List of Cancel Culture victims.

[Ssnake]

Oh, so I'm stuffing the strawman when I'm just asking you here who all seem to be so confident knowing what Cancel Culture is, to give me a definition that is non-ambiguous? You're all side-stepping that question, and try to divert with all kinds of new examples that highlight a different aspect.

And I'm not even saying that Cancel Culture doesn't exist, or that there's no problem. But before we can assemble a list of its victims per the thread's title, I'd like to know what the yardstick is rather than just listing random anecdotes about ruined people's lives based on the subjective impressions of the various contributors. You really have a talent for picking the wrong trees to bark up at. And even if you can't define it, at least give a list of criteria to check against, and then set a threshold for how many of these must be met to qualify as a case of Cancel Culture. I'd be fine with that.

[DKTanker]

14 minutes ago, R011 said:

The racial stereotype of the Black domestic servant addressed by a patronizing title.  As I noted, it's a stereotype that's been obsolete so long it needs to be explained to modern people.

People are only offended if they choose to be offended which is why I offered Betty Crocker.  Should Betty Crocker be canceled?  After all it is depicts the stereotypical housewife whose entire life revolves around baking cakes, tending to her husband's every need, and being the domestic servant found offensive in the previous examples.

[R011]

3 hours ago, DKTanker said:

People are only offended if they choose to be offended which is why I offered Betty Crocker.  Should Betty Crocker be canceled?  After all it is depicts the stereotypical housewife whose entire life revolves around baking cakes, tending to her husband's every need, and being the domestic servant found offensive in the previous examples.

I'm sure her time will come if things remain unchanged.  The non-White mascots are easier targets so they went for them first.

[R011]

On 3/10/2021 at 3:42 PM, Ssnake said:

It's true, but it also applies to shifts in public taste. Try writing Aramaic poetry and be as succssful as top of the line thriller authors. Are we complaining about Aramaic poetry being the victim of Cancel Culture?

Are we not seeing small, admittedly, publishing houses that cater to minority opinion markets (including nutty conspiracy "non-fiction" fiction)? There's at least two or three of these on the German market alone cranking out productions that no "respectable" publisher would touch with a ten feet pole, a colorful mixup of The Corona Lie, the impending Euro crash, Neonazi publications, and less controversial but rather obscure books. So the circulation is reduced, yes, but it's not as if the book itself can't be acquired.

Would your local drugstore, selling the most common brands of toothpaste except Colgate for no apparent reason, be guilty of Cancel Culture? And if they gave a reason that you didn't like, would that then be a case of Cancel Culture? If if you like the reason, is it then a legitimate boycott, voting with your wallet?

"Cancel Culture" is a rather fuzzy term. It seems obvious what it means, until you start trying to define it ("I recognize it when I see it"...).

Is it something that only leftists do (clearly not)?

Is it only Cancel Culture if a reason is given, and how plausible should that reason be (short of the admission that they don't sell Colgate toothpaste because they hate their guts, hate 'em, hate that face of the current CEO, that they'd happily sacrifice all their money in a short sell if only that would guarantee the ruin of the Colgate corporation)?

Or is it only Cancel Culture if you don't like the reason they give? Particularly in contrast to the noble activists who don't want people to buy X because they are made by Uighur slaves in Chinese concentration camps? Is any boycott automatically the flip side of Cancel Culture?

If one small retailer decided to boycott Colgate for whatever reason, no one would care.  If a number of big retailers, like Amazon, Walmart and Target, boycotted Colgate because the CEO was a Republican, that would be Cancel Culture.  When banks refuse to do business with a manufacturer not because of fraud or financial peril but because they make guns, that's Cancel Culture. When an actor is fired and blacklisted because she compares cancel culture to the first stages of Nazi oppression while her co-star can claim with impunity that illegal immigrant facilities are just like Nazi death camps, that's Cancel Culture.  When White people are told to keep their mouths shut because they're inherently evil, that's Cancel Culture.

Cancel Culture is the systematic silencing of voices that do not support the left wing grievance industry or support conservative causes.  No infraction is too minor, obscure, distanced in time, or imaginary enough to not count.

[Josh]

I feel like before there was "cancel culture" there was "voting with your wallet".

Trump tried to cancel two dozen different companies, but because it was Trump, it wasn't "cancel culture". But I kinda feel it was functionally equivalent.

Honest question, when is it cancel culture and when is it voting with your wallet?

[seahawk]

Telling the American people to not buy products from companies that are enemies of the American people is not cancel culture. Cancel Culture is silencing persons because they do not agree with the liberal mind police.

[R011]

2 hours ago, Josh said:

I feel like before there was "cancel culture" there was "voting with your wallet".

Trump tried to cancel two dozen different companies, but because it was Trump, it wasn't "cancel culture". But I kinda feel it was functionally equivalent.

