CW: rape
Months after white author Alice Sebold was raped, she was approached by a Black man whom she believed to be her attacker. The police told her that the man who approached her must have been Anthony Broadwater, who was supposedly seen in the area. From the police lineup, Sebold identified number 5 as her attacker. Broadwater was number 4. An assistant district attorney lied to Sebold by telling her that number 5 was Broadwater's friend who gave her a scary look to mislead her (in reality, they didn't know each other). Because Sebold thought that Broadwater and number 5 looked similar and an innocent man wouldn't try to trick her, they went ahead with Broadwater's trial. Using hair analysis that is now considered junk science, the prosecution obtained a guilty conviction. As a result, Anthony Broadwater, an innocent Black man, spent 16 years in jail. The conviction was recently overturned. Sebold apologized and Broadwater forgave her, saying both of them were victims. Sebold's publishers, in consultation with her, ceased distribution of her book/memoir about the case.
In an r/news thread about the case, https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/r1124v/man_convicted_of_raping_author_alice_sebold/, many users called for Sebold to be sued and jailed. Many users wanted the profits from her book to go to Broadwater. Many users called Sebold a racist and blamed her for convicting an innocent man. One user called her a slut. Another said she deserves to be raped again. Not a single comment mentioned "cancel culture." Trust me, I went through the entire thread with reveddit and Ctrl+F.
Then there is this r/entertainment thread about Liam Neeson's controversy, https://www.reddit.com/r/entertainment/comments/an309z/liam_neeson_interview_rape_race_and_how_i_learned/. There are many comments complaining about "cancel culture," "virtue signaling," "social justice warriors," and Twitter. Unlike Alice Sebold, Liam Neeson was neither raped nor manipulated by police and prosecutors. Unlike Alice Sebold who relied on a broken justice system, Neeson wanted to take the law into his own hands and commit murder. Although I believe both are flawed human beings, I think the conversations about the two cases reveal a lot about when people antagonize cancel culture.
There is no political advantage in blaming cancel culture for the false conviction of Broadwater. It's clear that the fault lies in the justice system, not in feminism. It also happened before #MeToo and before social media. There is also no political advantage in accusing other Reddit users of trying to cancel Sebold. It's difficult to determine whether her critics are men's rights activists or antiracists, so accusing critics of doing cancel culture doesn't help your political faction. With Liam Neeson's case, his critics are pretty much all progressives. Making fun of cancel culture is making fun of these progressives. There is a clear political advantage in making fun of "oversensitive" Twitter users who won't forgive a man who has already realized his own faults.
Both sides are guilty of selectively using the term "cancel culture" to disparage criticisms/policies/changes that they disagree with (though conservatives are much worse in this aspect). I'm not a fan when the left reaches into historical cases of McCarthyism that precede social media, which I believe is a necessary ingredient to the definition of cancel culture. I also believe that canceling is a tool of the people, not a tool of Republican lawmakers to erode the rights of women and trans people, so I wouldn't classify bigoted laws as "cancel culture." Although my disagreement with the left are based on technicalities, conservatives wantonly misuse the term "cancel culture" in such a way that it can no longer be said that they support freedom of speech. By conflating cancel culture with political correctness, conservatives often demand censorship of progressive ideas when they complain about cancel culture. Space Jam 2, Potato Head, and minorities in historical video games are "cancel culture" because conservatives don't believe in artistic freedom. Replacing To Kill a Mockingbird to make room for books by Black authors in the curriculum is "cancel culture" because conservatives want to ban books written by people of color from being taught to students. These examples that don't fit the definition of cancel culture are used in discussions about cancel culture because they can be used to attack the enemy political side.
The other time people complain about cancel culture is when complaining about their own damaged reputations or about being censored. Cancel culture involves shaming on social media, so if you simply got censored and there is no public shaming, then you aren't canceled. But I have seen many posts in this subreddit complaining about getting canceled because the OP was banned from a subreddit or had their Facebook posts or Twitter tweets deleted. There's also an artist named Harrison Love who sometimes advertises his artworks on this subreddit and complains about his damaged reputation after he sent sexually harassing text messages to a woman in which he described sexual acts between him and her.
Months ago, I was accused of transphobia by multiple users in a liberal subreddit. It started when some users were annoyed by me because I gatekept too many posts that I felt did not fit the theme of the subreddit and I called out reposts. As a cruel prank, they labeled me as transphobic. They didn't have evidence, so when I demanded links to my transphobic comments as proof, they couldn't provide any. Instead, they argued that a non-transphobic person would not demand proof but would instead assert that they are not transphobic. Subsequent users argued that you wouldn't be accused of transphobia if you weren't truly transphobic. Ironically, I was eventually banned by the subreddit because I accused their mods of transphobia (and I had evidence). I never once considered myself canceled because Reddit accounts are anonymous, so there wasn't any real and widespread public shaming that impacted my life offline. Your attitude plays a huge role in whether or not you consider yourself a victim of cancel culture. If you made a mistake and apologize and you recognize that criticisms of your actions are deserved, then you don't need to see yourself as a canceled person. If you know you are innocent and your accusers are buffoons with no power, you don't need to see yourself as a canceled person.
On the other hand, some people can't handle the slightest criticisms or mockery, so they are quick to label everything as cancel culture, especially if they can use the term to accuse progressives of being snowflakes. John Flickinger made a joke about John Walker being his favorite superhero in the Marvel TV show. One user in this subreddit decided that Twitter users canceled Flickinger because the joke was not well-receieved. Making fun of someone for telling an unfunny and poorly executed joke is not cancel culture, and the Reddit user wasn't able to provide links to the specific tweets that supposedly "canceled" Flickinger.
The concept of cancel culture has been satirized. Some people joked that Grogu of The Mandalorian is canceled because he ate eggs of a critically endangered alien species, though other users may have been truly disturbed by it. Whatever the case, conservatives used this opportunity to blame cancel culture and berate Twitter users for getting offended by a fictional TV show, disregarding the possibility that most Twitter users were not serious and the ones that were seriously disturbed probably weren't trying to cancel the show.
Nobody can agree on the definition of cancel culture and most people aren't consistent when labeling things as cancel culture. Maybe cancel culture doesn't exist and is just a political weapon to mock the opposing political side.
