Cancel Culture

[Rev. Rye]

Frankly, the thing that really galls me about it isn’t so much what it does to it’s victims but what it does to it’s adherents.





Summary: Contra casts a trans porn legend to read a John Waters quote For a video. Because said trans porn legend has a history of saying some really dodgy things about non-binary people (and may have outed Lana Wachowski as trans before she finally outed herself, and I say may have because even at that point, Lana’s transition had been public knowledge, if unconfirmed, for a year or two), and because Contra gave him a platform (to read the words of other people unrelated to his bugbear and nothing else), people start a harassment campaign against her, and when other BreadTubers fail to condemn her, the campaign spreads to them as well. Philosophy Tube talks about his side of the controversy in his “Artists & Fandoms” video.

Most of the time, the most visible effect of canceling is a harassment campaign that lasts more or less until the social media hive mind finds someone else to rage at, ultimately helping make the world a more toxic place. If this is what the left does when we don’t have power, then what hope do we have for bettering the world when we actually do have power? It’s almost like the only lesson we’ve learned from the French Revolution is that we figured out it’s easier to start harassment campaigns against people (and with longer-lingering harm) than to send them to the Guillotine.

Or maybe any hope of actually trying to change the world for the better is folly because, even more fundamental to human nature than the desire to help the world is the desire to be Dexter Morgan.