Cancel Culture
Calling out toxic behaviour in perpetrating violence/discrimination/other serious issues is much needed, but sensationalising trivial issues & maligning people publicly is what is stupid.
Calling out someone publicly may be “woke” for a few minutes/hours. But, after that you’re on your own. The thrill of it definitely gets people visibility & all that stuff.
#CancelCulture is not activism. It is just an act of casting stones at someone publicly just because it is easy to do so. In other words, some of the people who get called out do really good things, yet have flaws. We all do. In fact, those you could be fighting may actually share the same certain things with you.
Maybe, instead of calling out, one-on-one communication could’ve done the job. Instead of making it a personal vendetta game, it could’ve either been avoided or dealt with in a thoughtful manner.
But, we need to be aware of the damaging consequences after you trash talk people on social media publicly. It could affect people’s mental health, impact hard-earned reputation or destroy years of hard work in building a business.
For instance: I’ve seen a recent campaign, seeking to boycott a certain business because someone got offended by the staff’s behaviour. Going through all the outrage, I felt the most sensible thing a person(s) could’ve done was to confront staff & raise the issue with the management. This incident highlights how we’ve lost our conflict resolution skills & simply outrage at anything/everything, without thinking!
While acting out impulsively “in the moment” could be the real issue, here’s what is problematic about #CancelCulture. It views the world in Black & White. It says: “Here is a BAD person. RIGHT HERE.”
So, calling out may be harmful in some cases if a post/video goes viral. It could provoke people to be violent or resort to physical violence, without even establishing the basic facts in a case.
Hoping that #CancelCulture becomes a thing of the past soon & that we have constructive conversations rather than humiliating people without empathy! Maybe it’s time we cancel the Cancel Culture.
Republished from aditya-gupta.co