Honest question, when is it cancel culture and when is it voting with your wallet?

When the wallets of the cancellers aren't involved is usually a good indicator.  Cancel Culture is also a phenomenon of the Left pretty much by definition.  It would be hard to find contemporary conservative equivalents.

[Ssnake]

2 hours ago, R011 said:

If one small retailer decided to boycott Colgate for whatever reason, no one would care.

I'll have to break it down to keep ir somewhat organized. If I understand you right, one criterium is competence - whether the boycott is actually successful/hurts the boycott victim, irrespective of the motivation behind it?

[Ssnake]

2 hours ago, R011 said:

If a number of big retailers, like Amazon, Walmart and Target, boycotted Colgate because the CEO was a Republican, that would be Cancel Culture.

If 100 million consumers decided to boycott Colgate because the CEO was a Democrat, would that also be Cancel Culture? (purely hypothetically speaking)

I'm asking to find out if the boycott organizers need to be liberals, or if they need to be economically centralized.

[Ssnake]

2 hours ago, R011 said:

When banks refuse to do business with a manufacturer not because of fraud or financial peril but because they make guns, that's Cancel Culture.

Should banks be forced to render financial services to selected industry sectors?

IOW, should they not be permitted to consider factors beyond the ledger, as long as the financed activity is not outlawed?

[Ssnake]

2 hours ago, R011 said:

When an actor is fired and blacklisted because she compares cancel culture to the first stages of Nazi oppression while her co-star can claim with impunity that illegal immigrant facilities are just like Nazi death camps, that's Cancel Culture.

I'd call it hypocrisy, but I'll run with it, if someone gets fired or otherwise hurt financially in a significant way.

Although ... hypothetically speaking, assume a pair of athletes with a largely identical set of sponsors. One day, one of them publicly announces his support for BLM while the other starts publicly celebrating the KKK. Predictably the latter sees his market value plummet as horrified sponsors cancel their contracts. Would that also count?

[Ssnake]

3 hours ago, R011 said:

When White people are told to keep their mouths shut because they're inherently evil, that's Cancel Culture.

I'd call that racism. Spin the color wheel for a different melanin concentration and you could make the case that this was what happened in some areas during Jim Crow laws, or women before suffrage, ...

It's not that I don't get what you're saying. If dropping leaflets saying "it's okay to be white" cause mass hysteria and panic attacks on campus, it clearly isn't a rational response, but at the end of the day it all boils down to (anti-white) racism. Which then begs the question, were Jim Crow era businesses also part of Cancel Culture?

I'm asking, because...

[Ssnake]

3 hours ago, R011 said:

Cancel Culture is the systematic silencing of voices that do not support the left wing grievance industry or support conservative causes.

...which suggests that "only liberals do it".

[BansheeOne]

I idly googled "conservatives boycott" and found this actually quite interesting report:

Quote

Conservatives absolutely hate it when people boycott businesses over politics, but 67% of liberals think it’s fair game

Joseph Zeballos-Roig and Walt Hickey Aug 30, 2019, 9:24 PM

Even boycotts have become a politically explosive subject.

A new Insider poll found that over two-thirds of liberals think boycotting businesses over their politics is fair game, while conservatives absolutely seethe at the idea.

The poll comes after US partisan warfare barreled into an unlikely place: high-end fitness chains. Both SoulCycle and Equinox faced a flood of calls for a boycott over news their billionaire owner Stephen Ross hosted a lavish fundraiser for President Donald Trump in early August.

Both SoulCycle and Equinox sought to distance themselves from Ross, saying in a statement he's only "a passive investor and is not involved in the management of either business."

In the poll, Insider asked over 1,100 respondents their attitudes about corporate boycotts and whether it was fair to engage in such actions because of the owner's political behavior.

Results showed 25% of respondents said they strongly agreed and believed it was completely fair. Around 18% agreed and said it was sometimes fair; 24% neither agreed nor disagreed and said it depended on the situation; 10% disagreed and responded it's usually not fair; 15% strongly disagreed and said it was never fair; 7% said they didn't know.

Insider gleaned some highlights from the data:

Both SoulCycle and Equinox sought to distance themselves from Ross, saying in a statement he's only "a passive investor and is not involved in the management of either business."

In the poll, Insider asked over 1,100 respondents their attitudes about corporate boycotts and whether it was fair to engage in such actions because of the owner's political behavior.

Results showed 25% of respondents said they strongly agreed and believed it was completely fair. Around 18% agreed and said it was sometimes fair; 24% neither agreed nor disagreed and said it depended on the situation; 10% disagreed and responded it's usually not fair; 15% strongly disagreed and said it was never fair; 7% said they didn't know.

