12 Facts About Cancel culture

Cancel culture or call-out culture is a phrase contemporary to the late 2010s and early 2020s used to refer to a form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles – whether it be online, on social media, or in person.

Notion of cancel culture is a variant on the term call-out culture.

Some critics argue that cancel culture has a chilling effect on public discourse, is unproductive, does not bring real social change, causes intolerance, and amounts to cyberbullying.

Phrase cancel culture gained popularity since late 2019, most often as a recognition that society will exact accountability for offensive conduct.

Former US President Donald Trump criticized cancel culture in a speech in July 2020, comparing it to totalitarianism and saying that it is a political weapon used to punish and shame dissenters by driving them from their jobs and demanding submission.

Related searches

Cancel culture was criticized as being hypocritical for having attempted to "cancel" a number of people and companies in the past himself.

Trump made similar claims during the 2020 Republican National Convention when he stated that the goal of cancel culture is to make decent Americans live in fear of being fired, expelled, shamed, humiliated, and driven from society.

Pope Francis said that cancel culture is "a form of ideological colonization, one that leaves no room for freedom of expression", saying that it "ends up cancelling all sense of identity".

Some argue that cancel culture does have its benefits, such as allowing less powerful people to have a voice, helps marginalized people hold others accountable when the justice system doesn't work, and cancelling is a tool to bring about social change.

Former US Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia says that cancel culture is a form of free speech, and is therefore protected under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Cancel culture argues that social media is an extension and reincarnation of a longer tradition of expression in a liberal society, "a new space for historical power structures to be solidified" and that online criticism by people who do not hold actual power in society tends to not affect existing power structures.

The terms have different connotations: cancel culture focusing on the effect whereby discussion is limited by a desire to maintain one certain viewpoint, whereas consequence culture focuses on the idea that those who write or publish opinions or make statements should bear some responsibility for the effects of these on people.