Tonight, I got to thinking about “cancel culture”, and how harmful and destructive this movement is. It is a cancer within our society. Our country was based on the idea that everyone has a right to their own ideas and exercise of their rights as human beings. You don’t have to like my ideas, but I have a right to have them. "Cancel culture" promotes the idea that you must "pay" for having offensive ideas, whether you act on them or not. Just stating them is enough to require punishment.
So what is “cancel culture”? Dictionary.com defines it this way: “Cancel culture refers to the popular practice of withdrawing support for (canceling) public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive. Cancel culture is generally discussed as being performed on social media in the form of group shaming.”
Three famous examples would be Chik-fil-a, Mario Lopez, and most recently GOYA Foods. What were their offenses? The founder of Chik-fil-a made statements that “marriage was ONLY between a man and a woman.” Mario Lopez said you can’t let a child at 3 years of age determine if they are transgender or not. Finally, the CEO of GOYA Foods made positive statements about Trump for the job he’s done as president.
Does the “cancelling” work? Mario Lopez was attacked on every social media platform and his entire career was in jeopardy. He ended up back-pedaling and apologizing for his statement. So they DID win this one. We have seen many famous people lose their jobs, or no longer be able to get jobs through being “cancelled”. Many boycotts formed against businesses have taken those businesses into bankruptcy, and/or closing their doors completely. Many businesses would rather make an “insincere” apology than shutdown.
While boycotts (a favorite tactic of “cancel culture”) can be an effective way to promote change, in my opinion, “cancel culture” goes way too far. They use these tactics to shutdown IDEAS, rather than any actual actions that the “offending” business may be taking. For example, a company that uses “sweat shops” or “child labor” to manufacture cheap products probably deserves to be boycotted. Their actions are directly harmful to and violate their worker’s human rights. But in "cancel culture", the businesses are made to suffer because their owner or a higher ranking leader made a personal statement, or supported an organization with their personal funds, that supports ideas which are "offensive".
Are there any unintended consequences to "cancelling" a business? Well, if a business has to close its doors, all employees suffer the loss of a job. A boycott has been called for against GOYA Foods. They donated 270,000 meals to New York City during the COVID-19 pandemic. If the boycott is effective, such generosity could be lost and many people could go hungry in the future, along with job losses of employees.
So is there any hope in “fighting” all the bullying that "cancel culture" is doing? There may be an actual answer to this dilemma. We have seen it in action, but perhaps never formally thought about it. When the boycott was called for against Chik-fil-a, many abandoned Chik-fil-a. BUT many supporters of Chik-fil-a bought MORE of their products. Sales actually went UP 12%. So if someone organizes such movements to “cancel” the “cancel culture”, we already have proof that it works.
For GOYA, it’s still too early to tell. But, as the boycott started trending on social media, a counter attack was launched, called a “buy-cott”, with the idea that everyone who supports GOYA, or at least feel the boycott was uncalled for (whether they agree with the CEO's statements about Trump or not), buy $10 of their product and donate it to their local food pantries. At the same time, a GOFUNDME was launched to raise $100,000 to buy GOYA products to donate to food pantries.
Rather than let the bullies win, we simply push back by supporting those being bullied. If those being bullied do BETTER, the “cancel culture” mob may become wise to the fact that they are HELPING those they try to “cancel”, instead of hurting them.
