Cancel culture IRL

[ahhell]

For those of you who deny cancel culture being a thing what do you call things like:
Chris Harrison no longer hosting the Bachelor due to an outcry over his defending a contestant that had once attended an antebellum themed party?
Gina Carano being relegated to a conservative production company on account of some dumb but not at all anti-semitic comments and some fairly also dumb but pretty harmless tweets.
The science reporter at the NY Times being forced out because he asked some kid if a slur under discussion was the N word(he actually said it).
The guy from Mumford and Sons thinking he has to take a time out for praising Andy Ngo's book?

There seems to be a trend of folks on the left that seem to want folks to loose their jobs on account of stuff they say, often pretty commonly held and not especially extreme ideas. Or in some case, for just saying a word.

There is a similar thing on the right, its more clearly if you say anything bad about Trump you are kicked out of the party.

I will grant that for the most part, folks aren't actually being harmed that much, they tend to move on to the next thing, that is if you have any power or reputation. The folks who don't, that janitor who was called a racist for making a girl leave a cafeteria at Smith College, well, they do actually get cancelled.

Anyrate, I think its pretty clear that there is a very censorious attitude in the culture these days, I don't like it and I don't care what folks call it. I admit, it could be a thing that has always been there but it certainly seems to amplified by social media if it was.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Has anyone here argued that O'Reilly ought to have evaded professional consequences or that his termination was the result of cancel culture run amok?

He paid out millions in his sexual harassments lawsuits, I think something like $31 million on the last one in a closed settlement. This was perfectly acceptable to people for years until me too started up and brought its cancel culture to bear.

He seems like the perfect victim of cancel culture as it is defined. Why isn't he a victim of cancel culture?

How about Kevin Spacey? Would he be a better spokesman for fighting cancel culture?

It is still cancel culture as it fits exactly the description of it, the only change is that for some reason you are now supporting canceling people like O'Reily and Spacey.

 

[ponderingturtle]

For those of you who deny cancel culture being a thing what do you call things like:
Chris Harrison no longer hosting the Bachelor due to an outcry over his defending a contestant that had once attended an antebellum themed party?
Gina Carano being relegated to a conservative production company on account of some dumb but not at all anti-semitic comments and some fairly also dumb but pretty harmless tweets.
The science reporter at the NY Times being forced out because he asked some kid if a slur under discussion was the N word(he actually said it).
The guy from Mumford and Sons thinking he has to take a time out for praising Andy Ngo's book?

Or Bill O'Reily acting as he had and been well known publicly for years and suddenly it becomes a big issue and he loses sponsors because of people objecting to how things work at fox news. Clear cancel culture. The only issue with calling it cancel culture is that people who hate cancel culture agree with it.

 

[Dr. Keith]

I love that Baffert is different because he is a cheat. And cheaters are evil.

Except that they haven't run the second test yet and even then there is an appeals process, so he isn't yet a cheat. Really, the only rule violation that is clear so far is that the test results were not kept confidential.

My opinion is that he likely did cheat, or at least someone on his team did, but it is funny that the "no hasty decisions" brigade is jumping in front of the due diligence on this one.

 

[Dr. Keith]

Gina Carano being relegated to a conservative production company on account of some dumb but not at all anti-semitic comments and some fairly also dumb but pretty harmless tweets.

Do you really think that is an accurate description of what happened? If so, you may want to do a bit of research.

I didn't read past this.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I love that Baffert is different because he is a cheat. And cheaters are evil.

Except that they haven't run the second test yet and even then there is an appeals process, so he isn't yet a cheat. Really, the only rule violation that is clear so far is that the test results were not kept confidential.

My opinion is that he likely did cheat, or at least someone on his team did, but it is funny that the "no hasty decisions" brigade is jumping in front of the due diligence on this one.

And I really am trying to figure out what the substantive differences are between cancel culture and what happened to Bill O'Reily. The main thing seems to be people think it was OK to cancel a sex pest like him. But that is just agreeing with the cancel culture not that it wasn't cancel culture.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Yes, it's cancel culture for public figures to become unpopular for having unpopular opinions. Glad we cleared that up.

 

[Checkmite]

He paid out millions in his sexual harassments lawsuits, I think something like $31 million on the last one in a closed settlement. This was perfectly acceptable to people for years until me too started up and brought its cancel culture to bear.

He seems like the perfect victim of cancel culture as it is defined. Why isn't he a victim of cancel culture?

How about Kevin Spacey? Would he be a better spokesman for fighting cancel culture?

Why do you keep picking people as examples who were actually accused of serious offenses?

"Oh there goes CANCEL CULTURE again, making Kevin Spacey lose his job for allegedly raping a teenager."

 

[ponderingturtle]

Why do you keep picking people as examples who were actually accused of serious offenses?

"Oh there goes CANCEL CULTURE again, making Kevin Spacey lose his job for allegedly raping a teenager."

