Former President Barack Obama recently made waves online when he critiqued woke activism, a part of what has become known as cancel culture. Obama spoke to a crowd gathered at the Obama Foundation Summit in Chicago and said that he sees college students and other young people thinking they can only bring about change by being as judgmental as possible about other people
Thats not activism, Obama said. Thats not bringing about change. If all youre doing is casting stones, youre probably not going to get that far. Thats easy to do.
Cancel culture is about taking the easy route of shutting down your opponents instead of engaging them in a debate. But what does it mean to cancel someone?
What does it mean to be canceled?
Writing for City Journal, Robert Henderson describes the act of canceling as an entertaining hobbyan indulgent, dopamine-feeding activity practiced on social media until its cruel practitioners, ultimately bored, follow the algorithms elsewhere.
But as Fred Bauer argues at National Review, canceling goes far beyond social media. He writes that canceling is often about translating this digital criticism into real personal pain. This could mean anything from causing a persons media platform to be shut down all the way to causing someone to be fired from their job.
Canceling is found all over on social mediafrom Twitter to YouTube and beyondaffecting celebrities and politicians of all varieties. Young people cancel their peers.
The practice of canceling is sometimes used to de-platform powerful individuals who have been convicted or credibly accused of horrendous crimes (think Harvey Weinstein). But thats certainly not where it ends.
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