Will ‘cancel culture’ cancel out all culture?

Josh Abel / Staff Reporter

Lately on many social media platforms such as Tik Tok and Instagram, there has been a rise in people being “canceled” by the Generation Z community. This means that someone, who once had a widely-viewed media platform, has been shunned from the world based on an action they took, a comment they did or didn’t make, a political stance, or people disliking what they stand for.

The Gen Z community has been going after some pretty widely accepted people and merchandise such as the hate on Eminem for his 2010 hit song “Love The Way You Lie” featuring Rihanna. The Tik Tok user had posted a video with this song playing in the background and had shown the line “If she ever tries to f***ing leave again, I’ma tie her to the bed and set this house on fire” and the caption saying “Yessss let’s cancel him”. Now canceling Eminem will not be an easy endeavor, Eminem has been endorsed by many of the rapping legends and has been making people mad and upset for many years now. He has also personally dismantled about 11 music careers and released an entire album attacking people who attacked him.

Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel) started writing the rhymes for his books in 1937. Now, people of this generation are starting to see that maybe some of the imagery that would have been socially acceptable then raises some questions in our present times. In one of his most popular books “And to think I saw it on Mulberry Street” we see a crude depiction of an Asian male with slanted stick eyes. While this may have been slightly acceptable in some places almost a century ago we have evolved to the point where we know this is wrong. While some of his work is very controversial in respect to Theodor’s mindset on cultural sensitivity we have all seen that Dr. Seuss’s beloved rhymes have been widely respected and appreciated by parents everywhere.

Many other celebrities have been “cancelled” over the past two years such as Ellen Degeneres who has been said to be a cruel person to her staff behind the scenes, R.Kelly was brought up on charges for pedophilia and underage assault, and Hartley Sawyer the actor on the hit series “The Flash” was canceled for derogatory tweets. Many other things have been cancelled as well such as the Jeep Cherokee, Mr. Potato Head, and Mrs. Butterworth’s.

Being canceled has become such a natural term that people have taken it to such an overpowering level. This movement went from being canceled for legitimate reasons like R.Kelly and Hartley Sawyer attacking people both physically and online, to people on social media having the executive power to tear apart anything they want. There are a lot of things that are being canceled for logical reasons such as the Dr. Seuss books, because of the massive problem of systemic racism this is a positive because kids should not grow up having any race being depicted as a stereotype. Cancel culture is a productive solution to many problems like racism, LGBTQ controversy, and discrimination towards women. When will this power go too far? when will this control of being able to shun people we don’t agree with turn nasty even if it is for the better?

Cancelling