CANCEL CULTURE- WHY IT NEEDS TO STOP

SYNOPSIS:

Last year we saw many hastags like #BoycottChineseGoods, #boycottstarkids, #boycottwhitehatjr, and the recent one on #cancelboardexams2021 are some of the examples of "cancel culture". Today I am going to highlight on the concept of "cancel culture", how it works, how it affects the society, the history behind it, etc.

MEANING OF "CANCEL CULTURE ":

According to Cambridge Dictionary- it is a way of behaving in a society or groups especially on social media, in which it is common to completely reject and stop supporting someone because they have said or done something that offends you. 

1) Here we have to understand that everything can be cancelled if the internet collectively decides the need to do so. 'Collectively' because cancelling of something is a result of a mass movement.

2) It isn't only public figures who get 'cancelled'. It also includes organisations and companies.

   Nowadays this term has become very common that it is seemingly found everywhere in everyday conversations. 

*Boycott Chinese products is one such example of how people cancelled the goods by trending the hastag.

A)Cancel culture in #BoycottChineseGoods-

This hastag emerged during the tensions between India and China. People started to tweet aggressively on Twitter to boycott chinese products and to ban all the products that were manufactured in China. This was done on a very large scale. There was a sentiment around it.

    This showed that people were cancelling the products.

How it affects:

The main problem with cancel culture is that it releases anger in people with no real solutions or answers to the real issue. In addition calling for a boycott on Twitter is easy, following it is very difficult. In this particular case it was necessary to maintain peace for both the countries, at a same time many people were showing out their anger during the critical situations. Cancel culture also reflects the attention span of people who move from one outrage to next with the click of button.

B)This also happened is case of maggie brand due to chemicals like lead and MSG were found in huge quantities in the product. Maggie was banned for 6 straight months until there was a conformation of safety. 

How it affected:

In this scenario the people were succesful in cancelling the product. All of them believed that it was dangerous to health and necessary tests were required to know the authenticity.

C) I don't know how many of you'll are aware that Bill Gates got cancelled because of his statement regarding vaccine if they would share the intellectual property rights on vaccines to developing countries to which he said no. Due to this he was massively criticized by people for putting patent and not sharing the vaccine technology to the world.

D) If we see in the education sector White Hat Jr. is an example of how poeple cancelled it for scamming and misleading people in the name of coding.

CANCEL CULTURE CAN BE TOXIC:

If we see carefully "cancel culture" has been there from many decades it's just that the term is new. Cancel culture is a very huge thing in today's society. It has been used to call-out people and letting them know why they shouldn't support a person based on his/her actions. In many ways though it becomes toxic and harmful for many. If an individual is cancelled it is followed by a lot of online and can turn into harrassment. 

      Cancel culture can cause someone to be socially thrown out of society. Most people think they have the power to write what they feel online, but many a times that can be taken negatively advantage for. It's important to fact-check and realize whether its okay or not to 'cancel' someone even if it takes time, because these people are humans as well.

MY OPINION ON "CANCEL CULTURE":

Well personally to me, I am little biased towards this issue. I was not being aware of the term "cancel culture" until recently so I'll try to input as much I possibly can.

Cancel culture according to me is straight up toxic behavior nowadays. Honestly, cancelling behavior isn't necessary to start with. Instead they are a ton ways to do things rather going and putting out anger online. And mostly the cancel behavior is very short term oriented. There is no long term effect. Well criticizing or holding somebody accountable for the things they have done is good. 

       Now if we here take a small example regarding the art and culture of any country. We all know that the culture of any country has been followed from many ages by people. Now suddenly people start cancelling something because according to them it is inappropriate or culturally irrelevant in today's time.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

If we see the stats of how much success rate it has been by cancelling someone, it is very low. There have been many arguements on this topic lately so I too decided to share my perspective on this. There is also one truth that nobody can deny- it is very easy to say something in the social media world than when it is actually implemented in the ground level. Focus on your work and let the others speak what they want.