cancel culture

Cancel culture is the practice of publicly withdrawing support from a person, brand or institution, usually on social media, after they say or do something people find objectionable. When it happens to someone, they’re said to be “canceled.”

What “canceled” means

To cancel someone is to stop supporting them, and to say so publicly: unfollowing, boycotting their work, calling on others to do the same. Merriam-Webster now lists that as an ordinary sense of the verb “cancel.” Among friends it’s often a joke: “you like pineapple on pizza? Canceled.”

Cancel culture is the bigger pattern, the tendency for these public withdrawals to snowball. Whether that pattern is good or bad is one of the most argued-over questions online.

Examples

• “He’s been canceled three times and somehow still has a podcast.”
• “Is this accountability or just cancel culture?”
• “Me forgetting my best friend’s birthday: canceled, deserved.”

Where it came from

Wikipedia traces the slang “cancel” to Chic’s 1981 song “Your Love Is Cancelled” and a line in the 1991 film New Jack City, from which it passed into African American Vernacular English. By the mid-2010s it was common on Black Twitter, which Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com both credit with spreading it. Merriam-Webster also ties its rise to the #MeToo movement.

In 2019, Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary named “cancel culture” its Word of the Year, saying it captured an important part of that year’s zeitgeist.

The debate

Critics argue that cancel culture leans toward mob justice, leaves no room for second chances and makes people afraid to speak openly. In July 2020, an open letter in Harper’s signed by 153 writers, academics and other public figures warned about public shaming and intolerance of opposing views.

Defenders say “cancel culture” is often just a new name for accountability or a consumer boycott, and that it gives people without institutional power a way to be heard. A response letter signed by more than 160 academics and media figures argued the Harper’s letter would silence marginalized voices. Public opinion is split too: in a September 2020 Pew survey, people who had heard a lot about the term were more likely to describe it as holding people accountable than as censorship.

Related terms

• Ratio: when the replies outnumber the likes.
• Receipts: proof, usually screenshots.
• Subtweet: a post about someone without naming them.
• Rage bait: content made to make people angry.

See more terms like this in our internet slang dictionary.