Cancel Culture vs. Repercussions for your Actions

[Adam_ 1,039]

We live in a society where nowadays we find "cancel culture" as its called being a big thing with going after people for something they said/did years ago. However, there's also a lot of people that have done genuinely bad things and it seems now more than ever, truth and accusations are coming out as victims aren't as afraid to come out about their experiences as they would have been in previous years/decades. I find that whenever I see something like this happening, I often see people saying that it's "cancel culture" when someone ends up deplatformed because of admission of certain crimes (generally involving underaged individuals, abusing partners or other abuse). To me, it certainly isn't. I wouldn't call anyone facing the repercussions of being a total waste of space pedo/nonce/abuser/whatever a "victim" of "cancel culture". I'd call them a criminal or a piece of shit who gets what they deserve. Nonetheless, there's obviously people out there who for some reason get a kick or sense of importance out of going through 5 year old tweets to find when x musician used a derogatory term or had a shit take and trying to ruin their life/reputation over it, which is pretty sure and in my opinion, quite unfair. Obviously this type of person will also jump on the train when a serious offender is being exposed which may blur the lines a bit between whether something is deemed cancel culture.

 

Let's take a few examples.

 

This thread create by Da Bazz is, in my opinion, a good example of cancel culture.

Trying to cancel eminem because of something he said in a song 11 years ago? It's not even that bad compared to other lyrics he's used in certain songs. Very cringe. I'd be surprised if anyone disagreed with me that this is 100% cancel culture, and not eminem being a bad person or some type of criminal/abuser and him getting what he deserves, though as I said on the thread I doubt anything will come of it / has come of it anyways, other people facing this aren't always as lucky.

 

Next is a very interesting one where both parties were somewhat involved and some lies were told, i'll just post this as it contains a fair bit of the information.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Depp#Personal_life

Basically Amber Heard ruined her ex husband Johnny Depp's life accusing him of doing this and that, and it was later exposed that not only was it bullshit, but she was quite abusive herself and there was evidence of this. By this point a lot had been done wrong to him including his career taking a hit and I believe him losing a related court case. After the truth came out and he filed a lawsuit against her, she had the audacity to say that he was trying to ruin her image and countersued him? 

This is very tricky in my opinion because it's not exactly something where someone said or did something questionable ages ago, there were very serious allegations. However, i'd definitely say that cancel culture being normalized probably had a significant effect on how much damage was done to Johnny's life and his career. He went through a lot of shit basically because people assumed what he had been accused of was true, and Amber Heard is still seemingly playing the victim. This is also quite bad because false accusations can result in the public questioning real allegations/accusations when they come forward, which they shouldn't. People should stand with victims of abuse, but it's horrible that false accusations like this are a real thing let alone they can do so much damage. People shouldn't have their lives fucked up because they were wrongfully accused either. The accusations being made weren't really part of cancel culture, but the effects on the life of the (in this case, wrongfully) accused man were seemingly very much related to cancel culture.

 

Another recent case involves someone from the gaming community but in a capacity well outside said community: "Gootecks" who made what I believe was a series of tweets asking for "civil unrest" after someone was killed in the riots at the Capital following the results of the presidential election. This one is a bit hard to me as I looked at the tweets and from what I recall he was accused of inciting violence. He asked for civil unrest which doesn't necessarily mean violence to me, however, the woman who was killed if I remember correctly was very much an individual partaking in a violent attack on the capital. She was a criminal (don't post something dumb like "she wasn't a criminal, she was a patriot who was protesting" lol) who pretty much ended up killed due to her own actions and the actions of the group she was part of. Asking for civil unrest due to what happened to her, especially knowing full well what's already going on and there's already violent attacks happening and people dying, seems quite like inciting violence to me with the proper context. I think he was very much deserving of whatever he got from that situation, especially since it could very well be putting peoples' lives at risk and anyone knows that. I also don't know what repercussions he actually faced since his twitter account is still there and i've not heard much or anything about him since then. He had a video link removed from a tweet and some twitch emotes removed? Not really a big deal especially given how many people he could've been putting in danger.

