Teens Express Concerns Over Cancel Culture
How many characters from classic teen movies would be ‘canceled’ in today’s day and age? Image: “Clueless” (1995), Paramount Pictures
By MADINA GULOMOVA, KENDRA CHIN, and EMILY BRAVO
The Midwood Argus is an open forum for student opinion. The views expressed in the paper should not be taken to represent those of the administration, faculty, or the student body as a whole. To submit a letter to the editor, click the button on our homepage.
Think before you speak.
This is a good piece of advice, but not one we always follow. And with the widespread use of social media, it’s easy for something offensive, even from years ago, to get sent around very quickly. We hear so much about public figures, as well as average citizens, being “canceled” these days through online shaming from social media mobs holding them “accountable.” We asked teens for their thoughts about cancel culture.
“Cancel culture may have started off with good intentions, but now it’s become so watered down that it’s counterproductive,” Anna Poddubni ‘22 said. “No one is allowed to grow from their mistakes anymore; it’s just a way for people on social media to gang up on someone.”
Tasmia Chowdhury ‘22 said, “It’s not just calling someone out anymore and asking them to apologize for their mistakes, it’s hurting them mentally or even just ruining their whole life because of it. The cause of teaching someone and educating them has changed. It’s now more about just outright hurting them.”
“We have all said things and done things that we aren’t proud of,” Maricela Martinez ‘22 said, “but people change. We aren’t the same people we were five years ago with the same thinking.”
A common thread in our interviews was that cancel culture was now doing more harm than good. Kerry Lee ‘22 said that cancel culture is part of what is making the internet “a toxic place.”
“Bullying people online and making them feel bad for even making the slightest mistake is so wrong to me, especially for teens who may not understand right and wrong,” she said. “The online community should encourage one another to learn from mistakes and grow instead of putting them down every time.”
These students are not alone. According to a 2020 poll by Morning Consult and Politico, 46% of Americans believe cancel culture “has gone too far.” Only 27% of Americans said it has a “somewhat positive” or “very positive” impact on society. On the other hand, 49% of Americans said it had a “somewhat negative” or “very negative” impact on society. Still, 40% of Americans say they have participated in cancel culture, and 1 in 10 say they participate “often.”
Members of Generation Z, born between 1996 and 2010, are very outspoken and concerned about world issues. This group, along with Millennials, has had the most impact on punishing people or institutions over offensive views. Gen-Xers and Baby Boomers are more opposed to cancel culture, according to polls.
More than any other generation, members of Gen Z use social media not only to learn about issues but to make a difference. On apps from YouTube to Twitter to TikTok (where 60% of users are Gen Z), social media engagement has been used to make a change, but a culture of hate and bullying has also at times taken over.
Taio Cruz, a singer of the hit 2009 song “Dynamite,” was bullied off of TikTok shortly after joining because of mass amounts of hate comments. He said his time on TikTok gave him “suicidal thoughts.”
Teenage TikTok dancer Charli D’Amelio received death threats after a YouTube video from her family’s channel was posted in which D’Amelio and her sister Dixie seemed unappreciative of the food a chef made for them. D’Amelio also said, “Imagine if I hit 100 million [followers] a year after hitting 1 million.” Some fans felt that she was complaining and acting entitled.
“People these days get too butthurt over the smallest things and blow many situations out of proportion,” Dolan Ma ‘22 said.
“Cancel culture started off as something necessary, but now people are being cancelled left and right for minor things,” Sasha May ‘22 said. “People took it too far.”
Cancel culture demands a person lose “everything they worked so hard to achieve,” May added, even when their actions had taken place a long time ago. Many people have been targeted for things they said when they were “mentally underdeveloped teenagers who didn’t understand the severity of their words or actions, and who have since profusely apologized,” she said.
Sometimes, criticism is deserved. Shane Dawson, a YouTuber since 2008, was exposed for past videos where he portrayed characters based on stereotypes, used blackface and the n-word, and made anti-Semitic comments and jokes about pedophilia. In one video, he made sexual comments about singer Willow Smith, who was 11 years old at the time. Dawson came forward to apologize, and YouTube suspended the advertisements on his videos, not allowing Dawson to profit from them.
In cases like this, Tiffany Lin ‘22 said, “the way that they are being punished is relatively reasonable because they had such a big platform.”
So cancel culture can be beneficial when it shines light on problematic behavior, students said, but it can also get out of hand. The overwhelming sentiment among the teens we interviewed was that people need to be allowed to make mistakes and be given a chance to grow.
Sophomore Maile Veliz said, “It is mainly a tendency that our generation has created in ‘canceling’ as a way of expressing disapproval. People can get plagued with fear and become overwhelmed with anxiety that people will turn on them, that they’re next.”
Junior Brandon Edwards said, “If someone is getting cancelled for something that they’ve said or done in the past, we have to realize that people change. Most of the time, when a person makes an ignorant comment, they notice that mistake and mature.”
So just as it’s always wise to think before you speak, we might also want to remember to think before we ‘cancel.’