Annoying! This actually comes from a reasoned piece, but still. I saw a v prominent writer tweet the other day something like 'Cancel culture doesn't exist. It's just criticism.' She reminded me of that horrible British thing where bullies attack you and say, "It's just banter."

She was criticizing people equating cancel culture to Stalinism. I get it. When Shamed first came out and people were really piling on me I got upset and said to my wife "It's like the Khmer Rouge!" And she went, "It's NOT like the Khmer Rouge." It wasn't like the Khmer Rouge...

But it wasn't nothing.

Plus, the argument that cancel culture doesn't exist essentially comprises of, "They didn't KILL THEMSELVES! Jeez!" While carefully side-stepping those people who did.

And as @matthaig1 said, they always ignore the impact it has on a person's mental health. Even those people who consider themselves mental health advocates. Anyway. Enough! I'm going back to work. Leave me alone! I try to get out and you pull me back in.

One last thing! Some people who go on about how 'cancel culture doesn't exist it's just people with no power making criticisms' are incredibly powerful - twitter accounts with hundreds of thousands or millions of followers, they write op-eds in the NYT. They aren't powerless.

The piece goes on to say that critics of cancel culture "weep into plates of hors d’oeuvres about Twitter" and "clutch" their "pearls". Which ignores the fact that there are plenty of people who consider themselves progressive, like I do, that feel the same way.

TBH my book has sporadically been misused/misinterpreted by people across the spectrum, and of course I don't like that! But I'm also very happy with the book itself, and most people DON'T misunderstand it. And I can't control its misuse.