What is cancel culture really?


Cancelling, that thing everyone is talking about. Of course there's no such thing as "cancel culture" right? What people call "cancel culture" is just people being held accountable and if you don't want to be "cancelled", maybe you should just stop being so problematic.

Held accountable, what does that mean? It is obvious that when people do any action, there will be a reaction. This is how it has always been, but some people think that hate campagins and harrasment are "holding people accountable" or vocalising their disagreement.

This is just a disingenous framing of reality and the only people who say it is about justice are liers and idiots. It is never about holding people accountable or fighting against hate or injustice. That is just the lie that LARPing activists tell themselves to feel like they are fighting injustice rather than for their own selfish desire for social credit.

What cancel culture is not

What is it that people mean by "cancel culture". What does it mean to be "cancelled". Before identifying what cancel culture is, we would need to identify what it is not.

Cancel culture is not when people get angry at rich celebrities or public figures after doing something that causes them lose support of businesses and the public. It is not when people get fired from their jobs for doing stupid things. It is not when people get exposed for being terrible people, and it is not when people respond to someone's actions. Those are just things we call consequences and reactions which people should be free to express. When someone does something, there will always be a reaction to it. It's just a fact.

However, that is not what cancel culture is and too many people try to frame it that way to cover up and justify shitty and toxic behavior. Is it cancel culture? Is it harrassment? They would say no, those are just consequences and no one is against consequences right?

What makes someone a target for this culture? Is it popularity? Only people with large platforms can be canceled right? And people with a large audience should be careful about what they do when they have their platform. No. It isn't just people who are popular who should be wary, it could be anyone, even someone completly average. It could be a random couple that posts something on their public personal social media page that goes viral because other people found it and got mad about it. Something normal you did could go viral and the next thing you know, people have seen your face and have made their judegements. No one is immune.

What it is

Cancel culture can be thought of in two forms. The first one is targeted hate campaigns. This kind of Cancel culture is a witch hunt to find people to burn. It is an act of uncharitable interpretations of people's words and actions. They have been made an enemy and you must crush that enemy with everything you've got. They must be absolutely ahnihilated!

So what must someone do to become a target of this witchunt and be revealed as an enemy? Nothing much really, It could start from anything that gets snowballed by someone bored and dying for attention. Sometimes it fails and sometimes it sticks, and if it sticks, the mob will do everything they can to find anything else to the list of why they are the most evil person in the world and why they must be destroyed. Things that were not a problem become a problem when someone asks the question. Being given the option to decide if something is offensive or problematic forces one to hypothetically think of it as being a problem.

Every small minor thing suddenly becomes a major thing they can add that on to the list of why you deserve the hanging. Said an edgy joke between friends, added to the list. Got a parking ticket, added to the list. The thing that someone is being "canceled" for doesn't even have to be true. It could be all a fabrication; rumors started by people who are desperate for online attention. People getting fired for their iresponsible actions and missuing their positions is not cancel culture. People that pressure employers to fire people based on lies, misinformation and hate campaigns --- information that they got by doxxing --- is cancel culture.

No facts or critical thinking required; it could be based completely out of nothing without any proof. That is because it doesn't matter if no one has proof because the things they are accused of are so bad that no proof is needed and will then do everything to destroy the accused without any charitability, critical thinking or common sense. They don't want the accusations to be false because they are hungry, they already have the taste for blood and now they MUST see a hanging. They will frame any neutral thing into something bad to fit their hate campagin.

To hold someone accountable for their actions would mean to condemm and openly disapprove of the things they have said. What it does not involve are targeted attacks, lies, harrasment and slander. People who are canceled are not rich celebrities that lose their endorsements and get their products pulled. They are not irresponsible people with a platform that got fired for saying stupid things. They are people that are the target of abuse over something trivial where people make leaps of logic to convince themselves that they are pure evil and must go down. It starts with something minor that people snowball and intensify to fufil some sort of sadistic thrill.

The second kind of cancel culture is the impersonal kind. A kind of culture where a vocal minority make a hate campaign against a product rather than a person. What people hate about this form of cancel culture is that the majority of people could be completly fine with something, but the vocal minority disproportionatly makes it look like the opposite. They will use highly emotional and moralistic language for extra effect.

It could be a campaign to get a product or book pulled because of some rumours and allegations about what the author did or because of a misunderstanding of the product. With this kind of cancel culture, it is not enough to dislike something and avoid it; they have to deny other people the access to it too, and no one likes that.

Cancel culture is all about amplification. The people doing the cancelling really need to SELL IT in order to get their points across. They're just like salesmen who know the right buzzwords to say to sell people on things, and like salesmen they are entirely self interested which means that as long as they get what they want, they don't care about the end result or how their actions will make things better.

What they are selling you are villans, they are selling you a villain to put all your hate into so you can feel better. It is like the two minute hate where a figure is presented to put all your hate into and blame everything you hate about the world into. You are to look at these heretics to loudly express your hatred for them. A daily excersize to vent their existential anguish on to a prepared enemy.