 

Looking at another recent case, Gina Carano was "cancelled" for a serious of social media posts. When I say cancelled, she was basically let go by her employer and removed from current projects and had some future projects cancelled. 

https://nypost.com/2021/02/11/see-gina-caranos-tweets-and-posts-that-got-her-fired/

It seems she had a history of shit takes making accusations of voter fraud and mocking people for wearing masks, but there's plenty of people with shit takes like that out there. The final straw seems to have been when she made a post comparing people disliking one another for political views to the treatment of Jews in Germany during WW2/the Holocaust. Don't really wanna touch that one but it's a pretty fucking horrific shit take and I certainly understand why people would be offended. It's also not something she posted 10 years ago which would be a different story in my opinion, it was very much something she posted nowadays. It is well within the rights of the people employing her for various projects to let her go because they don't want someone like that associated with them or their shows/movies, let alone all the bad publicity it may bring. That being said, I believe since then people have tried quite hard to keep her from getting work anywhere else though I could be wrong. While she is clearly supporter of some horrifically fucking garbage takes I don't feel her life should be fucked up for years to come due to it. I'm not sure if she ever really apologized or would apologize/admit she was wrong about what she posted, which I think would be something important to do though. It's hard to say because she's clearly developed some sort of shitty brand for herself whether the effects on her career will be her own fault or resultant of cancel culture.

 

Now i'll take an example from this past week.

Well known league streamer "Gross Gore" who was prominent in the runescape community before, was permanently banned on twitch despite being a sizeable content creator. This came after ironically, he made a post on reddit asking people to roast him, and all people did was post evidence and links to all sorts of allegations of horrible things he's done, followed by him deleting the post in a few hours. He then made some garbage apology video denying a lot of it or offering garbage explanations to try and combat some of the allegations, most of which I didn't and will not waste my time listening to. Several victims came forward posting their side of the story and there was seemingly a fair bit of evidence in some of these cases. Even worse, there's a clip of him admitting to sexually harassing women 

 

 

Many people in the RS community who attended runefest and other events including some of those were victims of his sexual harassment had posted stories about what happened, and he's also been banned from Runefest for some time for sexually assaulting women. He's admitted himself to doing this, made zero effort to apologize to victims and just put out garbage tier videos essentially lying about what happened. It's pretty obvious he's just a horrible person who still hasn't gotten as bad as he deserves as he continues to have a platform on twitter/youtube which also grants him access to a following which will in all likelihood include underage and naive women. It's also not just sexual harassment/assault, but he's admitted to doing things like sending nudes of one of his exs to her parents among other things after they broke up which is revenge porn (she was also underage). I also very vividly remember him posting clips of animal abuse last year with him abusing his dog that was very clearly ill and using it for twitter content. He's also somehow a father and child protective services had to intervene when he was very clearly neglecting his daughter on stream and using her for content (not allowed to have her on stream anymore.) Just an all around terrible human being. You can read about some more of the allegations here:

 

There's obviously some stuff in there that is nowhere near as bad as the things i've mentioned like "made misogynist comments" and "said the n word twice" like who actually gives a fuck about that when you take everything else into account. 

 

Still nonetheless, we have a significant amount of people defending him and calling him a victim of cancel culture for some reason. 

 

Look at the tweet's replies and several of the quoted tweets, plenty of people even some with decent followings defending him. Very disappointing to see. Things like this are why I am concerned about people labelling everything "Cancel culture" vs. someone actually facing the repercussions of being a shit human being. People see mobs of idiots going after someone for saying the n world 11 years ago and then think it's the same thing when someone goes after their favorite content creator whose actually done horrendous things, making it seem like anything they've done is okay or because they've not publicly done anything horrible in the past year, they've "changed" and are deserving of another chance. 

 

 

What do you guys consider cancel culture? Where do you draw the line?

 

Does it concern you as much as it does me that on one hand we have idiots trying to ruin peoples' lives over bad words but on the other hand we have people defending actual nonces and rapists because they look up to them and think it's just another cancel culture thing?

 

I'd argue that despite actual cancel culture of trying to fuck peoples' lives/employment up over things that don't matter being pretty shit, it's likely also made it easier for some of the truly terrible individuals and the things they've done to get attention and potentially even get dealt with, which I don't think is a bad thing. However, I don't think victims should really have to depend on whether or not people are interested in going after someone after they tell their story to determine whether or not some form of justice is given either. Would you agree?

