Shannon Valor, author of Social Networking Technology and the Virtues, gives an argument for how basic virtues can be transcended into social media. In her paper, she quotes Aristotle's idea that virtues don't come from nature or choice, rather they emerge from social and physical conditions.
Cancel culture is a great example of this idea. Every week, there seems to be a trending hashtag in the form of #[insert celebrity name]iscancelled. They could be getting "cancelled" for something that they said, something that was said about them, or even something as small as what they wore. People go to the lengths of looking at celebrity tweets from over 10 years ago in an attempt to "cancel" them. Once the first #cancelled gets out, the tweets multiply until everyone is determining this person to be "cancelled."
But why is cancel culture a thing?
Each #cancelled phenomena probably starts with good intentions. Someone sees something that they find to be offensive, and they tweet about it. Then, a few hundred people catch on. In little to no time, there are millions of people tweeting #cancelled, but the majority of them are doing it for reasons different from how the phenomena started. They tweet because other people are doing it, and they want to bandwagon. The hashtag is trending now, so if they use it, there is the possibility that they will get more followers and attention from it.
These people did not meaningfully cause harm by joining the cancel phenomena, but they were rather aided by the social conditions that came along with it.
Cancel culture is a super interesting and relevant topic to choose, and I totally agree that it can get kind of out of hand or deviate from the original purpose. One thing that I think could make this post stronger is if you explained more clearly how this relates to Vallor's points. I was kind of confused when reading it about how it is an example of Aristotle's idea. You kind of touched on it at the end mentioning the social conditions but you could definitely elaborate more on that if you were going to revise this one. Overall, it was well written though and points out some problems with cancel culture that are interesting to consider.
ReplyDeleteThe blog has a great title which catches my eyes. I really like the opening paragraph that start from common sense to the technology world. But I think the author should related the cancel culture more to our reading and Vallor’s point. Even though you mention Vallors’ point early in the blog, the example you used does not fully explain the idea.
ReplyDeleteHey Pavitra, the title of your article and the first paragraph are what what hooked me into your post and got me to continue reading so great job on that! You also did a great job of tying in the readings to something in the world that most of us are familiar with. However, your blog post left me a little unfulfilled. You really just described cancel culture and explored one of its potential causes, but at the end I just thought "so what?" Maybe include more of the consequences of cancel culture or how people have started to fight cancel culture.
ReplyDeleteThis is my first here this idea about cancel, In my country, people who fellow the celebrity, they want to find anything disadvantage about them and write article about it, so people will share these article to their friend circle, and it become a hot topic, so poeple start disagree with him about anything he did, and some of them can't bear with this, they decide to quite the circle. I think it is very similar to this Cancel idea, I would total agree with that people are not intentional to do this, but when more and more people doing it, they are fallowing them,and thing become uncontrolled. I really like your idea about this post, and the connection with the reading.
ReplyDeleteCancel culture is something that I notice happening more and more often. People are cancelling celebrities, policital figures, or just the average person on the internet. If it were being done for the right reasons and within reason, sometimes those who speak ignorantly need a little wake up. But the consequences that can come from “cancelling” people with and without reason may be more detrimental. It would be interesting to learn more about them.
ReplyDeleteYou have a great title and I totally agree with you that many people tweet #cancelled without a good reason. When tweeting becomes much easier, people are less careful with what they write and say. They do not have much responsibility for what they are doing because internet gives them a fake identity.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your post especially since it is so prevalent in this time. I have noticed that many people bandwagon on topics because others are doing so as well, however, has "cancelling" someone really been effective? Yes, many of the people being "cancelled" do often address the issue at hand and they may make a change but what if they don't? People end up forgetting about it. or moving on. So I'm wondering what is the point in trying to cancel someone. Are we looking for an apology, a change, or what?
ReplyDeletePersonally, I view "cancel culture" as an immoral concept and should be, ironically, #cancelled. Ms. Valor pens how virtues are not innate, but environmental. Sure, so that means virtues vary from person to person. Barring obvious faults of morality, who are we to censure someone based on our own values, potentially wrecking their emotional and financial states in the process?
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