Insider gleaned some highlights from the data:

- Self-identified "very conservative" respondents made up 10% of the sample. Yet 31% of them strongly disagreed with the idea of boycotting businesses over their political beliefs. 

- Moderate conservatives made up nearly 16% of the sample. They also harbored strong sentiments against a boycott as 24% of vehemently disagreed with the notion.

- On the other end of the spectrum, "very liberal respondents" made up a similar share of the respondents at 12%. 54% of them strongly agreed with boycotting businesses as completely fair.

- 20% of the sample were self-described moderate liberals — and 42% of them also strongly agreed with boycotts.

It's possible the partisan divide reflects the tumultuous politics of the era — and the results could be reversed to an extent if a Democratic administration held power in Washington.

When it comes to boycotts, a body of research shows they don't generally do lasting damage to a company's profits and only about 25% of them achieve the results desired in the targeted institution.

Yet there are signs this boycott could be different and raise existential issues for both companies. They have cast themselves as welcoming, socially-conscious businesses who cater to a progressive-minded clientele — and that puts SoulCycle and Equinox at risk of an extensive backlash.

Equinox has supported LGBTQ charities, and SoulCycle has courted that community as well.

One study from management professors Mary-Hunter McDonnell and Brayden King chronicled the effects of hundreds of corporate boycotts from 1999 to 2005. They found that companies who market themselves in "pro-social" ways actually are more likely to be targeted by a boycott in any given year. 

"Rather than buffering a firm from being targeted, these results suggest that a firm's pro-social activity may make it more vulnerable to being targeted," McDonnell and King said in the study, adding it also makes businesses more "shameable" when they stray from their core values. They also noted that companies targeted by boycotts bolstered their prosocial branding as a result — which ironically keeps the boycott cycle going.

As Josh Barro wrote in New York magazine, it is "dangerous" for both brands to be swept up in the hyper-partisan climate, noting that 86 of 91 SoulCycle studios are in precincts that voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

"SoulCycle customers, especially frequent ones," Barro wrote, "are likely to have personal relationships and attachments to specific instructors and may focus more on the idea that taking their business elsewhere would hurt those individuals, rather than on how it would affect Ross."

Equinox is in a better position to weather the storm, given its monthly membership gym adopting a business model that relies on people who rarely visit the gym.  They also have a fast-moving news cycle working in their favor with public attention rapidly shifting onto other issues.

How Equinox and SoulCycle restore their battered brands remains to be seen, but the risk of a backlash will always persist for both — its up to them whether they take steps to reduce their probability.

https://www.businessinsider.com/conservatives-hate-when-people-boycott-businesses-over-politics-2019-8?r=DE&IR=T

I think this is the important bit:

Quote

One study from management professors Mary-Hunter McDonnell and Brayden King chronicled the effects of hundreds of corporate boycotts from 1999 to 2005. They found that companies who market themselves in "pro-social" ways actually are more likely to be targeted by a boycott in any given year. 

"Rather than buffering a firm from being targeted, these results suggest that a firm's pro-social activity may make it more vulnerable to being targeted," McDonnell and King said in the study, adding it also makes businesses more "shameable" when they stray from their core values. They also noted that companies targeted by boycotts bolstered their prosocial branding as a result — which ironically keeps the boycott cycle going.

I. e., boycotts need a cooperative target. That might explain why the Left is more successful with this, moreso than their alleged greater support for such tactics. After all, there is really no shortage of boycotts by the Right.

If you really want to get down to it, here's a lengthy article on studies about liberal and conservative boycotts (haven't read through it yet myself).

[R011]

42 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

I'll have to break it down to keep ir somewhat organized. If I understand you right, one criterium is competence - whether the boycott is actually successful/hurts the boycott victim, irrespective of the motivation behind it?

Cancel Culture is Leftist. Not just social democratic, welfare state liberalism but far Left Marxist.  There have been conservatives trying the same tactics, but as they generally don't own the media, control the schools and universities, big tech, or increasingly other big businesses that enforce cancellation, their efforts are irrelevant.

If the right had the power, they'd start with Alphabet and Amazon for their role in Cancelling, not one of thousands of companies with Demicrat CEOs.

As fot acts of Cancel Culture being racist, hypocritical etc., they are.  Those things are part if it, not separate issues.

[R011]

58 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

I'd call it hypocrisy, but I'll run with it, if someone gets fired or otherwise hurt financially in a significant way.

Although ... hypothetically speaking, assume a pair of athletes with a largely identical set of sponsors. One day, one of them publicly announces his support for BLM while the other starts publicly celebrating the KKK. Predictably the latter sees his market value plummet as horrified sponsors cancel their contracts. Would that also count?

