Cancel culture IRL

[d4m10n]

So remind me again... what’s the problem here?

I suppose that depends on whether you trust corporations to make the right call, pretty much of the time. Personally, I expect them to cave to the loudest activist voices, as they did with Ellen. (Talking about her first cancellation here.)

 

[Elagabalus]

Again scrap away all the unnecessary language, all the unnecessary hand wringing, all the unnecessary fluff.

For people who are opposed to cancel culture which of the following two things needs to stop happening?

1. People need to stop disliking other people for doing certain things.
2. People need to stop acting on 1.

Because that's all this is. At the end of the day this is just the most possible wordy, over-verbose, and overly-complicated to go "Holy crap I just realized that not everybody likes everybody else."

Ok, sure, but I still say Australia deserved it.

 

[johnny karate]

I suppose that depends on whether you trust corporations to make the right call, pretty much of the time.

Knee-jerk distrust of corporations is not a particularly compelling reason for why we should compel them to keep obnoxious, disruptive people in their employ.

Personally, I expect them to cave to the loudest activist voices, as they did with Ellen.

I’m not sure what you mean by “loudest” but it sounds to me like a fairly democratic process. One group expresses an opinion and is countered by a larger group expressing the opposite opinion. Corporation goes where the numbers - and therefore the money - is.

Not that any of this applies to the Gina Carano situation. Her terrible behavior is a matter of record. Not sure that Disney had to take a straw poll to make the determination that they were done dealing with it.

(Talking about her first cancellation here.)

First failed cancellation, you mean. Looks like another example of the system working.

 

[d4m10n]

First failed cancellation, you mean. Looks like another example of the system working.

You should probably look up when that particular show was actually cancelled, instead of just going off-the-cuff like this.

 

[johnny karate]

You should probably look up when that particular show was actually cancelled, instead of just going off-the-cuff like this.

It was cancelled over a year after airing of the episode in which Ellen’s character came out. It also had consistently low ratings (with a slight bump surrounding the “coming out” episode). Television shows with low ratings tend to get cancelled.

What dots are you trying to connect?

 

[d4m10n]

It was cancelled over a year after airing of the episode in which Ellen’s character came out. It also had consistently low ratings (with a slight bump surrounding the “coming out” episode). Television shows with low ratings tend to get cancelled.

Do you think the right-wing boycotts are somehow independent of the ratings?

 

[PhantomWolf]

The irony in all of this is that boycotts and firing people that post politically "Offensive" things on social media started out as a Conservative tactic against the liberal media as it started to present a more diverse cast of characters on the TV screens of the US and again later as people started to express themselves and push back again conservatives on Social media.

One Million Moms is just the latest in that line with their boycotts over Ellen, Oreos, and the Hallmark channel. Groups such as the AFA have been about in one guise or another since the 70s. Here's a quote from a study from 1990...

Conservative and religious groups view television as an intrusive threat to morals and Christian values and therefore seek to pressure the industry to prevent the degradation of society that results from the projection of alternative values.

It goes on to discuss the actions of the Coalition for Better Television, The Moral Majority, CLear-TV, and the National Federation for Decency.

Because of course "canceling" someone that is offensive to others is only a sin if it's one of the Devil's Army doing it to one of God's children.

How quickly they forget these sorts of thing.

 

[Lithrael]

In order to make ratings go down when you boycott a thing, you had to have been watching that thing before you started boycotting it.

But anyway, imagine the low ratings really were due to a grassroots boycott - then what? Eyeballs are eyeballs and advertising revenue is advertising revenue. I suppose advertisers could exert mitigating pressure by being willing to pay a lot for ad space anyway. But ratings by definition kind of represent actual popular opinion. So what is the ‘something’ that oughtta be done?

 

[PhantomWolf]

In order to make ratings go down when you boycott a thing, you had to have been watching that thing before you started boycotting it.

