COLUMN: #Canceltok

I think it might be high time that we consider cancelling cancel culture.

There are several online content creators who spend their days gleefully destroying people's lives in the name of moral crusading and social justice. Is it deserved? Oftentimes, yes. Is it fun to watch? Absolutely. But is it super dangerous and a giant red flag as to where society's headed? You betcha. 

It's no secret that our world is full of truly horrible garbage nightmare people. Racist, sexist, and just plain awful folks live and walk amongst us every day. They always have. But in today's world, if you're a terrible person doing terrible things in public, there's a good chance someone's pointing a camera phone in your direction and your terribleness could live on the internet and haunt you FOREVER.

That's what the cancel-culture creators do. They post videos of awful people being awful, attempt to identify the offenders, and then sit back whilst the internet ruins those people's lives by any means necessary. They'll deluge the offender with calls and messages. They'll find that person's employer and deluge THEM with messages. They often won't stop until the offending party has lost their job, their reputation, and their livelihood.  

Is it fun to watch? Oh, for sure. There's nothing more satisfying than watching jerks get what's coming to them. But after you've watched a few of these videos, that allure goes away and you're left with the realization that watching terrible people suffer terrible consequences is... kinda terrible. It just makes me feel gross about humanity in general.

A couple weeks ago, video came out of a terrible person being terrible to the young staff of a smoothie shop. The irate customer yells and screams at the clerks, throws a glass violently, and at one point unsuccessfully tries to gain access to an staff area while the frightened clerks call 911. Then he calls one of the employees a "dumb immigrant" before the video cuts off. It's a hard watch.

There's absolutely no excuse for such behavior. Its reprehensible and shouldn't be tolerated by any society that calls itself civilized. Content creators pushed the video viral, and in no time at all uncovered the identity of the jerk and put his name on the internet for all to see. Not only was the guy found and arrested, but he was also fired from his lucrative finance job at Merrill Lynch. 

Kind of a feel-good story, right? It's great to see a garbage human held accountable for his garbage actions. But then a few days later, more information came out.

It turns out the guy was having a meltdown because hours prior, he had been in the shop and ordered a smoothie for his son. Due to miscommunication, he was given a smoothie that contained peanuts. His son is deathly allergic, suffered a bad reaction, and had to be ambulanced to a hospital. 

Does that give him the right to hurl racial epithets and glassware at the employees there? Absolutely not. Like I said before, there's no excuse for his actions. But should any consideration be given to the circumstances? There's no justification for racism or violence EVER, not even on your worst day. But have we all said and done sincerely stupid things in our worst moments that we later regret? Absolutely. This guy DEFINITELY needed to learn a lesson, but did he deserve his life and his family's income to be irreparably destroyed? 

I honestly don't know. And that's the point -- what gives any of us the right to cast final judgement? I'm certainly not qualified for the job. Are you? There are people out there qualified to judge. They're called judges. As much as I seethe when I see anyone treated with disrespect or pointless hatred, I also don't want to find myself succumbing to the same hatred by casting judgement from miles away behind a keyboard. When smoothie guy got fired, the TikTok creators who made it go viral then posted videos of themselves gleefully dancing jigs for destroying this guy's life. 

My fear is that some of these proud cancel-lors are less motivated by social justice and more by a desire to become the self-appointed judge, jury, and executioners of the court of public opinion. If they were only in it for social justice, they wouldn't have merch stores where you can buy their faces on t-shirts and coffee mugs. 

I've been worried about the repercussions of cancel culture for a while, but it might be fixing itself. Last month, someone uncovered evidence that one of the internet's leading cancel-culture crusaders had himself made some pretty questionable posts a decade ago. Now other creators are trying to cancel HIM, and the whole of TikTok's #canceltok is turning on itself. May the strongest survive, I guess.

I'll just sit back, watch with concern, and maybe enjoy a smoothie. I plan on tipping my server well.