Cancel Culture Notes

Behavioral Corrective: Public shaming is a public disgrace of an individual as a form of punishment for socially unacceptable behavior.
- Blacklisting: Publicly decrying an individual or group for wrongdoing or being untrustworthy.
- Penance, Forgiveness, Reconciliation are alternatives to shaming.
Examples of Public Shaming:
- Dunce cap, pillory, time-out corner, writing lines, crucifixion, tarring and feathering.
- These methods can have devastating psychological effects.
- Historically, they were sanctioned forms of justice.
Mob Justice (Ochlocracy):
- Intimidation of legitimate authorities by a mob with a common interest.
- Enforces racist, misogynistic, and xenophobic ideals.
- Examples: Salem witch trials, hate crimes, St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.
- The term "mob" refers to a crowd with a character of aggression and has a negative connotation, often associated with bullying.
Public shaming is related to authority, control, and punishment to maintain the social order and protect interests.
- It often targets the vulnerability of already marginalized groups.
Cancel culture appeals as retribution against those who hold power.

Cancel culture is mob justice + public shaming and is also referred to as "call-out culture."
It is the public naming of oppressive behavior in the name of justice and democracy.
Associated with "armchair activism."
Cancelling: The action = the person.
It involves shame, humiliation, and elimination but could lead to rehabilitation.

Gustave LeBon (1841-1931):
- Anonymity creates invincibility, leading to a loss of personal responsibility.
- Contagion: The spread of particular behaviors where individuals sacrifice personal interest for the collective.
- Suggestibility: The crowd becomes homogenous and malleable to the thoughts of dominant members.
- LeBon's work dates back to 1895 and was based on late 18th C France
- People in a crowd feels, thinks, and acts differently than if they were isolated.
- Certain ideas and feelings only emerge or transform into acts within a crowd.
Circular Reaction:
- Developed by Robert Park (1864-1944) and Herbert Blumer (1900-1987).
- Describes crowds as mindless, impulsive, and violent.
- Involves "milling," collective excitement, instability, unresponsiveness, and irresponsibility.
- Characterizes the crowd as "the mass."
Questions to Consider:
- When does the crowd function as an expression of hegemonic interests?
- When is it counter-hegemonic?
Examples:
- Vancouver's Stanley Cup riots (2011).
- Black Friday sales.
- Storming the US Capitol Building (2021).

Retributive Politics:
- Celebrity cancels.
- Calling for the firing of people who are already under-employed.
The internet community enables surveillance.
- Education is key in the face of vitriol and hostility.
- There is a tension between the collective and the individual.
"Free Speech" Debate:
- Referenced Elon Musk's commitment to free speech on social media even with personal safety risks.
Cancel Culture: A Critical Analysis by Eve Ng (2022).
- Relates to national politics, social media activism, community, #MeToo, and Black Lives Matter movements.
Viral Moments and Amplifying Content:
- Amplifying of viral content is a feature, not a bug, in the system, designed for profit.
Creating Community or Networked Participation?
- Involves shared outrage and performing morality.
- Participating in popular culture contributes to identity formation.
Questions for Consideration:
- Should platforms be subject to regulation beyond “community standards”?
- Can algorithms be the judge, and should we trust them?
- ‘Calling in’ involves encouraging others to educate themselves about different perspectives “ethic of care”.
- When is public criticism fair and fitting, and when is it something mean and brutal?
- What is more humane: shaming in a public square with a pillory or cancelling someone on the internet?
- What are our moral obligations to one another?
- What is the potential to entertain any of these questions when cancelling itself is monetized?

Cancel culture today has roots in public shaming and forms of mob justice—both of which have been around for centuries.
“Contagion theory” expresses the idea that individuals will say and do things they otherwise wouldn’t outside the context of the crowd.
Cancel culture is part of popular culture, and to critically engage with it means viewing it through not just a moral but an economic lens.