Cancellation culture is a social media phenomenon aiming boycott and ban people, events or brands that assume behaviors considered incorrect or that violate the values of a group of people.
The behavior of public figures and brands becomes the target of the so-called "internet court", which judges these acts and defines whether they should be canceled. The cancellation is, then, the boycott and virtual ban as punishment for actions judged as undue.
Thus, “cancel” is the disapproval and rejection of speeches or positions in relation to any topic. The purpose of cancellation is to boycott the content that a person or brand produces as punishment for their actions.
Virtual cancellation is based on the idea that public figures use social networks to promote their production. Thus, when committing an infraction considered serious, the content produced by it resembles a poorly executed service that must be cancelled.
There are many factors that can lead to cancellation. In general, the canceled person acted in opposition to the moral principles and values present in society. As, for example, in homophobic, racist, misogynistic or sexist, xenophobic or ideologically contrary positions to common sense.
Hence, a intolerance response to bad behavior considered as a social transgression.
In some cases, the cancellation evolves into the so-called “virtual lynching”, where the canceled person becomes the target of curses and threats, not just banishment or boycott.
On the other hand, the culture of cancellation on the internet also makes groups of "cancellers" proliferate. Cancellers are people who start looking for mistakes made to promote the ban of public figures who, for some other reason, do not like them.
See also the meanings of:
- Blogger
- fake news
- Hoax
