The Concept of Cancel Culture and Its Life-based Examples

According to Cambridge Dictionary, the concept of “Cancel culture” is seen as a person conducting themselves in a group to neglect or show lack of support as the person has done something to upset or displease a group in this case through social media to the public on the social media platform.

Over the years cancel culture has progressively become more toxic allowing for people online to destroy people's careers with just a click of a button . Due to its toxicity, I don't agree with canceling culture to a certain extent as people could be canceled due to false accusations made by the public on social media. Although cancel culture has many negatives one positive aspect that has been brought to the public eyes is that it's a way to make people accountable for their actions and creating awareness to more serious topics such as sexual assualt, absuse, racism and so on. This stops the wealth, rich and famous from getting away from their problems just because of who they are and not for what they've done.

On the 25th of may 2020 cancel culture brought justice to a man black man named George Floyd. He was accused of using counterfeit money at a store. During this arrest a white police officer named Derrick Chauvin. Chauvin proceeded to handcuff and detain Floyd by holding him down by pressing his knee to Floyds neck. These actions taken by Chauvin caused a horrific event that will forever be known in history as white male officer who forcefully and knowingly suffocated a black man while he screamed “I can't breathe''. while this event was taking place, civilian bystanders recorded the event and uploaded on social media platforms. The appalling video went viral and the public demanded justice. Due to the overwhelming response to the video the Minneapolis police department immediately fired Chauvin and the 3 other police officers who were present during the incident. Chauvin was was charged with 3rd degree murder and man slaughter. For this reason this specific example of cancel culture has helped to highlight the major problem of black lives being oppressed in the American criminal justice sector.

Johnny Depp a famous musican, actor and producer was wrongfully accused of verbally, physically and sexually abussing his ex wife Amber Heard. Heard used social media platforms to post and create fake allegations that her ex husband Jonny depp was verbally, sexually, physically assulting her. the content which she posted to the public were fake images claiming that she had been assaulted by him these included messages, voice notes and pictures of herself imitating that she had been physically assaulted. These false allegations lead to Depp retrenched from disney's pirates of the caribbean series as well as warner brothers, fantastic beasts movie series. Depp's whole career was destroyed and came to a standstill. Depp then proceeded to file a lawsuit against his ex wife seeking 50 millions dollars in damages due to the loss of his career. He also filed a lawsuit against defamation of character where he was proven innocent. This example of cancel culture proves my point that it can slander someone's career while negatively affecting their livelihood.

In conclusion, cancel culture was made to stop the career or livelihood of a person who in the eyes of the public is seen to have done something not acceptable to society and must be held accountable for their . The problem with cancel culture is its grouping or gathering people on social media for one person to say that, “I don't agree with what they are doing and you shouldn't either”. The dangerous are evidently proved through Johnny Depp's case in how quickly one's life can be destroyed from miss information through social media. Therefore, culture is seen as a toxic weapon of mass destruction.