Cancel Culture Is Not Going to Cancel Culture

The first thing to make clear is that we don’t have a cancel culture. Culture is, in its simplest form, collective regard and social norms. Today, there is not enough collective support or care for cancelling acting careers or concerts because of the thoughts and behaviors of celebrities. There just isn’t. The average person does not spend enough emotional or intellectual energy keeping up with or responding to controversy. Instead, the energy around cancel culture is really about the shock, anger, and demands of a small percentage of people and the instantaneous fear that it sparks in advertisers and CEO’s.

None of this is intended to diminish the plight of anyone calling for the cancellation of this person or that show, nor to lessen the horridness of some of the things they are protesting. Instead, we just need to recognize the reality that for all of the legwork put forth to cancel culture in the name of accountability and improved humanity, the culture is not in fact cancelling. Instead, the ‘cancelled’ (Roseanne, Louis CK, etc.) are taking a temporary knee before resurfacing to future success. Meanwhile, the average person is giving an eye roll and a shoulder shrug to what they see as an over sensitized stream of movements that they want no part in. It should also be acknowledged that even as companies cancel things that “aren’t consistent with…” their…