It’s almost as if every week there is a new celebrity caught up in some sort of melodrama about something that they did a long time ago, all tied together by an easy-to-type hashtag. Twitter now seems to be caught in a repetitive cycle around this process of “canceling” people.
#Canceled seems to be growing in frequency, as celebrities come and go frequently. Just as a rising star reaches their peak, a screencap or tweet from a long time ago is dragged across Twitter. In no time, their wrongdoing has been posted to every corner of the internet so that, even if you have no idea who they are, you will know all the details by the end of the day.
This is a prime example of Cancel Culture, an internet phenomenon where a person is ejected from influence or fame due to questionable actions. Most often, these incidents of cancellation take place on social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
It may be a good thing to call out biased influencers or celebrities when using harmful speech and rhetoric, but it is important to evaluate the situation on all sides before typing out a witty one-liner to express how disgusted you are. This is not to say that we should excuse offensive statements, but instead look at them with a more critical lens.
We currently live in a digital age where our posts are primed and polished for one simple reason: to be seen by as many people as possible. In order to do this, we tweet about the most popular topic going on at that moment. So, when a new topic comes along, we are quick to jump on the bandwagon of hating on a certain celebrity.
Because of this, we often post things without thinking of the deeper meanings behind our words—favoring quick responses rather than complex commentaries on the situation. After all, you can only fit so much into 240 characters.
With today’s social media, posts are laid out simply for all to see. As one scrolls down someone’s page, they travel backward on their timeline, able to find old posts memorialized with redundancies. In terms of what we post, nothing ever changes.
Humankind, however, is not like that at all. As the years go by, we are constantly growing and changing. The childish and crude jokes we may have found funny five years ago are not the ones we would post today.
When we collectively pull up a specific celebrity’s old tweet and call them out on something, it would be like judging ourselves for the cringey way we acted back in seventh grade. As we grow up, the way we look at the world changes. We learn the way things work and learn to better gauge what is or isn’t appropriate to post. So why is it that we treat celebrities with such scrutiny?
This culture tends to put celebrities on a pedestal so that they seem to be above everyone else. Additionally, with the existence of ‘stan’ culture, people idolize particular celebrities excessively. This casting of influencers in our society only dehumanizes them as we look to them as inspirations.
We need to stop looking at celebrities as sources of entertainment and instead look at them as actual human beings. Everyone has their struggles, and everyone has their skeletons they would rather keep in the closet. So, next time you go to cancel the celebrity everyone is talking about, take a moment to learn more about the situation. There may be more lying beneath the surface.
Grace Piscani is a freshman who tweets like a middle aged woman and is proud of it. You can follow her on twitter @paperback_peachas her normal handle was taken.