Allegedly of course, he wasn't even convicted of it yet.

And because it is still cancel culture, you just happen to agree with it.

How about Mel Gibson as an old school victim of cancel culture?

Why is it not cancel culture because you think the offense is serious or not? O'Reily failed to keep his sexual harassment a secret for years, yet it was not a big deal and did not impact his job, then cancel culture got wind of his latest settlement and suddenly it was all "off with his head".

Which is exactly the point, this is a normal process and not something revolutionary it is just debating if an individual merits the consequences of their actions. And some do and some don't.

Why not look at the canceling Disney did of Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears for growing up, clearly that shouldn't have cost them their jobs. Yet for some reason it is only Gina Carano that was done wrong by the mouse, when it decided it no longer wanted to be associated with her public image.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Yes, it's cancel culture for public figures to become unpopular for having unpopular opinions. Glad we cleared that up.

What about when Coke canceled Ronaldinho for drinking a Pepsi, where is the outrage for it costing him millions?

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1255108-ronaldinho-loses-millions-from-coca-cola-after-ridiculous-pepsi-gaffe

Canceled for drinking a Soda, now there is a disproportionate response.

 

[ahhell]

Do you really think that is an accurate description of what happened? If so, you may want to do a bit of research.

I didn't read past this.

I possibly on wrong on one thing so....no need to actually answer. So, what actually happened then?

Or Bill O'Reily acting as he had and been well known publicly for years and suddenly it becomes a big issue and he loses sponsors because of people objecting to how things work at fox news. Clear cancel culture. The only issue with calling it cancel culture is that people who hate cancel culture agree with it.

Not sure that addresses anything I said. As far as I know, O'reilly was literally canceled on account of being a dick.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Not sure that addresses anything I said. As far as I know, O'reilly was literally canceled on account of being a dick.

Not at all that was his whole thing for years. It was the whole Me Too thing and it coming out that he paid yet another sexual harassment settlement that did it.

It wasn't his being a dick, it was literally just another round of his classic sex pest to his subordinates. Nothing new, nothing that should have surprised anyone who paid attention.

https://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2017/04/why-was-bill-oreilly-really-fired/523614/

Though of course this was all fine and dandy when he was only harrassing women over the phone with threats to rub them down with Falafel.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/evgxkw/remember-bill-oreillys-extreme-sexual-harassment-falafel-lawsuit-from-2004

Of course that was from 2004 when no one gave a crap about some guy sexually harassing his employees. Then suddenly it was a big deal and totally unacceptable in 2017? Straight up cancel culture got him. People are uncomfortable because they hate cancel culture but think he should have been fired. So they pretend it wasn't cancel culture.

 

[ahhell]

I'd argue, he was cancelled for what he did not what he said. I'm mostly concerned about the folks being gone after for what they've said, often stuff not that far out of or totally within the mainstream thought.

Edit to add, just because terms are missed used, that doesn't mean there isn't something being described that matters.

I wouldn't argue that racism doesn't exist because Jussey Smollet faked a racist attack. It seems like folks are arguing, cancel culture doesn't exist because some folks should be cancelled or because Gina Carano has a new job.

 

[dirtywick]

And I really am trying to figure out what the substantive differences are between cancel culture and what happened to Bill O'Reily. The main thing seems to be people think it was OK to cancel a sex pest like him. But that is just agreeing with the cancel culture not that it wasn't cancel culture.

My opinion, there's two differences. The first, which I think is undeniable, is the reach and access to being able to participate in it. Social media is being used as both a place for companies to do branding and a place for people to express their personal opinions. So you have people expressing their opinions on brands and companies putting their brands above people, and at times it's all happening quickly and on a massive scale.

The second is the framing has shifted, people that used to have to shut up and take it or face social consequences are able to speak their minds and the people that are used to having it their way are the ones on the chopping block. And of course, there's people getting caught in the crossfire.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I'd argue, he was cancelled for what he did not what he said. I'm mostly concerned about the folks being gone after for what they've said, often stuff not that far out of or totally within the mainstream thought.

Edit to add, just because terms are missed used, that doesn't mean there isn't something being described that matters.

I wouldn't argue that racism doesn't exist because Jussey Smollet faked a racist attack. It seems like folks are arguing, cancel culture doesn't exist because some folks should be cancelled or because Gina Carano has a new job.

But when you agree with say Mel Gibson being canceled for talking about how Jews started all the wars in the world, then that is cancel culture.

And that is the point, it is a continuum were there are cases that everyone agrees with, to cases few people agree with. We can debate the merits of individual cases but that does not make them distinct at a fundamental level from the same thing happening only we agree with it.

Having issues with the star of the show because you are bigoted against his sister seems a fairly straight forward reason for someone being fired even when they are actually fired, instead of just not written into the next season as a recurring guest star. But clearly that is totally immoral or something now.

