Origins
The 1981 Chic album Take It Off includes the song "Your Love Is Cancelled," which compares a breakup to the cancellation of TV shows. The song was written by Nile Rodgers following a bad date Rodgers had with a woman who expected him to misuse his celebrity status on her behalf. "Your Love Is Cancelled" inspired screenwriter Barry Michael Cooper to include a reference to a woman being canceled in the 1991 film New Jack City.[15] This usage introduced the term to African-American Vernacular English, where it eventually became more common.[16]
By around 2015, the concept of canceling had become widespread on Black Twitter to refer to a personal decision, sometimes seriously and sometimes in jest, to stop supporting a person or work.[15][17][18] According to Jonah Engel Bromwich of The New York Times, this usage of the word "cancellation" indicates the "total disinvestment in something (anything)".[3][19] After numerous cases of online shaming gained wide notoriety, the term "cancellation" was increasingly used to describe a widespread, outraged, online response to a single provocative statement, against a single target.[20] Over time, as isolated instances of cancellation became more frequent and the mob mentality more apparent, commentators began seeing a "culture" of outrage and cancellation.[21]
Conversations about "cancel culture" started to increase in late 2019.[22][23] In the 2020s, the phrase became a shorthand employed by conservatives in the United States to refer to what they perceived to be disproportionate reactions to politically incorrect speech.[24] In 2020, Ligaya Mishan wrote in The New York Times, "The term is shambolically applied to incidents both online and off that range from vigilante justice to hostile debate to stalking, intimidation and harassment. ... Those who embrace the idea (if not the precise language) of canceling seek more than pat apologies and retractions, although it's not always clear whether the goal is to right a specific wrong or redress a larger imbalance of power."[25][26]
"Call-out culture" has been in use as part of the #MeToo movement.[27] The #MeToo movement encouraged women (and men) to call out their abusers on a forum where the accusations would be heard, especially against very powerful individuals.[9] Additionally, the Black Lives Matter Movement, which seeks to highlight inequalities, racism, and discrimination experienced by the black community, repeatedly called out police officers who were killing black men and women across the nation.[28]
Academic and legal perspectives
An article written by Pippa Norris, a professor at Harvard University, states that the controversies surrounding cancel culture are between those who argue it gives a voice to those in marginalized communities and those who argue that cancel culture is dangerous because it prevents free speech and/or the opportunity for open debate. Norris emphasizes the role of social media in contributing to the rise of cancel culture.[29] Additionally, online communications studies have demonstrated the intensification of cultural wars through activists that are connected through digital and social networking sites.[30] Norris also mentions that the spiral of silence theory may contribute to why people are hesitant to voice their minority views on social media sites and fear that their views and opinions, specifically political opinions, will be chastised because their views violate the majority group's norms and understanding.[31]
In the book The Coddling of the American Mind (2018), social psychologist Jonathan Haidt and free-speech activist Greg Lukianoff argue that call-out culture arises on college campuses from what they term "safetyism"— a moral culture in which people are unwilling to make tradeoffs demanded by the practical or moral concerns of others.[32][33][34] Keith Hampton, professor of media studies at Michigan State University, contends that the practice contributes to political polarization in the United States but does not lead to changes in opinion.[35] Cancel culture has been described by media studies scholar Eve Ng as "a collective of typically marginalized voices 'calling out' and emphatically expressing their censure of a powerful figure."[36] Cultural studies scholar Frances E. Lee states that call-out culture leads to self-policing of "wrong, oppressive, or inappropriate" opinions.[37][38] According to Lisa Nakamura, University of Michigan professor of media studies, canceling someone is a form of "cultural boycott" and cancel culture is the "ultimate expression of agency," which is "born of a desire for control [as] people have limited power over what is presented to them on social media" and a need for "accountability which is not centralized".[3][39][40]
Some academics have proposed alternatives and improvements to cancel culture. Critical multiculturalism professor Anita Bright proposed "calling in" rather than "calling out" in order to bring forward the former's idea of accountability but in a more "humane, humble, and bridge-building" light.[41] Clinical counsellor Anna Richards, who specializes in conflict mediation, says that "learning to analyze our own motivations when offering criticism" helps call-out culture work productively.[42] Professor Joshua Knobe, of the Philosophy Department at Yale, contends that public denunciation is not effective, and that society is too quick to pass judgement against those they view as public offenders or personae non gratae. Knobe says that these actions have the opposite effect on individuals, and that it is best to bring attention to the positive actions in which most of society participates.[43]
Former US Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia wrote in a 2021 Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy article that cancel culture is a form of free speech, and is therefore protected under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. According to Scalia, cancel culture can interfere with the right to counsel, as some lawyers would not be willing to risk their personal and professional reputation on controversial topics.[44]