 

Any cases you care to share or anything you'd want to offer to the discussion i'd like to see. Other ones I didn't really include were things like various musicians people have tried to cancel for x song lyric or x dumb ass tweet from when they were probably quite young or even children, or when such a thing was for more normal. 

[≈Flukejiver 1,185]

Jeez, can I get a tldr?

[Adam_ 1,039]

2 minutes ago, Flukejiver said:

Jeez, can I get a tldr?

Cancel culture bad but what do you actually consider cancel culture vs. someone just getting what they deserve for being a terrible human being?

 

 

[conv 65]

do you have any citations for this essay?

 

 

[Adam_ 1,039]

2 minutes ago, conv said:

do you have any citations for this essay?

 

 

no don't tell the professor

[Pope 1]

There's too many people who think freedom of speech = freedom of consequence. That's all it really is. It really isn't hard to not say stupid, cringe shit. Especially if you're a public figure. I have no sympathy for rich people who lose their riches because they couldn't refrain from saying or doing something stupid.

[Kim 125]

9 minutes ago, Adam_ said:

Cancel culture bad but what do you actually consider cancel culture vs. someone just getting what they deserve for being a terrible human being?

 

 

I don't consider cancel culture bad in cases against R Kelly and people of that realm. Where police officials don't come into many years later. With the power of social media, more awareness such as cases as Onision get sprung up and allow people not to allow them to have a platform. What I don't agree with, people jumping into conclusions so quickly without full on testimony, evidence and such. Although, in cases of SA, you are never going to have evidence. What the type of evidence you can get, its how the accused reacts and them not minimizing the victim. 

In terms of Racism VS Cancel Culture, Repeated behavior of using slurs or purposely trying to attack people with racial comments. They don't deserve a platform. But in cases, where people grow up in neighborhoods where the slurs are commonly used, I can give influencers a pass for one time. Celebrities, similar conditions, but I feel like society including myself, we have higher expectations for them to know better(I give this to people who have in the limelight for years though.)

Reason why I brought up SA, lot of people use cancel culture in the same nature. Perfect example would be what is currently happening to David Dobrik & Todd. 

Edited March 22, 2021 by Kim

[NarNumbers 193]

As with everything theres some good and some bad.

 

I feel many things people are getting "cancelled" over is excessive. Of course everyone has done or said something bad at least a few times in the past. To dig up something from 10 years ago and use it is just too much.

 

On the positive side,  it has encouraged victims of actual crimes/hurtful things to speak up more

 

Also to add something interesting

 

My family runs a company, I ensure that whenever we receive any media attention we keep as low key as possible, stating no personal beliefs and such and just saying the most basic generic answers. Since business is good the last thing i wanna deal with is the public catching onto a stupid old fashion belief my dad has and blowing it out out of proportion.

Edited March 22, 2021 by TheEggMan

[Lavigne 901]

People be wilding.

[Vanzant 1,383]

I dont know any of those dudes you posted about lmao.

 

 

End of the day none of us is perfect. There are situations where people should be taken down and things get thrown our of context to claim its cancel culture .

 

Cancel culture to me personally is people not wanting to hear someone with a different opinion so they attack it.

 

Unfortunately there is much less discussion and people taking the time to understand each other.

 

Aside of that if any of these dudes did what they're accused of. Can go fuck themselves lol. That one guy saying he hasn't sexually assaulted anyone since is ridiculous. Deserves a kick in the dick

[Vanzant 1,383]

14 minutes ago, TheEggMan said:

As with everything theres some good and some bad.

 

I feel many things people are getting "cancelled" over is excessive. Of course everyone has done or said something bad at least a few times in the past. To dig up something from 10 years ago and use it is just too much.

 

On the positive side,  it has encouraged victims of actual crimes/hurtful things to speak up more

 

Also to add something interesting

 

My family runs a company, I ensure that whenever we receive any media attention we keep as low key as possible, stating no personal beliefs and such and just saying the most basic generic answers. Since business is good the last thing i wanna deal with is the public catching onto a stupid old fashion belief my dad has and blowing it out out of proportion.

