Cancel Culture Works In Mysterious Ways

Recently, I got into an argument on Twitter regarding the controversy surrounding Five Nights At Freddy’s designer Scott Cawthon. Throughout this debate, defenders of Cawthon have done everything possible to make sure the conversation is only about the people doing particularly vile things towards Cawthon instead of what Cawthon actually did or why he’s being criticized. Before you are even allowed to talk about Cawthon, you must first begin by making it clear that you “don’t agree with the harassment and dogpiling.”

Of course, Cawthon’s fans never hold themselves to the same standards. Multiple people who have criticized Cawthon — some of whom have done so in particularly harsh ways — have had to lock their twitter accounts in order to avoid the wrath of Cawthon’s fans. More often than not, their only offense is having made an empty threat out of anger. While, obviously, making threats is wrong, why does that excuse the same harassment and dogpiling we keep being told is a massive issue in America today?

It should be noted that nobody has been able to actually give an example of Cawthon being harassed. A few have come forward with examples of people saying harsh things to Scott (including one fellow who wished a miscarriage on his wife — which is a rather tame death threat all things considered, but that’s besides the point) but none of them reach the level of harassment. Harassment is in reference to a pattern of behavior, not one individual action — no matter how heinous that action might be.

Mind you, the “harassers” or the “cancelers” are best understood in the same way as The Brotherhood is understood in 1984. They are a shadowy group that we are told could encompass anyone we know, even close friends or family. If someone is caught engaging in actions that are too similar to the legends of this group, they must be reported, condemned, and attacked or else they’ll take over. We must give universal rounds of condemning them, because any and all enemies we will ever come across are actually involved with them, or even controlled by them.

Just like The Brotherhood, the only evidence we have of their existence is the word of those in charge. When I asked a Twitter user named @HauntedHouse100 for evidence Cawthon was being harassed, he told me the following:

the people who were saying it most likely deleted their posts since they go shit on so hard

So Cawthon was being dogpilled, harassed, and everything in-between and it’s so widespread that any conversation about Cawthon’s actions must start with a condemnation of those actions. Yet, the people doing it were so universally condemned that they had to delete their tweets and lock their accounts just to avoid the hate. (By the way, I thought being pressured into silencing yourself due to expressing unpopular views is exactly what “cancel culture” was doing.)

You might remember that letter from 2020 that over one-hundred public figures, including J.K. Rowling and Noam Chomsky, signed against “cancel culture.” Of course, J.K Rowling hates “cancel culture” for the same reason Jeff Bezos hates unions, both cut into their bottom line and make it so they might be slightly less rich. (Rowling at the time was facing backlash for her views on transgenderism, which turned out to be based in utter nonsense.) During a recent CNN interview, even former President Barack Obama said that “cancel culture” has recently crossed a line:

A lot of the dangers of cancel culture and “we’re just going to be condemning people all the time,” at least among my daughters, they’ll acknowledge that among their peer group or in college campuses, you’ll see people going overboard.

And, of course, “cancel culture” was a major part of Trump’s re-election campaign. At one point, Donald Trump went so far as to call Joe Biden “the candidate of cancel culture.” (Whatever that means.) White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said of Donald Trump “President Trump stands against … cancel culture, which seeks to erase our history.”

Of course, Donald Trump did try to “erase our history” during his time in the White House. Just look at the 1776 Report, a report authored by no actual historians which aims to counter the 1619 Project and was part of Trump’s plan to promote “patriotic education,” and its unbelievable amounts of lies by omission regarding the topic of American history.

Yes, much of what we call “cancel culture” has historically been something engaged in by the right-wing. On 5/20/2021, Anthony Sabatini tweeted the following:

If Socrates was out philosophizing in American society today, he would be cancelled real quick

Socrates was killed over accusations he was an atheist who was corrupting the children of Athens. If you actually look at the charges against him, they look much more like something you’d read in a Dennis Prager column than something you’d read on Crooks And Liars.

In Newsweek on 7/20/2020, Spencer Klavan figured out how to defeat cancel culture, by voting Republican:

Unfortunately, there is only one thing that can fix any of this right now, and that is to vote Republican in 2020. All over the ballot, straight down the ticket, red all the way. There is simply no other option if you want to be free to speak and write as you choose. You may try to circumvent the mainstream orthodoxy through independent digital media, as [Andrew] Sullivan hopes to, but the cancel cretins will easily shut down such dissent if they gain political power. You may fiercely oppose some GOP policies — you may want to defend abortion rights or universalize health care — but we will be unable to have those debates at all if we lose our freedom of speech. Republicans will protect that freedom. Democrats will not.

So “cancel culture” has the ire of the wealthy class, the intellectual class, a large amount of the mainstream media, and both political parties. The people who oppose “cancel culture” are constantly told they are raging against the machine, by the machine. People on both the left and right are telling us this is a massive issue, with the only difference being sometimes the leftist will tell us this or that example is not “real cancel culture” or that the overall issue is being exaggerated.

The same day I wrote most of this article, American comedian Kevin Hart trended on Twitter for saying that he’s “been canceled, what, three or four times? Never bothered.” Hart was quickly applauded for condemning “cancel culture” (a position about as brave as a person in Oceania condemning Emmanuel Goldstein), despite the fact that many other celebrities, especially in the comedy industry, have already done the same.

