I’ve never seen it used to mean an overreaction. I’ve only seen it used to disparage speech that the person using the term disagrees with.
And of course, the people who use that term use it to discourage speech that they disagree with…
Huh? No, the term is only ever used by the person being allegedly cancelled because of something they said. And they are invariably claiming that it’s an overreaction - that they should not (for example) be losing their job because of a racist tweet.
Nope, I’ve seen people using it: “Poor X! Said something that people disagree with and is being cancelled as a result! That shouldn’t be allowed!”
To call for someone to be cancelled is not at all the same thing as an accusation of “cancel culture”. When someone whines about “cancel culture” they are complaining that they are being wrongly cancelled, that the severity of the reaction against somethig they said is not justified.
All I can say is that is a fine distinction, which I have not seen being used by the people who toss the term around.
Like accusations of “politically correct” and “judicial activism”, “cancel culture” in my experience means “someone said something I disagree with but I don’t have the ability to respond to on the merits, so I’ll try to slag it this way.”
That is a ridiculous take on it, though. Freedom of expression does not protect one from consequences. “Canceling” is literally a response to a message, which is what messages are for in the first place: to get some sort of response – there are no guarantees that it will be the desired one. But there is no “suppression”, as the “canceled” party almost never literally loses their right to continue to say stupid shit.
To the contrary, understanding that distinction is fundamental to the conversation.
I’m not defending that position. I’m just pointing out that people seem to be oblivious to what the alleged phenomenon of “cancel culture” means.
To “cancel” someone does not in itself carry any negative connotation toward the cancellers. Cancelling may be a perfectly justified reaction, something that people explicitly advocate as an appropriate reaction to stigmatize someone who expresses despicable views.
Whereas the accusation of “cancel culture” carries the strong negative connotation that cancelling has run amok, that the cancellers are at fault, that anyone who says anything remotely controversial is stigmatized and ejected from society, and that freedom of expression is being systematically suppressed. The dubious claim of “cancel culture” is used by people who are being cancelled, by those who are suffering the consequences of expressing despicable views.
I guess what I find a bit mystifying here is that so many people don’t seem to grasp that these are idiomatic expressions whose culturally-established meaning cannot be deduced solely from the meaning of the separate words.
“Cancel culture” does not just mean a culture in which cancelling happens. It is an idiom with a specific negative connotation.
Similarly, “virtue signalling” does not just mean signalling virtue. It is an idiom with a specific negative connotation.
It makes no sense to say something like “there’s nothing wrong with cancel culture because sometimes people just need to be cancelled”. There may not be anything wrong with a culture in which cancelling takes place, but there is by definition something wrong with cancel culture. The negative connotation is instrinsic to the idiomatic meaning of the phrase.
And I’m saying that the idiomatic meaning of the term, as I’ve seen it used, does not match your understanding of the term.
All I can say is that I think you are mistaken. Preceding widespread use of the specific expression “cancel culture” by right-wing whiners being called on their bullshit, I think the idiomatic negative connotation may not have been so firmly established. But now I think the specific expression “cancel culture” is almost invariably used to allege that canceling has run amok in some way, to imply that freedom of expression is being compromised by inappropriate cancellation.
As you wish.
Let’s put it this way - I don’t think someone who thinks that it is a justified goal to cancel exposed racists would be likely to express their position as “I support cancel culture” any more than they would express their position as “I oppose freedom of expression”. Whereas they might well say #CancelRacists.
I support cancel culture.
I support cancel culture.
This OP is bizarre. Russia isn’t being punished in any way because of something Putin said.
If international sanctions because of unprovoked violence is cancel culture the phrase means nothing if it ever did.
Hey, wait a minute, something about this analytical style is sounding familiar. Do you have a show on Fox? Do you love bowties? Are you the heir to a frozen foods empire?
Cancel culture isn’t directed exclusively to harmless remarks people let slip. It usually refers to an action someone has taken, a policy some business has adopted, a political affiliation some public figure has taken.
I think you’re right, and one cite in support is from Wikipedia’s article on “cancel culture”: