Only You Can Stop Cancel Culture
I used to cancel people, back when we called it “calling out.”
I unfollowed the problematic, passed along the receipts, and made sure to temper my praise of any public figure with the requisite digs at their privileged identities and lack of social-justice zeal. I did it partly out of fear — the best way to avoid getting cancelled yourself is to find other targets. Keep the spotlight on someone else. I also did it out of a sense of joyless moral obligation. I felt sure that what I was doing was necessary to make the world safer for the marginalized (well — I convinced myself that the people who were more oppressed than me thought that, and that my privilege blinded me to their insight — and isn’t that close enough to actually believing it? At least I believed that I should believe it, and that’s enough to act on).
But it wasn’t all grim duty. When you dogpile someone, you get to lose your sense of a separate self, at least for a minute. You merge into a larger whole, the raindrop joining the river. It feels good.
It also feels good to wield power, even if it’s only the power to give a stranger an anxiety attack. Plus, it comes with a built-in moral justification. You’d feel guilty if you shouted at a rando on the bus, but this way? You get to fight oppression without having to get up off the couch. You feel like the wrath of God. Ask…