Cancel culture IRL

[d4m10n]

I think the key here is not the number of twidiots pile on, it is whether the actions being published are a problem for the employer.

If enough twidiots pile-on, they can generate a problem for the employer. I'm old enough to remember the shaming of Gelato Andy (who did indeed do something shameful) and how it tanked his Yelp rating in just a day or two. Similarly (though not nearly at scale) you can see a handful of suggestions to #BoycottKroger:

https://twitter.com/olwyngdh/status/1292257955975487488
https://twitter.com/reginesbarjon/status/1292540388553695233
https://twitter.com/Laura78703/status/1292296388492099584
https://twitter.com/HobbesCarlota/status/1292328336073531392
https://twitter.com/Mac33Cam1/status/1292465344934813696]
https://twitter.com/Pete_Da_Pirate/status/1292221224777469953

That said, there is a much better argument for boycotting Kroger (until they come up with a better way to enforce mask compliance) than for punishing an individual employee who was not violating corporate policy or state law.

 

[Cain]

Or, to put it another way, offering up an example of "comics working out material in a club" as being different to "undsiguised racism" is rather ignoring the fact that it's entirely possible for "comics working out material in a club" to be racists saying racist things. There are, after all, no shortage of cruel, racist jokes in this world.

"Entirely possible" is doing a lot of heavy-lifting here. Say what you mean. There's a world of difference between what's possible and what's likely. One problem is that when a comment is veiled in a joke, it's, uhm, somewhat disguised. The common refrain, "It's just a joke." I think a lot of people make jokes that they do not mean. Men especially insult each other. A man is groaning on a toilet. His buddy asks, "What're you doin' in there?" "Giving birth to your twin." I also think the vast majority of racists make an effort to conceal their racism. Finally, so much of this is bound up in intent, which is not always easy to read. Asian comedians can make jokes about Asians that non-Asians can't (without fear of being called racist).

The people reading prophecies in holy books are more important than the alleged prophets. It's not that the Bible perfectly predicted 9/11 so much as someone with an agenda piecing words to events.

People act in bad faith when it comes to hunting for racism and when it comes to ignoring it. So, when the plague first struck China, plenty of reporters in the mainstream press referred to "Wuhan Flu." It was pointed out that this could stir racist sentiment, so it should be called something else. Fair enough. When Trump calls it "Wuhan Flu" months later, he's acting in bad faith. However, playing to racists does not necessarily mean that Trump is racist (he's racist for other reasons).

Trump works out material much like a comedian. He has said that when handlers first asked him to say "Drain the swamp" at a rally, he thought the line was corny. Trump was surprised and impressed with the response, so he said it again at another rally -- and witnessed a huge reaction. Retelling this story at yet another rally, Trump remarked, "Now I say it like I believe it."

I'm not sure if that should get more leeway. True, you're more likely to misspeak when you're talking extemporaneously, but you're also less likely to censor your true feelings than if you're repeating something you've gone over and over and rehearsed to within an inch of your life. Or, to put it another way, you're more likely to say what you actually think.

Or you're caught in a moment playing to a crowd. And I would ascribe a similar kind of diminished agency to the people who get caught up in Twitter mobs.

 

[Dr. Keith]

If enough twidiots pile-on, they can generate a problem for the employer. I'm old enough to remember the shaming of Gelato Andy (who did indeed do something shameful) and how it tanked his Yelp rating in just a day or two. Similarly (though not nearly at scale) you can see a handful of suggestions to #BoycottKroger:

https://twitter.com/olwyngdh/status/1292257955975487488
https://twitter.com/reginesbarjon/status/1292540388553695233
https://twitter.com/Laura78703/status/1292296388492099584
https://twitter.com/HobbesCarlota/status/1292328336073531392
https://twitter.com/Mac33Cam1/status/1292465344934813696]
https://twitter.com/Pete_Da_Pirate/status/1292221224777469953

That said, there is a much better argument for boycotting Kroger (until they come up with a better way to enforce mask compliance) than for punishing an individual employee who was not violating corporate policy or state law.

I think you are proving that cancel culture works. If there is enough pressure Kroger will have to find a better response to the maskless. Businesses often respond to pressure from their customers and the public at large in a functioning economy.

But, it seems Kroger Andy is unlikely to be personally sacrificed in this process.

Mischief managed?

 

[d4m10n]

I think you are proving that cancel culture works.

I'd say there is conceptual space between a boycott directed at a corporation and an attempt to cancel an individual malefactor.

If there is enough pressure Kroger will have to find a better response to the [maskless]. Businesses often respond to pressure form their customers and the public at large in a functioning economy.

So say we all.

...it seems Kroger Andy is unlikely to be personally sacrificed in this process.

It seems unlikely now and that's all to the good. Frankly, I'm surprised it turned out that way, given that the public shaming was initially tightly focused on one relatively powerless individual.

