When something is cancelled, like a television show, it is done, voided and terminated. Cancel culture is taking this term and applying it to a person. When the person is cancelled, they are no longer supported publicly.
Cancel culture is a recent phenomena of withdrawing support from a particular influencer, celebrity or company. This usually happens after the particular company or public figure has done or said something offensive. A lot of times, these mistakes take place in the past and have only recently been brought to light.
We’ve all seen it happen, from Shane Dawson to Ellen Degeneres. Many influencers and celebrities have been a victim of this trend. Some of these public figures have had their names tarnished and their careers ended due to cancel culture. While many people think it’s all entertaining to watch someone’s life get publicly destroyed, it’s actually an extremely toxic trend.
Although these people have made terrible decisions and mistakes in the past, it’s important to note that we are all human. We have all made mistakes before, some being worse than others. The beauty in making mistakes is the ability to learn and grow from it. If we lived perfect lives and made no mistakes, what would we have learned? When we cancel people from their past mistakes, we’re taking away their chance to learn and grow from that situation.
A lot of the faults we see that end up cancelling people are likely from years ago. Most of the time, fans will go through old tweets and Instagram posts of a certain celebrity and, if they find something offensive, bring it to light. When the post is from years ago, the person most likely has grown and become a completely different person since then. What should be done instead of group shaming and cancelling the person is allowing them to apologize and explain their past mistakes. This way, they can use their past as an example for others and how they can learn from their experience.
Even though a lot of these examples exemplify mistakes from many years ago, other times it is more recent. Sometimes people make offensive jokes or do something very distasteful. The same idea should be applied to this situation. Give the person a chance to come forward, acknowledge the mistake, and educate themselves on why what they did was not okay.
With all of this being said, it is important to say that this does not apply to someone who makes offensive mistakes consistently without any sense of wrongdoing. If someone is making these mistakes over and over again consciously without apology or growing from the situation, it is an entirely different story.
I believe that everyone makes mistakes and deserves a second chance, especially without getting publicly humiliated and shunned from society. We’ve all done something wrong before that we would have been “cancelled” for if we were in the public eye. These celebrities are human like us, and deserve a chance to grow from their faults.
PHOTO COURTESY of Insider Magazine
