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Vanity Fair: Ronan Farrow thinks cancel culture should have limits

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/12/ronan-farrow-thinks-cancel-culture-should-have-limits

One of the defining traits of the past decade is the rise of cancel culture—a concept that arguably originated with Justine Sacco’s now-infamous, “Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” tweet en route to South Africa, the Twitter mob’s first taste of blood. Initially, the idea of “canceling” someone instilled a sense of righteous power. But gradually, like a fishing trawler, everything began to get caught up in the morass—political views, comedy sets, corporate partnerships. As the decade ticked by, no matter the offense, the same zero-tolerance barometer seemed to apply.

Over time this inspired some self-examination, particularly where #MeToo was concerned. For instance, should Harvey Weinstein and Aziz Ansari be listed in the same breath? Now, the backlash is upon us. (Don’t worry: there’s a backlash to the backlash.) At the Obama Foundation Summit in October, Barack Obama condemned “woke” cancel culture, saying that people who believe the way to conduct activism is to “be as judgmental as possible about other people” are “not bringing about change.” In a satirical op-ed video about cancel culture, reimagined with a medieval mob that cancels the canceler, the New York Times wondered, “Is there any room left for transgression?” The beginnings of a movement to cancel cancel culture have sprung up alongside arguments that cancel culture itself is a false flag intended to maintain the status quo.

Even some of the people who helped cancel the biggest monsters of all—here’s looking at you, Weinstein—believe there should be limits to the movement, as Ronan Farrow explained on this week’s Inside the Hive podcast. “I think cancel culture with respect to words and not actions, is by and large quite silly,” Farrow said. “I think people should totally have space to ask dumb questions. I think there’s plenty of terrible and criminal behavior that is absolutely worthy of cancellation, to use that framework, without us running around canceling all of the people who said the wrong thing and then said, Oh shit, sorry, I didn’t mean to say that.”
 

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
I'd take a far stronger anti-cancellation position, but it's cool to see our Thera out there pushing back against cancel culture.
 

Birdo

Banned
Being cancelled on Twitter has almost no real life consequences. It's just a vocal minority of "pronoun people" overblowing petty drama.
 
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