(1/21) Cancel Culture: A Thread

(2/21) Cancel Culture is something most everyone on the internet is familiar with in today's world. However, not everyone is familiar with its history and impacts. This thread covers the origins, history, and potential lasting impacts of cancel culture.

(3/21) Cancel culture largely began due to the culmination of many different events, primarily a character death in a TV show, the circulation of the term on black twitter, and the #MeToo movement.

(4/21) In March of 2016, a lesbian character on the CW's show 'The 100' was killed off, a single episode after her and the main character made love. Audience members were outraged, feeling as though they had been queer baited, so they took to twitter to express their anger.

(5/21) The case of 'The 100' is largely seen as the first cancelation event. However, the term itself was not yet coined. #Canceled comes instead from Black Twitter. Canceled was used as more of a meme there, but then picked up by other observers.

(6/21) Even before the first mainstream cancelation of 'The 100' people on Black twitter were calling out others like Paula Dean and one of the jurors in the trial of Trayvon Martin’s killer for racially charged injustices during the 2013 "Summer of Accountability."

(7/21) This trend of "accountability" would carry on throughout the internet. When people saw an injustice they decided to call it out. These instances of calling people out, would eventually lead to the #MeToo movement.

(8/21) In October of 2017, Alyssa Milano began the #MeToo movement with a tweet encouraging other to reply to her tweet if they have experienced any sexual harassment or assault. Her tweet alone garnered over 60,000 replies.

(9/21) Throughout the course of the #MeToo movement, many notable celebrities such as Harvey Weinstein, Louis CK, and James Franco were held accountable for their actions, bringing some sort of justice to their survivors and pushing cancel culture into what it is today.

(10/21) In the more recent years of the internet's history, big YouTubers including Shane Dawson and James Charles have faced cancelations, with different results that have further shaped cancel culture.

(11/21) As most users of social media remember. In 2017, James Charles faced one of the biggest cancelations the internet had ever seen. Sparked by a video from fellow beauty YouTuber Tati Westbrook, James lost millions of followers.

(12/21) Other influences, including some of James' friends even denounced him. At the time the cancelation was happening, it seemed as though James' career was over. That however, would not be the case. James would eventually be able to recover, seemingly regaining all he lost.

(13/21) Despite James facing no real lasting impact from his cancelation, the internet was changed. No cancelation had ever created such a frenzy. Whether or not people had followed James before, they were posting their takes on twitter and watching everything happen.

(14/21) The power of the fans that continued to support James coupled with the very short term memory of the internet is what allowed James to recover where others, such as Shane Dawson, could not.

(15/21) Shane Dawson is one of the internet’s oldest YouTube influences, being a prominent member on the platform for over 10 years. In June of 2020 though, that career would all come crashing down when Tati Westbrook uploaded yet another video to her channel.

(16/21) Tati's video brought to light records of problematic behavior of Shane as well as blaming him for convincing her to start James' cancelation in 2017. This video led numerous other people on the internet to bring up other problematic behaviors of Shane's.

(17/21) It has been close to a year since Shane was canceled and he has yet to recover. Even though there are still fans that support him, he has not successfully been able to return to the internet like James was able to.

(18/21) The power a fan base has is a large determinant as to whether or not an influencer or celebrity will survive a cancelation. Although, as time has gone on, cancelations have become more and more volatile all the while holding less weight than before.

(19/21) Cancel culture started out with noble origins- trying to provide some avenue of justice where people otherwise got none but it has since divulged into something barely given a second glance on the internet. People are more quick to discredit victims than victimizers.

(20/21) If the volatile nature of cancel culture continues to increase, it is quite likely much of the work of the #MeToo movement accomplished holding victimizers accountable for their actions will be undone.

(21/21) To try and combat the monster cancel culture is becoming we need to be conscious viewers, and be able to recognize that influencers and celebrities are not perfect or untouchable. They are human like us, and when they do something wrong, they need to be held accountable.