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…”

“That’s not activism,” Obama said. “That’s not bringing about change. If all you’re doing is casting stones, you’re probably not going to get that far. That’s 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 hobby—an 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 person’s 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 media—from Twitter to YouTube and beyond—affecting 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 that’s certainly not where it ends.

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