And if people were actually celebrating the KKK, that might be an legitimate question.  The people being cancelled are people declining to support BLM or people supporting Trump - people no more radical than all but one or two here on the Grate Site.

[Rick]

8 hours ago, Ssnake said:

Oh, so I'm stuffing the strawman when I'm just asking you here who all seem to be so confident knowing what Cancel Culture is, to give me a definition that is non-ambiguous? You're all side-stepping that question, and try to divert with all kinds of new examples that highlight a different aspect.

And I'm not even saying that Cancel Culture doesn't exist, or that there's no problem. But before we can assemble a list of its victims per the thread's title, I'd like to know what the yardstick is rather than just listing random anecdotes about ruined people's lives based on the subjective impressions of the various contributors. You really have a talent for picking the wrong trees to bark up at. And even if you can't define it, at least give a list of criteria to check against, and then set a threshold for how many of these must be met to qualify as a case of Cancel Culture. I'd be fine with that.

"Cancel Culture" as defined today in the U.S. is the liberal actions of -- with so far much/some success -- of misandry and white racism (which the left disguises at "white culture"). These actions lead to the opposite of "...live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Ironic bonus if you can name the author of this quote.

These misandrist and racist actions by the left are lead by the majority in academia, the press, and in some larger corporations which are trying -- if they have not already -- being written into law by the Democratic Party.

[Josh]

4 hours ago, seahawk said:

Telling the American people to not buy products from companies that are enemies of the American people is not cancel culture. Cancel Culture is silencing persons because they do not agree with the liberal mind police.

Ah, there we go. Only liberals do it, where as when conservatives do it its an "enemy of the state". And you're worried about leftists putting conservatives into camps?

[Josh]

4 hours ago, R011 said:

When the wallets of the cancellers aren't involved is usually a good indicator.  Cancel Culture is also a phenomenon of the Left pretty much by definition.  It would be hard to find contemporary conservative equivalents.

So this isn't cancel culture, by the definition of "conservatives don't do it".

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-targets-companies-apple-nordstrom-google-2019-7

 

[R011]

26 minutes ago, Josh said:

So this isn't cancel culture, by the definition of "conservatives don't do it".

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-targets-companies-apple-nordstrom-google-2019-7

 

Come back when they've been deplatformed from social media, vilified by the MSM, and blacklisted from getting new jobs.

[R011]

32 minutes ago, Josh said:

So this isn't cancel culture, by the definition of "conservatives don't do it".

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-targets-companies-apple-nordstrom-google-2019-7

 

Oh, and apparently, conservatives aren't allowed to fight back when criticized by the left or complain when companies have bad service or take jobs out of the country.

[glenn239]

7 hours ago, Josh said:

Honest question, when is it cancel culture and when is it voting with your wallet?

Cancel culture is the direct imposition of some form of tangible sanction against an individual in direct response to social or political beliefs that person has expressed.  Voting with your wallet is a form of the consumer's right to choose whom they shall purchase from. 

[BansheeOne]

Everybody is always just fighting "back". 

I would argue that irrespective of actors' ideology, cancel culture in its proper meaning is in fact different from boycotting in that it's aimed at cancelling exposure of individuals undesired opinions/behavior through public pressure rather than getting organizations to change their policy. That pressure may include the economic sort by boycotting, but is largely of a moral kind, and successful where those in a position to actually terminate exposure - employers, publishers, event organizers - are succeptible to it (see the earlier bit about socially conscious companies being the best boycott targets, too).

Typically the actors here are not customers of the target individual's "product" (publications, shows, lectures etc.) anyway, so can't boycott it either except in an oblique way via sponsors, boycotting all the other books of a publisher or retailer, or similar. It then becomes indeed very hard to find examples of right-wing cancel culture. The one I can think of that fits the bill offhand is Kathy Griffin being shot down over her stunt with Trump's severed head; that worked because CNN as her employer was succeptible to the moral outrage that followed, even though Trump supporters aren't exactly their target audience. 

The problem always is that people try to extend conveniently established negative labels to lump in similar but different behavior they don't like, so terms get diluted and invite counterattacks with examples which don't really apply. 

ETA: Shoot me, essentially what Glenn said, just more long-winded. 😁 

Edited March 12, 2021 by BansheeOne

[Josh]

43 minutes ago, glenn239 said:

Cancel culture is the direct imposition of some form of tangible sanction against an individual in direct response to social or political beliefs that person has expressed.  Voting with your wallet is a form of the consumer's right to choose whom they shall purchase from. 

So is it cancel culture when Trump says to not buy from a company then? That is an imposition of a sanction against a company in direct response to his political beliefs.

[Josh]

1 hour ago, R011 said:

Come back when they've been deplatformed from social media, vilified by the MSM, and blacklisted from getting new jobs.

Would McCarthyism be the original cancel culture then?