Why they do it

So who are these people and why do they take part in this? What goes on in their minds? They can come from anywhere from a variety of demographics from young to old and can be based on any sort of ideology they strongly believe in. From young teenage twitter users to angry middle class moms that want to sanitize the world. The trendy new ideology popular with the kids these days are what people are calling "wokeism" which is the same as all the other ideological zealotry throughout history.

These types of people are villains that think they're heroes; they do villainous things and call them heroic acts. They are people that think they are big strong warriors when they really are just the biggest babies on the internet that don't have the emotional maturity to actually communicate or argue their points. These people spend too much of their life looking at screens browsing insular communities that jerk each other off about how special and unique they are. They think they are powerful when they are not, they are just powerless nobodies desperate for likes who leverage people that actually do have power. So why do they do it?

It could be about a personal vendetta against a certain figure. If someone they dislike isn't doing something wrong or offensive in the present, they would have to satiate that need by looking for anything in the past, anything that could make them look bad, trudging through everything they did, every post, every appearence working as hard as a detective when looking for leads for a crimminal. Then they find it, something that they did that is a long way away from their present selves and use that to prove why they are pure evil. Why go through all that trouble? So that they can be credited for being the one that discovered it first and to be called a hero while at the same time attacking their enemy. They NEED that positive social interaction because it will be the only admiration they will get.

It is all about their ego, not justice or "accountablility". The things they do are shrouded in moralisms. What is moralism? Moralism is a tool that allows you to claim that you have the higher ground without having to think for yourself. To be moralistic is to belive in meta-narratives such as good vs evil and oppressors vs oppressed. They can only see things in that frame of mind which means anything they believe in is on the side of good rather than evil.

Many people do it because they're just bored. They are looking for something to do to distract them from their meaningless lives because they have nothing better to do. As said before, they do it for themselves while lying to themselves that it is for the greater good. When people are bored, they are desperate for anything that could give them that rush which means they will do everything they can to create that fun. Of course they would either be too fake, or too low in self-awareness to admit this.

The reason why people have had enough of this "cancel culture" shit is because people don't like being moralised to. They are forcing a RELIGION on them which people do not like because people do not like being ordered what to think. They are moralistic because they are not capable of communicating disagreement without looking irational. To be moral is to have essentialist principles of right and wrong; Believing that you are supporting what is "right" can be used to justify anything which is what we are seeing here. People believe they are justified in what they are doing because they have the moral high ground, and when you do something that falls outside of their ideas of right and wrong they will use a noun to describe you for falling outside of those morals. Something powerful that will shame you and signal to the other moralists that you are imoral. They like the power it gives them as it serves their ego while at the same time passing themselves of as righteous.

Many times it is pure projection. Many of these people accusing others are doing it to cover their own asses after doing the same thing, something equally bad, or something far worse. How many times do we see the accusers and the cryers get exposed for being shitty people? Are they in the position to pass judgement on others? This is an act of guilt and shame, a selfish act of repentence for the sins they have done. Rather than confess, they must instead take the role of prosecutor so they can be redeemed as long as no one finds out. You must look at public accusers with suspicion, because they always have something to hide.

There's always a reason why people do these things and they're all red flags. Be wary of them.

Why you should not take part in this

You would not be making anything better

It DOES NOT WORK. No one learns anything or gets encouraged to change for the better, all it does is create more misery. It doesn't add any value to anybody or change anyone's minds. It is a waste of time and energy that people only engage in when they have nothing better to do. Nothing is made better which makes the whole thing pointless from a logical point of view. There are no upsides, only downsides.


It is done out of hatred, not justice or what is right

Rather than being about justice, it is actually about fufiling your own sadistic desires. It is not about correcting people's behavior, it is simply about getting your own fill of the sadism. This makes the act not genuine as it is under the lie that it is about what is right. It is fake and inauthentic.


It normalizes and incentivizes toxicity

When did sadism and spitefulness become acceptable? These are not virtuous qualities at all. You should condemn those things, not endorse it.


It's mob mentality

Mob mentality is not a good thing as it causes people to act according to the emotional whims of a group where facts and details do not matter. It is action based on the collective emotion of the group which far more easy to manipulate than rationality which is perceptive by nature. We must act based on what makes sense rather than what "feels" good.


It is done out of selfishness

People do this for gaining social capital to supply their egos with. Creating drama will give you social credit in the form of likes and follows. This will encourage you to twist the truth and make false claims to suit your needs. People will do anything for that social credit. They LOVE being in the center of drama, as long as they are not the ones on the receiving end of it. The motive for these actions is suspect, therefore their claims should also be suspect.


It's imature and indicates poor character

Somene that does this sort of thing is not someone you should want to be around. No one should want to be around someone that is always trying to create drama and creating divisions just to feel good. It is a sign that they are troubled and have issues, a sign that they are a bad person.


These are clearly not nice people and you wouldn't want to be among them as they would not hesitate to turn on you. Don't be part of the problem.

We should all have the freedom to freely associate with who we please, but no one should have the freedom to baselessly attack people's character without it being called out and critisized. It is the job of the people to identify and strike against a dangerous, hostile and destructive culture that will eat everyone in its path. What bullies want is to have power over you which is why you don't give it to them. Give them a fight. Always fight against your dommination.