Cancel Culture: What Is It and Why Should I Care In 2023?

Cancel culture, as a concept, has swept the globe in recent years. Though born from a specific social activist group it has exploded into the mainstream. 

It was the Australian Macquarie Dictionary’s word of the year in 2019 and was also on their shortlist for word of the decade in 2021. But, since at least 2020, it’s been deployed by conservatives as a catchy phrase to incite outrage alongside other ‘“leftie” agendas like political correctness or wokeness. 

But what is cancel culture? What does it mean to cancel someone or something? And is cancel culture a myth, anyway?

Let’s start with the Macquarie Dictionary’s definition of cancel culture.

In other words, cancel culture is the act of collective boycotting something or someone after a perceived wrongdoing. The act of cancelling is enabled by social media. 

Despite what Macquarie’s definition suggests, cancelling isn’t just targeted at public figures – any person, brand or thing can be cancelled. 

Author and academic Eve Ng points this out in her definition of the term in Cancel Culture: A Critical Analysis. Ng takes the definition of cancel culture further and says it is both the practice of cancelling someone (an individual, group, organisation, brand or even nation) and the surrounding commentary about their wrongdoing. 

This means cancelling someone is less like hitting backspace and deleting their name from the page and more like striking through the name and continuing to write about it alongside other people. 

Clyde McGrady, from the Washington Post, attributes the first usage of “cancel” in today’s understanding to the lyrics of a Chic song off their 1981 album Take It Off. In the song “Your Love Is Cancelled”, a sparse track punctuated by slap-bass and an undeniably 80s flute synth, Nile Rodgers sings the titular phrase and gives birth to the metaphor that would culturally peak decades later. 

Ten years later, the word “cancel” emerges again in a film that boasts an all-star cast including Ice-T and Chris Rock (who had his own brush with cancel culture). In New Jack City, rising drug lord Nino Brown, played by Wesley Snipes, yells “Cancel that bitch!” after a fight with his girlfriend. The same phrase and scene are directly referenced in 50 Cent’s 2005 song “Hustler’s Ambition” and in Lil Wayne’s 2009 track “I’m Single”, securing its existence in the cultural unconscious.

When the idea of cancelling re-emerges years later, the misogynistic undertones of these earlier contexts are repressed. 

Social media was crucial in enabling cancel culture to develop, specifically the online realm of Black Twitter – a space for both serious conversation about matters that affect Black communities, but also a space for humour and entertainment, by and for a collective of Black identities. 

There, the idea of cancelling, adapting older traditions of dissing and calling out, started alongside hashtag movements like #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter, which helped spread the action and language of cancel culture further. 

It’s clear that the verb “to cancel” (like the history of other words like “woke”, “cool” and “on fleek”) originated in Black culture but has been appropriated into white mainstream culture globally.

This is why it’s particularly interesting that a phrase like cancel culture can be awarded word of the year from Australia’s authority on our version of English, without clear reference to its origins. 

But, as McGrady points out, the notion of cancel culture has now been weaponised to “sneer at the values of many young Black liberals”, who were integral to the concept coming into popular circulation.

After decades of sexual abuse allegations, the hashtag #MuteRKelly led to a successful financial boycott of the now-convicted musician, who was handed a 20-year prison sentence for child pornography earlier this year. 

Other examples include Woody Allen, Louis C.K. and Kevin Spacey – who at various times were “cancelled” by various groups over abuse allegations. 

And Pepsi was cancelled after their ad featuring Kendall Jenner was condemned for appropriating a Black Lives Matter protest. 

But it’s not just happening in the United States, K-pop group BTS were cancelled by Chinese fans over a comment by a band member paying tribute to American and South Korean troops who fought in the Korean war. 

You also don’t have to be alive to be cancelled. For many, Picasso is cancelled and debates continue on whether Michael Jackson is cancelled. 

In Australia, more recently, student groups at the University of Melbourne have asked for philosophy academic Holly Lawford-Smith’s classes to literally be cancelled in a campaign on campus and online, that led to debate over academic free speech. 

Cancel culture has a fraught relationship with free speech. Some argue that cancelling gives rise to the voices of marginalised communities, who have previously had their opinions suppressed. Others say it stifles open debate. 

The examples listed above suggest there isn’t a specific way to cancel something – the effects of cancel culture are often quite disparate.

Different groups of people may consider someone to be cancelled when others do not. There doesn’t appear to be a One Size Fits All to cancelling. 

While some consider cancel culture as an act of free speech, conservatives have identified cancelling as a threat to free speech. In response, the US Conservative Political Action Conference in 2021 focused on the theme ‘America Uncancelled’. It’s a phrase that’s been plastered on t-shirts ever since. 

Cancelling is one way social media was used to establish social justice. But the idea of media or activists playing a role in delivering justice isn’t anything new. 

Concerns have been raised about the effects of cancel culture on everyday citizens who aren’t as well-resourced or powerful as high profile people. At the same time, cancel culture has brought significant attention to the shortcomings of the legal justice system, particularly in relation to cases of sexual assault. 

Like any social phenomena, cancel culture is complex, and has been interpreted and deployed in many, many ways.

The version of cancel culture that conservative factions of society decry, isn’t real.

Yes, people are called out for their questionable actions all the time, but a person is only truly cancelled if they face consequences, be they social and/or financial or within the justice system.

But we see time and time again that people’s reputations and livelihoods remain firmly in tact even after their wrongdoings are exposed. People and groups can and often are called out, yet they remain protected by the structures of our society – like the patriarchy – enough to hold onto their high-profile jobs or keep getting booked for gigs.

Without being held accountable, is someone really cancelled?

Madeline Lo-Booth is a journalist who writes on culture and politics.

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