Is it a egg business 

[Howl 946]

18 minutes ago, Pope said:

There's too many people who think freedom of speech = freedom of consequence. That's all it really is. It really isn't hard to not say stupid, cringe shit. Especially if you're a public figure. I have no sympathy for rich people who lose their riches because they couldn't refrain from saying or doing something stupid.

This. Freedom of speech only protects you from the government, not general public backlash.

 

However, as a society, I hope we never get to the point of destroying books, etc.

[NarNumbers 193]

14 minutes ago, Vanzant said:

Is it a egg business 

Ofc!!!!

 

Na I wish, it's construction related

[Adam_ 1,039]

16 minutes ago, Pope said:

There's too many people who think freedom of speech = freedom of consequence. That's all it really is. It really isn't hard to not say stupid, cringe shit. Especially if you're a public figure. I have no sympathy for rich people who lose their riches because they couldn't refrain from saying or doing something stupid.

Very big agree. I find it ironic there's so many people that think the founding fathers had them saying the n word on twitter in mind in regards to "Freedom of speech" as opposed to not facing criminal punishment /etc because of what you say/believe.

13 minutes ago, Kim said:

I don't consider cancel culture bad in cases against R Kelly and people of that realm. Where police officials don't come into many years later. With the power of social media, more awareness such as cases as Onision get sprung up and allow people not to allow them to have a platform. What I don't agree with, people jumping into conclusions so quickly without full on testimony, evidence and such. Although, in cases of SA, you are never going to have evidence. What the type of evidence you can get, its how the accused reacts and them not minimizing the victim. 

In terms of Racism VS Cancel Culture, Repeated behavior of using slurs or purposely trying to attack people with racial comments. They don't deserve a platform. But in cases, where people grow up in neighborhoods where the slurs are commonly used, I can give influencers a pass for one time. Celebrities, similar conditions, but I feel like society including myself, we have higher expectations for them to know better(I give this to people who have in the limelight for years though.)

Reason why I brought up SA, lot of people use cancel culture in the same nature. Perfect example would be what is currently happening to David Dobrik & Todd. 

Agree with all of this tbh though i'm not quite sure what's happening with David Dobrik or Todd if those are two separate cases, not something i've heard of actually. In the case of Gross Gore he quite literally admitted sexual assault and still has people saying he's a victim of cancel culture and plays the victim himself, which is very alarming to me.

13 minutes ago, TheEggMan said:

As with everything theres some good and some bad.

 

I feel many things people are getting "cancelled" over is excessive. Of course everyone has done or said something bad at least a few times in the past. To dig up something from 10 years ago and use it is just too much.

 

On the positive side,  it has encouraged victims of actual crimes/hurtful things to speak up more

 

Also to add something interesting

 

My family runs a company, I ensure that whenever we receive any media attention we keep as low key as possible, stating no personal beliefs and such and just saying the most basic generic answers. Since business is good the last thing i wanna deal with is the public catching onto a stupid old fashion belief my dad has and blowing it out out of proportion.

 

Agreed. Don't have a family business or anything like that but i'm sure that can be a serious concern sometimes. My parents as well and other family members have either some old fashioned beliefs or tendency to sometimes say words they shouldn't. They're generally good about avoiding it publicly, but not in front of me as a child nor my siblings. I obviously don't very much care for such terms or using them, but I do get concerned that my younger brother may end up letting something slip at school or something because he hears it at home. 

[Adam_ 1,039]

18 minutes ago, Vanzant said:

I dont know any of those dudes you posted about lmao.

 

 

End of the day none of us is perfect. There are situations where people should be taken down and things get thrown our of context to claim its cancel culture .

 

Cancel culture to me personally is people not wanting to hear someone with a different opinion so they attack it.

 

Unfortunately there is much less discussion and people taking the time to understand each other.

 

Aside of that if any of these dudes did what they're accused of. Can go fuck themselves lol. That one guy saying he hasn't sexually assaulted anyone since is ridiculous. Deserves a kick in the dick

Agreed, though i'd also add part of cancel culture is either wanting to find a reason to go after / harass someone you disagree with or don't like, or wanting to find people with very insignificant reasons to go after them because you're a mentally sick individual who likes the attention of involving themselves in something like that. If you're one of those freaks like "wow can't believe john cena said f*g 11 years ago" or some bull shit, you have issues.

 

And ye they can fuck themselves, Gross Gore in particular.