2018 is the year of cancellations. Not just television, but people. To cancel someone in 2018 means to end patronage to that person. It may mean no longer purchasing their music, watching their videos, following them on Twitter. Essentially you cut all ties to this person, entertainer or corporation. It doesn't always work, that doesn't mean people can't try. I'm a fan of canceling people, such as the Mute R. Kelly movement. Here's the issue, we can't cancel everyone.
Some people deserve to be cancelled without doubt. But, there's a lot of people calling for cancellations without considering context or doing it just to do it. Meanwhile they will protect their favorites. The issue isn't cancellation. It's that people are quick to cancel without giving it any real thought or looking at context.
A lot of the people campaigning to cancel people, aren't exactly squeaky clean. I saw a Latinx woman claiming great offense at Brother Nature using the word "coon," a quick search of her Twitter history shows she has been a fan of the word since 2014. I mean, one of you grew up and stopped using the word. You're both the same age, so what's your excuse?
Some people we most certainly should cancel. R. Kelly, that man should have been gone a long time ago. XXXTentacion, let's do it. But the man is dead so why are we still talking about it? You want to cancel Adam 22? We can do it.
Sometimes context is important as well. I don't really have any hate towards James Gunn. He was molested as a child and deals with that trauma through jokes. Twitter probably wasn't the best place for it. But, can I tell this man he can't deal with his trauma through jokes? On the flip side, Dan Harmon just likes to have sex with baby dolls for no reason other than to be edgy and nobody can justify that.
I am from the Insane Clown Posse, Eminem Show, Chappelle Show, and Odd Future Generation. I promise you, I have said some terrible things during my teenage years and tweeted plenty of them too. I've grown as a person since then. Honestly, it's hard for me to hold things against people when they're young. The same people praising Tyler The Creator for being a gay rapper right now, would have hated him in 2009 and every you until 2018. But, people grow up and they change.
If we never give people a chance to change and cross them out for things they did when they were young we would never have gotten Malcolm X. Maya Angelou used to dance in underground night clubs, do you know how people back then felt about that? Barack Obama would have never been president. You have to give people a chance to grow and learn sometimes. I'm not a fan of cancelling teenagers or even holding teenagers up as your political examples because if we're being honest, teenagers fuck up. Young adults, fuck up. Nobody is perfect and if you had it all figured out at 13, or even 25, more power to you. But for most of us we don't. That doesn't mean I'm going to be mad at you for cancelling Kanye West.
On top of that, there's always a few people moving to cancel others because they think it'll make them bigger. Maybe if we cancel Kendrick Lamar, my album will get some love. If we can just get Youtuber A and B out of here I can be the next big star. Even if it's a minor offense. JonTron and PewDiePie, had to go. Can't even argue about it. I don't like CinemaSins either, but I saw people trying to cancel them because they don't like the jokes they make these days. Just unsubscribe like I did.
If we cancelled every single person in the world for saying something problematic or doing something problematic, there wouldn't be any people in the world. I'm not saying we can't cancel people. I'm not saying cancel culture needs to end. I'm just saying, we can't cancel everyone, especially young people. Sometimes we need to think what we were doing when we were 18 or 14 or even 25. You want to cancel Bill Cosby, DJ Vlad, Azalea Banks, Nelly etc. those are adults and I'll probably ride with you. But the cancel everyone attitude isn't good.
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