Cancel culture IRL

[d4m10n]

I'm not seeing any required specificity in your question as to how serious should be the offence which led to the descent of the person's social status into that of someone to become regarded as a pariah.

I'm not seeing anyone complaining about (accused) murderers being cancelled. People are going to buy less OJ swag now, that's just fine.

If what the new "cancel culture" has in common with the old version of mass media public shaming is that people who tweet badly are kind of like murderers now, well, there you go.

 

[smartcooky]

What constitutes the "right wing media machine"?

Any news outlet from and including the "skews conservative" column to the "most extreme conservative" column.

Its worth noting that even within news organisations, there is considerable variation in political bias between presenters. Chris Wallace is probably the last real, honest news presenter left at Faux News. Sean Hannity, Janine Pirro and Laura Ingaham are far right, and with his racist dog-whistling and his advocacy of the "White Replacement" conspiracy theory, the entitled, white privileged, overgrown frat-boy, Tucker Carlson (or "Tuckums" as Joy Reid calls him) is fast becoming the most extreme far right presenter on any mainstream media outlet. His weekday prime-time program is not nicknamed "White Power Hour" without good reason.

 

[smartcooky]

I'm not seeing anyone complaining about (accused) murderers being cancelled. People are going to buy less OJ swag now, that's just fine.

If what the new "cancel culture" has in common with the old version of mass media public shaming is that people who tweet badly are kind of like murderers now, well, there you go.

Nope... murderers go to jail. I've yet to see a bad tweet put the twit behind bars?

 

[dirtywick]

Also want to note that right wing media doesn't just include cable news networks. There's podcasters, youtube channels, social media personalities, authors, websites, and more. Also as noted, there's degrees within the right wing media sphere also.

I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing either. I think there's a place in the world for news reported from a point of view people can relate to, and a place for people who's job it is to spread political views. I just want to note that it exists, that it's influential, and that it has influenced this topic.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Globally? In under a day?

Citation needed.

Is it happening globally now?

Nobody in India cares about Sacco or her bad jokes. Hell, nobody in the US cares anymore either. She got another job at the same company. Despite all the pearl clutching, seems her "cancellation" did not stick.

 

[Dr. Keith]

Is it happening globally now?

Nobody in India cares about Sacco or her bad jokes. Hell, nobody in the US cares anymore either. She got another job at the same company. Despite all the pearl clutching, seems her "cancellation" did not stick.

The lack of stickiness is a feature, not a bug.

 

[d4m10n]

Despite all the pearl clutching, seems her "cancellation" did not stick.

Were you hoping she'd be permanently unemployed?

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Were you hoping she'd be permanently unemployed?

No, but it would be nice if all these breathless claims of the evils of cancel culture would note that her problems were relatively short lived. She had 15 minutes of fame and it passed.

 

[d4m10n]

Don't get the sense you're trying to put yourself in her shoes. Being shamed by a handful of people can be an emotional experience; no idea what it feels like to be shamed by thousands.

ETA: Putting aside the anxiety and uncertainty of being out of work, which is something of a stressor in and of itself, last I checked.

 

[tyr_13]

No, but it would be nice if all these breathless claims of the evils of cancel culture would note that her problems were relatively short lived. She had 15 minutes of fame and it passed.

Don't get the sense you're trying to put yourself in her shoes. Being shamed by a handful of people can be an emotional experience; no idea what it feels like to be shamed by thousands.

Overcoming a hardship does not mean a hardship was not great. This is the basis of the 'survivor bias' logical fallacy. 'I shot you but you didn't die' does not imply being shot is no big deal.

That is not to say that therefore the hardship really was great, nor that the hardship was not justified. That goes to specific cases.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Overcoming a hardship does not mean a hardship was not great. This is the basis of the 'survivor bias' logical fallacy. 'I shot you but you didn't die' does not imply being shot is no big deal.

That is not to say that therefore the hardship really was great, nor that the hardship was not justified. That goes to specific cases.

Sure. My point is that there is often the unspoken implication that these people's lives are permanently ruined, which is absolutely not the case in all but the most extreme examples.

Sacco had a really, really bad few days or weeks.

 

[d4m10n]

Sacco had a really, really bad few days or weeks.

No problem, then. My bad.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Maybe it would be better to ask d4m10n as I wouldn’t want to speak for him, but I’d say any media that primarily exists to propagate right wing views.

I'd say Fox News, OAN, and all the news-flavored nuttery further to the right of those two, e.g. Infowars.

Is there a "left wing media machine" to be considered as well?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Overcoming a hardship does not mean a hardship was not great. This is the basis of the 'survivor bias' logical fallacy. 'I shot you but you didn't die' does not imply being shot is no big deal.

