“Cancel culture” has been normalized in recent years, used to hold people, especially celebrities, accountable for their actions. This public shaming is a sense of mob mentality to call someone out for being “offensive” or “objectionable.”
Cancel culture has strangely, but not surprisingly helped marginalized groups of people to combat issues like racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.
YouTubers such as Shane Dawson have been affected by cancel culture for his racist past on YouTube videos. Many of Dawson’s videos from the 2000s consisted of racist skits that depict stereotypes of black people with the usage of slurs and black face.
He made a public apology back in 2014 addressing what he did as unacceptable, but a few years back in 2020, the YouTube star’s joke videos about racism and pedophilia resurfaced and he faced even heavier backlash. Even though he had already apologized, the damage had already been done.
Many people decided that Shane Dawson should be canceled and stay canceled for all his actions. This situation raised awareness to harmful actions such as racist videos, and held influencers at a decent expectation when creating YouTube videos.
Instances like Shane Dawson should always face consequences because do we, as a society, want hateful people to influence generations of youth?
There can be room for growth and redemption for those canceled, but for influencers and celebrities that people idolize, being canceled creates a balance of accountability and responsibility as an important figure.
Anything to an extremity is not okay, but cancel culture most of the time holds those accountable for their actions and promotes justice for all.