 

[I Am The Scum]

Are we at the point where "cancel culture" is just a shorthand for "this person should be fired for their behavior?" Sometimes that claim is reasonable, sometimes it is not.

And if that's where we're at, then the concern over cancel culture has lost a lot of its punch.

 

[d4m10n]

Are we at the point where "cancel culture" is just a shorthand for "this person should be fired for their behavior?" Sometimes that claim is reasonable, sometimes it is not.

That's basically where I'm at (FWIW) although you can sub in "deplatformed" for traveling speakers and "demonitized" for internet personalities.

And if that's where we're at, then the concern over cancel culture has lost a lot of its punch.

I guess? There are plenty of other cultural norms which can be taken too far, IMO.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

"Entirely possible" is doing a lot of heavy-lifting here. Say what you mean. There's a world of difference between what's possible and what's likely. One problem is that when a comment is veiled in a joke, it's, uhm, somewhat disguised. The common refrain, "It's just a joke." I think a lot of people make jokes that they do not mean. Men especially insult each other. A man is groaning on a toilet. His buddy asks, "What're you doin' in there?" "Giving birth to your twin." I also think the vast majority of racists make an effort to conceal their racism. Finally, so much of this is bound up in intent, which is not always easy to read. Asian comedians can make jokes about Asians that non-Asians can't (without fear of being called racist).

The people reading prophecies in holy books are more important than the alleged prophets. It's not that the Bible perfectly predicted 9/11 so much as someone with an agenda piecing words to events.

People act in bad faith when it comes to hunting for racism and when it comes to ignoring it. So, when the plague first struck China, plenty of reporters in the mainstream press referred to "Wuhan Flu." It was pointed out that this could stir racist sentiment, so it should be called something else. Fair enough. When Trump calls it "Wuhan Flu" months later, he's acting in bad faith. However, playing to racists does not necessarily mean that Trump is racist (he's racist for other reasons).

Trump works out material much like a comedian. He has said that when handlers first asked him to say "Drain the swamp" at a rally, he thought the line was corny. Trump was surprised and impressed with the response, so he said it again at another rally -- and witnessed a huge reaction. Retelling this story at yet another rally, Trump remarked, "Now I say it like I believe it."

Much of this seems tangential, or not even vaguely related, to what I said.

You positioned "comics working out material in a club" as being in opposition to "undisguised racism", which is clearly ignoring the fact that "comics working out material in a club" can be indulging in "undisguised racism".

Or you're caught in a moment playing to a crowd.

Right. So, again, the situation doesn't give you an extra bit of leeway, because how what's going on should be assessed depends so much on what it is that's actually going on. There are far too many variables and unknowns to fit into a sweeping, blanket, one-size-fits-all rule, as you are trying to do.

 

[HansMustermann]

That's basically where I'm at (FWIW) although you can sub in "deplatformed" for traveling speakers and "demonitized" for internet personalities.

Except even those don't just happen at the drop of a hat. Most that even got a video removed, it was under the DMCA, not by crowd pressure, and even that can be appealed. Or in fact you can sue someone who used the DMCA wrong, and nowadays Google will even do that for you.

To genuinely get de-platformed, you'd have to genuinely break the rules often enough.

To get demonetized, well, it's only for one video, so just don't be an idiot really. As in, intelligence is defined as the ability to learn and apply, so DO THAT. Whatever advertising rules you broke in the video that got demonetized, look again at the rules in your contract, and don't break them in the next video.


So basically what I'm seeing is the same old dishonest argument that was always used to defend awful behaviour from consequences: point at some other thing that would be abusive if it actually got through, except it didn't and wouldn't, act as if all instances where a bellend gets some consequences are the same kind of thing.

It's even older than the internet. Whenever some company gets sued for doing something awful, defenders of corporate irresponsibility point at some ridiculous lawsuit and act as if it's perfectly equivalent and it's that kind of oppression the poor companies have to put up with. The fact that the ridiculous lawsuit didn't actually go anywhere -- or if it did, it turns out it was only mis-represented as being ridiculous -- is glossed over.

Essentially that's the same thing I see here when it comes to the outrage about "cancel culture." Either the ones "punished" by it actually fully deserved it, or if it was ridiculous outrages, it turns out there never actually was some massive mob asking for their dismissal. It's just mis-represented to make it seem like every actual bellend that was hit by it, was just some poor little angel being persecuted.

 

[d4m10n]

Either the ones "punished" by it actually fully deserved it, or if it was ridiculous outrages, it turns out there never actually was some massive mob asking for their dismissal. It's just mis-represented to make it seem like every actual bellend that was hit by it, was just some poor little angel being persecuted.

They all had it coming, eh? Must be nice to believe we live in such a just world.

