In an era marked by moral panic and media hysteria, cancel culture looms large as the new big, bad wolf.
On Sunday August 25th, I attended Uncancelled Culture a panel at the 2024 Festival of Dangerous Ideas, where leading journalistic voices explored the enduring presence of cancel culture. While the practice of holding people accountable for their wrongdoings is centuries old, the dawn of social media has significantly altered our perceptions of justice and rehabilitation. This discussion, chaired by Tim Dean, explored how the power of redemption and second chances can survive in a digital landscape dominated by public shaming.
The first speaker introduced to the panel was Roxane Gay. Roxane is an American writer whose essay collection, “Bad Feminist” (more specifically, the essay “Dear Young Ladies Who Love Chris Brown So Much They Would Let Him Beat Them”) led me to this panel in the first place. Roxane Gay held a rather pessimistic perspective of the ubiquity of social media. When addressing trolling and cyber-hate, she noted how the omnipresence of social media fulfils the daily impotence of trolls. The attention that cyber-hate receives, whether positive or negative, is attention, nonetheless. Thus, engagement in “rage bait” serves the purpose of trolls, expressing how engagement with online media is “shouting into a void, and the void shouts back.”
David Baddiel is an English comedian who appears to be more than meets the eye. Although unfamiliar with his work, I quickly engaged with his ability to express his ideas in conversational and often humorous ways. When asked about his thoughts on social media, his insights held a distaste for the “intense and paralysing self-consciousness” that it perpetuates. This “self-consciousness” is described as a culture that trickles down into schools and communities, where the next generation grows up cautious. He also echoed Gay’s thoughts on social media, saying it is “increasing the sum total of anger” by glorifying negative engagement on their platforms. Conversely, Baddiel also believes in using said platforms to uplift underrepresented voices. Elon Musk’s Twitter as “the marketplace of ideas, rather than a marketplace of identities” was analysed to support his belief.
Pulitzer Prize reporter, Andy Mills critiqued the reparative justice that social media attempts to disperse, representing how “cancel culture looks like a virtue, but is a vice.” Mills traced this development to the cultural consciousness of social media. Recalling how social media was introduced with no warning or information to its users, it was a “toddler crawling towards a gun.” There is no authentic way of understanding its extensive ramifications and ubiquity.
Mills identifies AI as a current example of kickstarting conversations about ethics and the broader social impact. Without warning, these conversations were omitted from social media and adapted as part of our daily activities. Thus, little has been understood about social media. This nonchalance has escalated to the point where engagement is not monitored, and movements like cancel culture have led to unmitigated hate and rejection. As Mills notes, justice doesn’t exist in cancel culture; only cruelty does.
Megan Phelps-Roper, an American political activist, was a former member of the Westboro Baptist Church. When asked about her stance on social media, she reflected on her transformation journey. Excommunicated from the church, she was initially shocked by the curiosity and kindness she encountered on social media. The engagement with diverse ideas challenged her prejudiced beliefs and led her to question their validity. Megan’s story is a powerful reminder of the potential for growth and change in the digital age. It also highlights how cancel culture depletes this transformative possibility.
When asked about forgiveness in the digital age, Mills shared an anecdote that encapsulated his attitude. In the comment section of his project, You Can’t Say That (Part 1, Andy Mills), he decided to entertain a user’s criticism of his podcast. However, this conversation quickly devolved into hate speech. Expressed in the top line of Mills’ response,
“While I appreciate you as a listener, I fear that you’ve fallen into a trap that is especially common online, where you attack a person instead of their ideas and ascribe views to others that they do not hold (and in this case, actions).”
Echoing Gay’s past principles, Mills expresses how social media operates under an attention economy that promotes positive or negative engagement. Thus, more often than not, users do not engage thoughtfully with each other but rather engage to receive more engagement. The biggest takeaway that Mills had from this experience is that whether directly or not, we affect each other. As he expressed to the commenting user,
“I’m doing my best to engage in the sort of good-faith conversation that I think is important (though hard).”
The panel agrees that there must be a path to forgiveness, “otherwise, mistakes are fatal” (Roxane Gay). The extremities of cancel culture repress productive conversations as intrinsic human mistakes lead to being “cancelled”. There is no scale or proportion in consequences, and Gay highlights that “social media does not assist with the calibration”, as cancel culture creates a society where the fear of being cancelled is greater than the desire to exchange ideas.
The panel promotes the solution of taking conversations offline, where nuances and the exchange of ideas are regulated under the conventions of polite society. In addition, active apologies must be promoted, as there is no unilateral swipe for forgiveness; an apology must be asked, offered, and received. All of this must take place between the victim and abuser, not within the “crowded square” that social media operates within.
This panel was essential in understanding the current social media landscape, emphasising the importance of having thoughtful, nuanced discussions beyond the online world. The speakers highlighted the need for civilised engagement – offering practical tools to address cancel culture and broader societal issues in the digital age. Ultimately, the panelists stressed that while engaging with social media within your limits is essential, there should always be room for forgiveness.
The Festival of Dangerous Ideas was presented by The Ethics Centre in August 2024. Catch up on talk from over 12 years’ of FODI at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas podcast, festivalofdangerousideas.com.