often a point of criticism as people do grow over time. Often painted in a negative light, we would like to argue that cancel culture can bring about some positive impacts too.

Image: Harvey Weinstein from Shutterstock

First of all, cancel culture is a powerful social control tool. It is, first and foremost, a tool to hold people accountable for their actions. The Me Too Movement and the eventual cancellation of Harvey Weinstein are among the most high profile examples of cancel culture.

While they unfortunately did not erase sexual harassments, a deterrent effect was achieved. Even the most powerful, famous and influential people can be cancelled.

Survivors now feel more empowered to speak up, with a global community behind them. This sends the message that sexual harassments are not acceptable, and those found guilty of them will be held accountable for their actions.

Secondly, cancel culture may provide learning opportunities for everyone involved. A recent local example would be the popular YouTuber Indira Kalistha, who made what the public deemed as an ignorant and irresponsible comment regarding the coronavirus outbreak.

In a sit down interview on another YouTuber’s channel – Gritte Agatha – Indira stated that she did not see the need to wear a mask when going out, nor did she see the importance of hand-washing before eating, even if she had gone out and touched things prior to eating. This led to a public outrage, which was particularly sensitive given the current circumstances.

What followed was the classic PR crisis mitigation formula. Indira Kalistha appeared on Deddy Corbuzier’s channel to clarify and apologise for her previous statement. Indira served as an example for other public figures to be more responsible with their influence, which includes refraining from making uneducated comments that may mislead their followers.

This also served as a lesson for content creators such as Gritte Agatha about the importance of being critical in conducting interviews as well as editing and presenting content so as not to spread irresponsible information. The public, too, benefited from this, for this controversy unintentionally raised awareness about the importance of protective equipment and habits as we face the COVID-19 pandemic.

Certainly, the positive impacts reiterated above are not meant to claim that the negative stigma associated with cancel culture is unwarranted.

Cancel culture provides a fertile breeding ground for herd mentality, which encourages people to side with the majority in the face of a controversial matter, regardless of their genuine feelings about the matter.

Cancel culture may silence people with opinions that differ from the majority because these people fear that they would be attacked or ostracised for having such opinions. Whether the differing opinions are valid or not, this is problematic.

First of all, we would be deprived of different perspectives that can enrich our understanding of the world. Secondly, even if the other perspective is clearly wrong (i.e. racist view), by ‘silencing’ these opinions we will leave these individuals and their flawed values unexposed and the rest of us will miss the opportunity to educate.

As a side effect of cancel culture, it is becoming increasingly popular for people to jump on bandwagons, even on topics they do not entirely comprehend or care for. This may be done to portray a ‘woke’ image, grow their social capital by commenting on popular issues – also known as performative activism -, or even to propel their own agendas. This why we see many online Social Justice Warriors (SJW) speaking up whenever a controversial issue arises, passing their actions as ‘activism.’

This topic was considered significant enough that former US President Barack Obama spoke about it back in 2019, “I do get a sense sometimes now that, among certain young people, and this is accelerated by social media, the way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible about other people. And that’s enough.” He continued, “That’s not activism, that’s not bringing about change. If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far.”

At its core, cancel culture is dictated by the values we uphold at a point of time. And values change and evolve over time, never constant. Which is why some people may ‘recover’ from being cancelled. The John Lennon controversy, for example, would not have caused as much outrage in 2020. Yes, there would be backlash, but a critically and commercially revered band such as The Beatles would not be cancelled in 2020 for their perspective on secularism.

At the end of the day, cancel culture will be here for a long time. We are currently experiencing a very real example of it with the Black Lives Matter movement, which has led to the cancellations of some public figures and organisations.

The methods may change, the name may differ, but it is in our nature to cancel what does not sit right with us. The positive impacts are aplenty, but so are the negative ones. With social media, we have more power than ever before to exercise social control, but our missteps would have brought about bigger impacts too. Let’s remain cautious, educated and responsible with our words.