 

[HansMustermann]

TBH, after reading through that list, I'm even more convinced that they had it coming. For being too stupid by half, if nothing else. But in the case of most of them, actually there was more reason than that.

Look, it's actually quite simple: don't be a public ass hole to other people, if you don't want to discover what it means when all that audience start being ass holes to you. It's not a novel concept, really. Asking that it should be a one way street, completely shielding you from the consequences of your actions, is just asking for a privilege. And, to put it bluntly, you're not royalty.

 

[Distracted1]

TBH, after reading through that list, I'm even more convinced that they had it coming. For being too stupid by half, if nothing else. But in the case of most of them, actually there was more reason than that.

Look, it's actually quite simple: don't be a public ass hole to other people, if you don't want to discover what it means when all that audience start being ass holes to you. It's not a novel concept, really. Asking that it should be a one way street, completely shielding you from the consequences of your actions, is just asking for a privilege. And, to put it bluntly, you're not royalty.

Many victims of lynchings actually did the things they were hanged for- ergo, lynching was fine and should not be considered an out-of-bounds reaction.

 

[HansMustermann]

Many victims of lynchings actually did the things they were hanged for- ergo, lynching was fine and should not be considered an out-of-bounds reaction.

Ah, yes, the mandatory over-the-top analogy, that's not analogous at all. It was starting to feel awkward to read defences of why it should be ok to be a racist, without the racists being compared to the blacks that got lynched. I was starting to wonder if I accidentally ended up being in some mirror universe

The key difference, of course, is that both are actually a case of entitled twits trying to enforce their entitlement on others. And by "entitled twits", I don't mean the internet posse, but the delusional bellends who seem to think they have some right to publish their drivel on someone else's web site, or to be paid for it, and think they're victims -- in fact, outright on par with a lynching victim -- if the world doesn't bend over backwards to fulfil their delusional expectations. If you can't tell the difference between someone lynching you, and someone having the right to decide what goes on the servers they own, yeah, sucks to be you.

 

[d4m10n]

...after reading through that list, I'm even more convinced that they had it coming. For being too stupid by half, if nothing else.

Telling a bawdy dongle joke is a justifiably sackable offense now? Reporting said joke to the public, as well? Come on, Mustermann.

 

[HansMustermann]

Telling a bawdy dongle joke is a justifiably sackable offense now? Reporting said joke to the public, as well? Come on, Mustermann.

Except if you're talking about Richards, it turns out that the backlash was against HER for trying to shame those guys, not against them. So if anything, it shows that it's not as easy to start some public outcry against someone if they hadn't actually done anything offensive, as those decrying "cancel culture" mis-represent it, and that it can backfire.

And out of the whole list, Richards is actually the most clear example I could have picked of someone just reaping what they sow. She was trying to "cancel" some strangers over something she doesn't really understand, but instead she got "cancelled" herself. (The one guy who did get sacked, found employment the next day. She didn't.) And even after the backlash happened, we never see her having any remorse or even stopping it or anything. She continues to be an awful person and tries to pin more blame on one of the guys she had picked on. I hope I can be excused if I'm not going to lose any sleep if she can't take what she was trying to dish out.

 

[Distracted1]

Ah, yes, the mandatory over-the-top analogy, that's not analogous at all. It was starting to feel awkward to read defences of why it should be ok to be a racist, without the racists being compared to the blacks that got lynched. I was starting to wonder if I accidentally ended up being in some mirror universe

The key difference, of course, is that both are actually a case of entitled twits trying to enforce their entitlement on others. And by "entitled twits", I don't mean the internet posse, but the delusional bellends who seem to think they have some right to publish their drivel on someone else's web site, or to be paid for it, and think they're victims -- in fact, outright on par with a lynching victim -- if the world doesn't bend over backwards to fulfil their delusional expectations. If you can't tell the difference between someone lynching you, and someone having the right to decide what goes on the servers they own, yeah, sucks to be you.

Lynchings happened to white people more often than to blacks. The analogy is quite appropriate. An offended mob dealing out punishment on their own terms. Sometimes with legitimate cause-sometimes without. Bad form all around.

 

[I Am The Scum]

Tell me more about the legitimate causes for lynching.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Tell me more about the legitimate causes for lynching.

Mussolini's?

 

[I Am The Scum]

Okay I'll give you that one.

 

[Dr. Keith]

It seems unlikely now and that's all to the good. Frankly, I'm surprised it turned out that way, given that the public shaming was initially tightly focused on one relatively powerless individual.

Why? It was an overplayed hand. Overplayed hands tend to fail in the light of day.

 

[Distracted1]

Tell me more about the legitimate causes for lynching.

In any instance where the accused did or said what the mob claimed he/she did or said, it was a legitimate lynching.
If one is to give said mob the power to be judge, jury, and executioner, as well as the power to decide what is and is not a lynching worthy offense.

That is the point of the comparison.