To think 'cancel culture' is going way too far?

[Okeefe]

I've gone on twitter this morning to see #CancelKimmel trending, the reason.. he sang the N word when rapping a Snoop Dogg song in 1996.

Jenna Marbles being 'cancelled' due to doing blackface in a Nicki Minaj impression is 2011.

I swear every time I go on the internet, someone else is being 'cancelled'

People are digging up ancient tweets belonging to celebrities and normal people alike, searching for racist/problematic key words and contacting their employers, losing them their jobs and more often that not this content that they are 'cancelling' them for is historic

Are people not allowed to grow up? I'm pretty sure when I was in my early teens if I was singing along to a rap song, I would say the word like any other lyric. Would I now? No. Because I understand that it is offensive. Because I'm an adult now. Because times have changed.

I've had to quit twitter, it depresses me so much. You can't disagree with a word this woke generation say, or you too will be 'cancelled'.

Talk about divide and conquer and a fight to the bottom!

Cornetto

I don’t feel I am, I’m simply expanding on my points when you raise them. My point had been consistent.

First you said black/Asian people shouldn't use it 'casually' and then you say they shouldn't use it a 'slur'. The two are very different.

Where did I say Pakistani people give anything up? My point is, and always has been, either a word can be used by everyone or it’s unacceptable because it has a definition and meaning which is racist and intended as an insult.

Well if you're you can't use it casually then you're not allowing Pakistani people to use it?

@CathyComesHome put it well: 'It’s pretty well accepted that minority groups have ownership of certain words in order to reclaim them (lesbians using the D word, gay men using the F word, disabled people using the word cripple). It’s clearly not appropriate for a straight man to call a lesbian the D word or an able bodied person to refer to disabled people as cripples.'

'I have a degree in linguistics and the idea that certain words are only allowed to be used internally is well-established. It’s the same as only close friends and family being allowed to use nicknames.'

Cancel culture -which thrives on spectacle and controversy - is also a strategy to get issues like racism and sexism into popular / public debate.

Except that it doesn’t work. People who are racist / sexist / whatever will never see the error of their ways through cancel culture. They see a headline like “Fawlty Towers ‘Don’t mention the war’ episode banned from TV” and switch off from the whole issue. BLM made the news because of massive public protests - not because of cancel culture.

And (for the record) I know why that TV episode was temporarily removed from some channels. But an awful lot of people I know read the headline and moved on. Which, tbf, also says a lot about the importance of decent journalism and the problem with click bait headlines!

Anyone else remember that Black Mirror episode where you could block people in real life by turning them into a mute silhouette?

And at the end a criminal is punished by the state blocking him from everyone - he goes out in the street and no-one can see or hear him except as a silhouette, coloured red to denote criminal

Something to aspire to for the cancel mobs 👍

@Gulabjamoon

Jimmy Saville was dead before anything happened to his appearances on tv, how is that relevant?

Sigh. The old TOTP episodes played out after his death. So totally relevant.

Sigh

How can you cancel a human being when he is already dead? This thread isn’t about cancelling tv programmes.

Hoist by his own petard.
BBC News - Author Damian Barr apologises for trans tweets
www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-53276425

Agree.
The one that tipped me over the edge was them removing a specific Scrubs episode, where the 2 main characters (one black one white) dressed up as each other.
Not racist in the slightest.

I am glad I still (just about) live in a country where we can all hold different views. I don't mind that some people take the Koran or bible literallly and are against gay marriage at all nor that some think women are inferior to men or anything - let people have the views they want.

However even over 35 years ago when I started my career it was not wise to let clients know basic things like if you vote, your religious views etc as by disclosing it you can put off 50% of your clients so twitter and its 35 years ago equivalent is not wise.

My mother voted all her life but never told us for whom she voted.

So how do you all feel about the ignominious end of Professor Starkey?

YANBU

People make mistakes. I said things as a kid/teenager that I am ashamed about now, but I was immature and it certainly isn't reflective of my views now. If it is a recent post and it is an adult (Katie Hopkins etc) then yes, but saying something when you are 20 and still finding your feet in the world and being called out on it when you're 40, don't hold the same views and have kids to support, no. That is ridiculous. I think people are directing their anger to the wrong people if they are doing this. You can't change the past, deal with the problems in the here and now.

YES
Cancel culture is so very very negative and tbh if I no longer look at Twitter Any more because of these. Also tbh if I hear someone being "cancelled" I always thing the "cancellers" are twats so actually puts the public off issues that need to be critiqued (rationally)