Cancel culture. 

It’s a topic that’s been coming up a lot lately. There’s a fair amount of backlash to it. I’m against cancel culture, but not always for the right reason.

Cancel culture is when people “cancel” people, brands, or different forms of entertainment online due to offensive or problematic remarks or behaviors. Cancel culture itself became toxic, with many people immediately jumping on a trend of canceling people for alleged things or trying to cancel people without a good reason. 

Then there are the people who think that all cancel culture is- toxic. The thought that goes into canceling someone is sometimes good; people see something wrong with what the person or something else has done and decide to express their opinion about it. The execution of how they do it isn’t as good. It often becomes a trend and then gets backlash from people who don’t see anything wrong with what the person has done. There are people saying to “cancel cancel culture,” which contributes to cancel culture since you’re trying to cancel something while ignoring the point of it. 

Cancelling isn’t executed the way it should be. Still, it occasionally has good reasoning, but other times it’s trying to cancel someone for alleged behaviors that end up being false, but by that point, it’s already so trendy and doesn’t stop. I understand that people want justice and people to be held accountable for their actions, but sometimes people are too hasty and go off one source.

As an example of using sources, when you’re told to research something for an assignment, you’re told to use multiple sources because one source could be unreliable. So when new information from a singular source comes out, people shouldn’t immediately jump on the cancel trend because there are so many things that could have happened. 

People will also try to cancel others for just being the way they are, like Charli and Dixie D’Amelio. The TikTok stars have been canceled for being “greedy” and privileged. I understand that people don’t like those behaviors, but they don’t need to be canceled for those reasons. Canceling someone should only be for if what the person has said or done is harmful or extremely damaging, like racism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia and misogyny for example.

I’m not saying you should stop wanting people to be held accountable for their actions; that’s something that you should always want. You should just have more evidence than a singular source and make sure that your next steps aren’t the result of you hopping onto a trend. Serious actions deserve more than being trendy; continue to hold people accountable for their actions.