Cancel Culture: Mob Justice, or Long-Overdue Accountability?

Making sense of what is likely internet culture’s thorniest topic to date.

Courtesy of Jenna Marbles on YouTube.

For many, the discourse surrounding cancel culture hasn’t moved beyond arguing its very existence–conservatives will declare any attempt to marginalize their politics a cancelation act even though they maintain substantial cultural power still, and liberals are eager to stifle any discussion of the phenomenon if simply to spite conservatives in a show of negative polarization. The meta-discourse aside, cancel culture is a real thing that people on both sides of the political aisle have been exposed to, and instead of dubbing it either good or bad without any real nuance, the true nature of cancel culture can’t be gotten at unless the testimonies of those on its receiving end are thoroughly examined.

At its most-basic, the term refers to a tendency among online users of social media to exact justice through a form of collective action that may impart the feeling of an organically-formed consensus, when it’s in reality a concocted frustration that draws on often-frivolous concerns. It doesn’t matter if the brand of canceling itself is seen as righteous or worthy of enactment–if the canceled party is perceived as having crossed a line they might not even have drawn in the first place, group…