 

[ponderingturtle]

My opinion, there's two differences. The first, which I think is undeniable, is the reach and access to being able to participate in it. Social media is being used as both a place for companies to do branding and a place for people to express their personal opinions. So you have people expressing their opinions on brands and companies putting their brands above people, and at times it's all happening quickly and on a massive scale.

The second is the framing has shifted, people that used to have to shut up and take it or face social consequences are able to speak their minds and the people that are used to having it their way are the ones on the chopping block. And of course, there's people getting caught in the crossfire.

And that shows why Bill O'Reilly is really the perfect poster scumbag for a victim of cancel culture. It was exactly those things that made another round of his sexual harassment a big deal instead of the joke it was in 2004. So it was cancel culture and he was a victim of it. Suddenly sexually harassing your employees was a big deal not just one of those things that the little people know to keep their mouths shut about.

 

[Checkmite]

Why is it not cancel culture because you think the offense is serious or not? O'Reily failed to keep his sexual harassment a secret for years, yet it was not a big deal and did not impact his job, then cancel culture got wind of his latest settlement and suddenly it was all "off with his head".

"And then cancel culture got wind of" O'Reilly's transgressions and "suddenly" reacted badly? What nonsense. Calls for O'Reilly's firing began with the first disclosure and have never abated; he has always been subject to a steady stream of ridicule by the left. Despite your bizarre analysis that "he failed to keep his sexual harassment a secret for years", only that one single harassment lawsuit and counter-suit vs Andrea Macknis was in the public sphere of awareness until the sudden revelation in 2017 that Fox News had actually settled separate lawsuits with five different women on his behalf. The earliest lawsuit actually pre-dated the Macknis lawsuit, and the most recent one was in 2016. This revealed for the first time a pattern of behavior that persisted long past the Macklin scandal and it was this that proved too much for sponsors to accept.

 

[dirtywick]

For those of you who deny cancel culture being a thing what do you call things like:
Chris Harrison no longer hosting the Bachelor due to an outcry over his defending a contestant that had once attended an antebellum themed party?
Gina Carano being relegated to a conservative production company on account of some dumb but not at all anti-semitic comments and some fairly also dumb but pretty harmless tweets.
The science reporter at the NY Times being forced out because he asked some kid if a slur under discussion was the N word(he actually said it).
The guy from Mumford and Sons thinking he has to take a time out for praising Andy Ngo's book?

There seems to be a trend of folks on the left that seem to want folks to loose their jobs on account of stuff they say, often pretty commonly held and not especially extreme ideas. Or in some case, for just saying a word.

There is a similar thing on the right, its more clearly if you say anything bad about Trump you are kicked out of the party.

I will grant that for the most part, folks aren't actually being harmed that much, they tend to move on to the next thing, that is if you have any power or reputation. The folks who don't, that janitor who was called a racist for making a girl leave a cafeteria at Smith College, well, they do actually get cancelled.

Anyrate, I think its pretty clear that there is a very censorious attitude in the culture these days, I don't like it and I don't care what folks call it. I admit, it could be a thing that has always been there but it certainly seems to amplified by social media if it was.

Gina Carano was talked about pretty extensively in this thread and I think you're mischaracterizing the situation.

Anyway, it has always been there, with the religious right and the moral majority are particularly guilty of it for a long time, and it I believe it has been made more accessible by social media.

The thing is though, that when given choices in the free market, people tend to want to find a company that reflects their values. They also have the ability to speak freely and demand change or convince others that their values are important. And companies want to protect their brand in a competitive market.

Which is why there's so few solutions offered by opponents of cancel culture. Turns out it's actually pretty tough to balance free markets and free speech when the interests of each is opposed to one another. Especially when the main opponents to cancel culture are the right, which are trying to protect their brand of pro business, pro freedom, pro capitalism at any cost.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Yes, which I think makes the actions more understandable and excusable than doing them with bad intentions.

How do you determine a person's intent? How much confidence do you have in your determination?

 

[Emily's Cat]

I love that Baffert is different because he is a cheat. And cheaters are evil.

Except that they haven't run the second test yet and even then there is an appeals process, so he isn't yet a cheat. Really, the only rule violation that is clear so far is that the test results were not kept confidential.

My opinion is that he likely did cheat, or at least someone on his team did, but it is funny that the "no hasty decisions" brigade is jumping in front of the due diligence on this one.

I don't know the ins and outs of horse testing.

The point that I made is that the negative press that Baffert is receiving is due to a clear violation (alleged, apparently?) of existing, well document, and well understood rules.

That's a completely different kind of thing from someone facing harassment and mob efforts to deprive them of their livelihood because they expressed a verboten thought out loud.

Baffert jumping on the "cancel culture" claim doesn't actually make it cancel culture. I don't think that situation is at all representative of the behaviors that I generally find objectionable.