Beer Cans and Cancel Culture: Discussion Post

Many enthusiastic millennials have grown up with social media platforms, including Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat. All such platforms have been accused of having questionable user-generated content. Now that world is becoming more consciously aware of behaviours that are deemed as “problematic,” old content such as tweets, blog posts, and videos are being brought to light so that these people can answer for their questionable behaviour.

Carson King action of donating the larger sum of money that he had raised originally to buy beer to a charity is an excellent charitable deed. However, his past must be acknowledged, and he should be held accountable for his tweets. Cancel culture has rapidly evolved into a toxic phenomenon in the past five years; however, while calling the entirety of cancel culture toxic invalidates the act of people holding others accountable for their actions. Cancel culture is fueled by people that are fed up with the consistent use of racial slurs and derogatory comments directed towards and is about people of colour and other minorities. Due to this cancel culture is used as a deterrent, ultimately “demonstrating to observers that they too should avoid such speech” (Leake, Armijo, & Stroud, 2019). King is one of the thousands or even millions of people that have been a target of cancel culture. As a rising public figure, it is within Aaron Calvin’s right to make King’s public tweets known, to allow people to know who exactly they are supporting, as he is “a public figure of interest” (Leake, Armijo, & Stroud, 2019). It is the same way the public is also in every right to expose Calvin’s past as well.

How people choose to react to this information is purely based on that person. If a person wants to “cancel” someone that has directed nasty comments towards a specific community or done anything that would be considered harmful, then it is their right not to support that person. I also don’t think it’s anyone’s place to attempt to dictate how a person affected should feel and respond, especially when it’s an issue that does not involve them.

In conclusion, I firmly believe that those that did cancel King were within their every right to do so. Showing intolerance towards racism is crucial as it becomes a deterrent. Racism is not subjective. It has never been, and it never will be. Racism is ethically wrong, and while cancel culture is viewed at times to be toxic, it should not be used as a shield for a person to avoid accountability.

#CommEthicsWeek2

Citation

Leake, G., Armijo, A., & Stroud, S. (2019, December 04). Beer Cans and Cancel Culture. Retrieved September 12, 2020, from https://mediaethicsinitiative.org/2019/12/04/beer-cans-and-cancel-culture/