But anyway, imagine the low ratings really were due to a grassroots boycott - then what? Eyeballs are eyeballs and advertising revenue is advertising revenue. I suppose advertisers could exert mitigating pressure by being willing to pay a lot for ad space anyway. But ratings by definition kind of represent actual popular opinion. So what is the ‘something’ that oughtta be done?

The basic idea was to boycott the advertisers and so advertisers would then pull their ads for the show and make that show unprofitable for the network.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Well, we don't really know whether Trump, unchecked would have ended up committing the industrialized murder of millions of people.

I can't say, either, but it's certainly true that in his last weeks in office, once he knew he'd lost and would either be gone or would hold on to power through illegal means, that he started a massive executions drive.

I honestly wonder if he just enjoyed having the power to be able to kill people without consequence.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

As to "often" we'd need more than a handful of anecdotes.

Well, if that isn't the story of this whole thread, then I don't know what is.

And I'd say that "often" requires less establishment than "culture".

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

So what is the ‘something’ that oughtta be done?

This is the question that people keep failing to answer. There's a lot of identifying what they believe the problem to be, but no actual suggestions for how things could be different.

 

[angrysoba]

Well, if that isn't the story of this whole thread, then I don't know what is.

And I'd say that "often" requires less establishment than "culture".

Heh heh!

I would think that at the very least, two things are necessary:

1.) A definition
2.) Some data (particularly over time)

And then we can argue about whether whatever it is is a good thing, a bad thing and if something is to be done about the thing.

 

[Darat]

This is the question that people keep failing to answer. There's a lot of identifying what they believe the problem to be, but no actual suggestions for how things could be different.

From this thread it would seem to be that those that claim there is a “cancel culture” want people to be able to say (legally allowed speech) whatever they want without any consequences.

 

[angrysoba]

In fact, I am starting to think that cancel culture is just another formulation of "kids today" *shakes fist* "get off my lawn!"

We need a meme:

Cancel Culture Fantasy (Pink Floyd man putting people in a meat grinder)
Cancel Culture Reality (Grandpa Simpson "Old Man Yells at Cloud")

 

[angrysoba]

From this thread it would seem to be that those that claim there is a “cancel culture” want people to be able to say (legally allowed speech) whatever they want without any consequences.

Yeah, it is the Ted Cruz interpretation of Section 230, or his interpretation of the repeal of Section 230. Or something....

 

[Butter!]

We could ask the OP to comment, but rockysmith was banned by cancel culture run amok. /s

And there was much rejoicing!

 

[PhantomWolf]

Well, we don't really know whether Trump, unchecked would have ended up committing the industrialized murder of millions of people. Maybe not. But I don't think there was any "lite" about his fascism. Maybe, had he had his way, he would haven been a Mussolini or a Franco, rather than a Hitler. I still think we narrowly dodged a bullet.

His QAnon followers were certainly hoping for a mass slaughter of Democrats, and apparently still are on the 4th of March when Trump is going to return and have them all arrested and executed before being sworn in again is the real inauguration.

 

[johnny karate]

Do you think the right-wing boycotts are somehow independent of the ratings?

The “coming out” episode - the one the was the flashpoint for all the criticism and backlash - was the highest rated of the series.

Perhaps a show that was never that popular and was already becoming less popular (despite one cultural touchstone episode) continued to be increasingly unpopular and was subsequently cancelled. I know that’s not as sexy as your convoluted conspiracy theory about right wing protesters wielding massive power over television ratings, but it’s at least tethered to reality.

Also, debuting just a few short months later, was Will & Grace, another sitcom with an openly gay main character. The Right Wing Ratings-Destroyers got caught sleeping at the wheel on this one. It took them eight whole seasons to get it cancelled and then they allowed it to be rebooted for another three seasons.

 

[johnny karate]

From this thread it would seem to be that those that claim there is a “cancel culture” want people to be able to say (legally allowed speech) whatever they want without any consequences.

Unless that includes calling for someone to be fired on Twitter, in which case that is wrong and should be stopped.