Of course, the only time Hart has ever come close to getting “cancelled” was in late 2018, when after it was announced that he was going to host the 2019 Academy Awards a series of homophobic tweets resurfaced. Far as I can tell, the tweets came back to light because of Benjamin Lee’s 12/5/2018 article for The Guardian “Oscars host Kevin Hart’s homophobia is no laughing matter.” In the article, Lee not only criticizes some of Hart’s past homophobic jokes but also notes that Hart never seemed to acknowledge what the issue was. When he was called out for making a joke about how he’d never want a gay kid during a 2015 profile, he said the following:

I wouldn’t tell that joke today, because when I said it, the times weren’t as sensitive as they are now. I think we love to make big deals out of things that aren’t necessarily big deals, because we can.

Here was the joke in question:

One of my biggest fears is my son growing up and being gay. That’s a fear. Keep in mind, I’m not homophobic, I have nothing against gay people, be happy. Do what you want to do. But me, being a heterosexual male, if I can prevent my son from being gay, I will. Now with that being said, I don’t know if I handled my son’s first gay moment correctly. Every kid has a gay moment but when it happens, you’ve got to nip it in the bud!

Now, if Hart really was just joking, that’s fine, he’s a comedian and that’s what they do. (With that said, I’m personally not sure which part of the statement above is supposed to be funny, but that’s besides the point.) However, considering having homophobic parents (and here, Hart literally admits to have a phobia of his child being a homosexual) is one of the biggest fears a large number of gay people face — I’ll just say that he can joke about it, but he shouldn’t be surprised if it makes some people mad.

Mind you, Hart was never actually “cancelled” during this incident, as it was Hart who willingly resigned from his position of award show host after this controversy broke. Had Hart not resigned, he would have hosted the show and nobody would have cared one way or the other. Lee’s article didn’t even call for Hart to not be the host of the Oscars, it just pointed out that Hart had, in fact, made many homophobic remarks and asked for Hart to apologize for them. Hart actually offered an apology on Twitter on 12/7/2019, the same day he said on an Instagram live-stream he had no interest in apologizing. Oh, and the first thing Hart did in that apology was announce he was not going to host the Oscars:

I have made the choice to step down from hosting this year’s Oscar’s — this is because I do not want to be a distraction on a night that should be celebrated by so many amazing talented artists. I sincerely apologize to the LGBTQ community for my insensitive words from my past.

The media at the time kept telling us that “Kevin Hart was cancelled,” but the only person who actually cancelled Kevin Hart was Kevin Hart. For that matter, let’s just take a minute to think about how it’s now our fault when a comedian fails to make us laugh, not the fault of the comedian. Again, you have to like all popular entertainment uncritically, or else you’re engaging in “cancel culture.” You must buy whatever is popular at that moment, or else you are engaging in “cancel culture.” Any criticism of our current media will be seen as an attempt at “cancel culture.”

What does it even mean to “cancel” in the first place? According to Google, when “cancel” is used as a verb it has the following two definitions:

1. decide or announce that (a planned event) will not take place.
2. (of a factor or circumstance) neutralize or negate the force or effect of (another).

Obviously, the second one seems much more appropriate for this situation than the first one. So to “cancel” someone is to “neutralize or negate” their “effect.” Basically, you are trying to remove them from popular culture all together.

Can we just talk about how deeply over-dramatic, paranoid, and egotistical saying you’ve been “cancelled” is? From this perspective, you’ve basically said not just “they’re out to get me” (the common cry of the paranoid, and the cry Michael Jackson was mocked for believing when it came to Sony) but “they’re out to erase me from existence.” You are basically accusing random people on Twitter are going to you being unpersoned like a citizen of Oceania.

With this in mind, the only people who can truly claimed to have been “cancelled” are people who have had their legacies erased. Ren And Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi and Drake And Josh creator Dan Schneider both had Nickelodeon not only cut all ties with them, but for a time deny they ever had any ties with them after grooming and sexual abuse accusations surfaced against the both of them. That was actually being “cancelled,” although most would argue that such “cancelling” was entirely justified.

I want to end by pointing out a little irony I’ve noticed regarding the argument over “cancel culture.” For decades, some on the left have argued that “hate speech isn’t free speech,” hate speech being speech specifically aimed at insulting marginalized communities because of their status of being in those communities.

Normally, these arguments are strawmanned into “the left doesn’t want you to be allowed to insult people,” but the true argument is much more complicated. Basically, some argue, hate speech actually gets in the way of free speech because allowing people to mindlessly insult marginalized communities leads to them silencing themselves, if only out of fear.

While I don’t agree with the idea that hate speech should be banned, it’s at least something to think about, especially since it shows that “free speech” and “free debate” are not always the same thing. (Debates tend to have moderators for a reason, after all.) However, it’s rather interesting how the old argument about “hate speech” is now being re-branded into the argument against “cancel culture.” The only difference is, instead of the people who get silenced being marginalized groups, they’re famous celebrities worth more than everyone defending them combined.