That is not to say that therefore the hardship really was great, nor that the hardship was not justified. That goes to specific cases.

Sure. My point is that there is often the unspoken implication that these people's lives are permanently ruined, which is absolutely not the case in all but the most extreme examples.

Sacco had a really, really bad few days or weeks.

I sort of get what you're saying here ST, but to tyr's point, I think you frequently downplay the psychological impact. More specifically, I think you tend to downplay the impact when the person experiencing it holds a view you disapprove of.

We can have social opprobrium that runs the gamut between death threats and pile-on invective and wishes for personal harm at one end... all the way to vaguely insulting terms and misgendering at the other. I'm really not gleaning a rational ordering of the magnitude of experienced harm from a lot of posters in this thread (or other threads).

 

[d4m10n]

Is there a "left wing media machine" to be considered as well?

I mean, why not? Perhaps MSNBC is making obscure buzzwords into conditioned triggers, too.

 

[dirtywick]

Is there a "left wing media machine" to be considered as well?

Maybe, I personally haven't noticed them pushing a particular narrative on cancel culture. But if it's relevant to the topic I'd like to hear about it.

-edit-

If anything, I've noticed occasional left leaning celebrities and members of media cross over and agree on how problematic cancel culture really is and it's pointed to like it's some kind of smoking gun more than anything else coming from that side of the media. But yeah, if there's some kind of over-arching narrative concerning cancel culture coming from the left it's definitely something I'd be interested in learning more about.

 

[Dr. Keith]

I sort of get what you're saying here ST, but to tyr's point, I think you frequently downplay the psychological impact. More specifically, I think you tend to downplay the impact when the person experiencing it holds a view you disapprove of.

We can have social opprobrium that runs the gamut between death threats and pile-on invective and wishes for personal harm at one end... all the way to vaguely insulting terms and misgendering at the other. I'm really not gleaning a rational ordering of the magnitude of experienced harm from a lot of posters in this thread (or other threads).

I see that as a problem with putting your happiness into the hands of the mob. That is not a Cancel Culture issue, that is a Social Media issue.

If your career is also in the hands of the mob, then that amplifies the risk.

So, if your happiness and your career both depend on appeasing the mob, then I would expect a level of caution that reflects the important role you have allowed Social Media to take in your life.

Much like a lumber jack is wary of the trees, or the herpetologist keeps a close eye on the pointy end of their subjects, I would expect those who live on social media to know the risks and live accordingly.

I've never gone sky diving, but I imagine it is something that would be more interesting to me than posting anything publicly on a social media platform. And far less risky.

 

[autumn1971]

It can do. Firstly, if somebody who is a wealthy donor can influence university hiring policy that is a significant detriment to academic freedom. Secondly, even if one person doesn't have the power by themselves to influence the decision, fear of social media backlash (which can easily be whipped up by a small number of people and go viral) can come into play.

Censure is all very well but they need to be made to reverse the decision or face other consequences. That is assuming there is no evidence of actual antisemitism but only harsh criticism of Israeli policy.

One of the problems here is of course that the whole of critical social justice activism is to silence ideological dissent by misrepresenting disagreement with narratives, ideologies and policies as bigotry directed at individuals, and using this to justify trying to make people unemployable because they will make others 'feel unsafe'. This will come back to bite them on issues where activists tend to be divided, such as this one.

My godlessness, you are simply describing hiring practices in the real ******* world since forever!
Calm the **** down and accept that what is culturally appropriate changes with norms through time. I had a friend get cancelled because he admitted trying pot! It was twenty-five years ago and he didn’t whine like baby, he just knew to lie in applications from then on.

 

[autumn1971]

There is nothing new about public figures being dependent upon their public reputation, to be sure. Seems to me there is something new when someone like Justine Sacco or Adria Richards or Zoe Quinn becomes instantly known to a much broader public because they've gone viral in some unfortunate way.

If you choose to allow conservative activists to redefine terms for you, I won't try to stop you. Don't expect anyone else to play along, though.

None of the aforementioned people ever became more known to anyone who wasn’t rabidly following shallow social media platforms in a concentrated effort to find something to be indignant about

 

[autumn1971]

Don't get the sense you're trying to put yourself in her shoes. Being shamed by a handful of people can be an emotional experience; no idea what it feels like to be shamed by thousands.

ETA: Putting aside the anxiety and uncertainty of being out of work, which is something of a stressor in and of itself, last I checked.

They have to seek out that shaming. If I did something stupid, would I go door to door and tell random thousands of people?
Also, it is usually only thousands of people out of potential billions.
And easily avoided. And easily ignored.

I don’t buy the “one week of not doing only my most favorite thing is torture” analogy.