On cancel culture

“Love Island USA“ contestant Cierra Ortega, actor Sydney Sweeney and comedian Matt Rife have one thing in common: They were canceled, or re-canceled, this summer. 

Cancel culture has been praised and demonized in equal measure since the 2010s, when it emerged in its modern form. While experts argue that very few people have actually been canceled in a way that affected their real professional or personal lives, widespread fear (especially around 2020, during the peak of cancel culture) that “wokeness” has taken over our culture has had legitimate political and global impacts. 

While the height of cancel culture has quieted since the early 2020s, the discourse over its use has remained relevant on social media. People still disagree: Is cancel culture a helpful tool in enforcing accountability or a dangerous form of censorship?

The truth, of course, is somewhere in the middle. It is certainly overdramatic to compare censorship to public outcry against the use of slurs and discriminatory stereotypes or sexual assault/harassment allegations, for example. However, there is also validity to criticisms of cancel culture. Many critics question the true purpose of a cancelation; do we mean to make public examples of people? To force offenders to take accountability? Or do we hope to genuinely change the public consciousness and conversation surrounding cancel-worthy issues?

For most of the canceled, a heartfelt and earnest apology is the first step when making public amends after committing their offense. However, in any successful post-cancelation comeback, the apology must be followed by a long-term pattern of action proving that education, reflection and growth occurred after being confronted with a mistake. While certainly not absolving these individuals of the harms they committed, it is clear that the public is on some level willing to forgive many formerly canceled influencers (think Trisha Paytas or Tana Mongeau). 

Some cancelations are for wrongdoings so heinous that they will likely (and rightfully) never be forgiven. However, society may learn more effectively from the mistakes of influencers they can watch change and mature than from those who don’t make a public effort to correct their behavior. Audiences, especially young people, are truly influenced by the actions of the content creators they look up to. If our public figures can evolve, their fans may just evolve with them. 

Beyond the benefits of emphasizing call-out culture over cancel culture, we should also question the people that we have historically chosen to cancel. As the cancel culture movement grew alongside the “Me Too” movement, many important people were appropriately canceled and removed from public life. However, as cancelations have shifted to affect primarily internet and media personalities, many figures in other parts of public life have skirted the consequences of even more severe transgressions. 

Politicians and government officials (in both parties) use offensive language, openly support harmful policies that do not prioritize human wellbeing and face criminal allegations of all forms while experiencing minimal consequences. It feels almost dystopian to open the news to excessive coverage of the latest celebrity misstep, while major political decisions are made silently in the background by politicians who have no greater loyalty than to their donors and fundraisers. 

The truth is that there are some young people, including Notre Dame students, who will find that they have used language and possessed biases in the past that they have yet to recognize and address. In order to use cancel culture effectively, we have to find ways to not only hold the famous accountable — but also ourselves and our lawmakers. We have to choose the growth of our societal and campus culture as a whole over celebrity drama, and we have to force the leaders of our government to act as examples rather than villains if we want to progress together.