Cancel culture, instances of people using social and/or traditional media to criticize an individual’s offensive behavior with the hope of damaging that person’s mass public perception, social status, and/or professional opportunities, is a fraught topic. Dave Chappelle critiqued it with an incisive comedy special, Sticks and Stones. Despite Chappelle’s brilliance, the most talked about recent moment regarding cancel culture came when Saturday Night Live fired comedian Shane Gillis because Twitter users highlighted old, lazy, and lame jokes he made about Asian-Americans. The controversies around Chappelle and Gillis played into many people’s frustration and displeasure with cancel culture.
In response to these people, The New Republic’s Osita Nwanevu published “The ‘Cancel Culture’ Con.” Nwanevu’s article offers the typical apologia for cancel culture by those sympathetic to it. He claims critics and targets of cancel culture are inflating repercussions and ignoring benefits to pull a “con,” trying to convince people that these targets are victims when they’re not. However, Nwanevu’s essay is built on elisions, misrepresentations, contradictions, and ambiguity, so much so it’s easy to wonder if he’s conning himself.
After a bizarre intro abruptly transitioning from Lenny Bruce’s tragic harassment to quoting Chappelle, Nwanevu presents his first opinion: cancel culture has minimal consequences, so nobody need worry about it. He points out that despite poor reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, Chappelle has an audience score of 99%. He notes that while comedians like Chappelle, Chris Rock, and Jerry Seinfeld might complain that college audiences are too sensitive, they still make millions of dollars. And Nwanevu says that while Shane Gillis might have lost his job at SNL, he’s doing “fine” as he still performs stand-up.
A reader not already sympathetic to Nwanevu’s position will be bemused by his characterization of Gillis’ employment. Certainly being removed from a popular and influential comedy show is a significant loss for a comedian even if he keeps doing stand-up (incidentally, his gigs are decreasing there too). If not, why did social media users campaign to have him fired? Nwanevu may argue that the consequence isn’t extreme or unjustified, but that doesn’t mean it carries negligible harm to Gillis.
Nwanevu’s article unfolds largely like this. He downplays the consequences different targets of cancel culture faced while comically insisting that what happened to them was overblown. Take how Nwanevu approaches young adult literature (YA).
Nwanevu looks at the cases of two YA books, Kosoko Jackson’s A Place For Wolves and Amélie Wen Zhao’s Blood Heir, which the authors pulled from release after complaints of racial insensitivity. Amazingly, Nwanevu believes both instances are positive experiences for the artists because both authors accepted criticism, apologized, withdrew their books in an “entirely voluntary” manner, and are now slated to publish again.
In framing these incidents like this, Nwanevu flattens what Jackson and Wen Zhao endured. Jackson might be releasing a new book, but his prior release’s status remains uncertain, something Nwanevu implies but does not confirm in his piece. Wen Zhao, meanwhile, will publish Blood Heir, but only because she took time to overcome the stress caused by her critics and decided they weren’t right.
That Nwanevu cannot be honest about the harm caused to Gillis, Jackson, and Wen Zhao (among others) weakens his claim that cancel culture makes limited impact. By mitigating the activity’s repercussions, Nwanevu avoids grappling with one of the main criticisms people have about the concept. That causing people harm, like launching campaigns against them to lose a job or harassing them to the point where they pull a book, for offensive expression is usually wrong, especially if they are artists, who often express outrageous ideas not to support them, but to create an emotional experience.
It’s telling how little attention Nwanevu pays to Gillis, Jackson, and Wen Zhao as artists. Nwanevu dismisses Gillis’ defense that his material pushed boundaries, arguing it was lazy, without realizing that neither opinion changes the fundamental questions over his firing. Should this comedian have lost a job because of offensive jokes? And if the answer is no, does the fact that he made the jokes on an informal podcast invalidate their claim to be jokes, thus changing the answer? Nwanevu also seems unfazed by the strangeness of Jackson and Wen Zhao’s apologies. Even if Jackson and Wen Zhao sincerely accepted criticism, does Nwanevu not find it abnormal they apologized to critics over unpublished books? This is an uncommon response from artists to disgruntled audiences; if Nwanevu believes otherwise, he can ask all those disappointed with Game of Thrones’ finale to make sure. That Nwanevu cannot speak of Gillis, Jackson, and Wen Zhao’s treatment within the context of their profession, that he cannot engage with how their jobs might demand different responses to offensive behavior from other ones, tells readers cancel culture apologists do not care about tackling such nuanced conflicts, another reason to resist the concept.
Nwanevu clarifies his inclusion of Lenny Bruce in his second take: cancel culture’s opponents are often seen as martyrs on the level of Bruce (who eventually died because of the legal persecution he faced for jokes) when they are not. He writes that comedians like Chappelle and Gillis are now “at the center of a discourse” that encourages them to see “critical tweets and Tumblr posts” as akin to how “comedians in Bruce’s day” saw “undercover policemen.”
Notice Nwanevu’s use of passive voice; he must resort to this technique because Chappelle and Gillis don’t actually present themselves as such extreme victims. Chappelle doesn’t spend much time lamenting the threat of legal action or death by Tweets and Tumblr in his special; instead, he focuses on the audience’s ability to take away his lifestyle and professional status. Chappelle’s tone and decision to say this in front of patrons clarify he’s exaggerating his worry, but those emotions are based in truth. Why does Nwanevu think Netflix pays Chappelle so much? Because few comedians have ever balanced audience and critical acclaim like him, a balance that wouldn’t exist if former professional critics treated Chappelle like current ones do. With Gillis, Nwanevu himself informs readers that the comedian has moved on from his firing by saying “fuck it,” which does not sound like a man who believes he’s playing Jesus to Twitter’s Judas.
It’s unclear why Nwanevu posits that cancel culture’s targets are seen as martyrs dying for expression. Sure, a characteristically over-the-top David Brooks or Peggy Noonan column exists, but many of the actual cancel culture targets Nwanevu names in his piece respond like Chappelle or Gillis if they even respond to campaigns against their names. Few are claiming a literal witch hunt against them with the possible consequence being death or imprisonment. Not Dave Chappelle, Shane Gillis, Joe Biden, Kyler Murray, Amélie Wen Zhao, Kosoko Jackson, Aziz Ansari, or even Taylor Swift (and these are the people whose responses I think I know from the top of my head). Not even Sarah Silverman, who Nwanevu chides for comparing cancel culture to McCarthyism while glossing over her use of the words “almost” and “mutated,” diction suggesting she’s using the term not to convey the severity of the situation as much as the irony of the left monitoring art now for impure politics instead of the right.
If the conflict over cancel culture is a con for its targets to profit on by pretending to face imprisonment or death, somebody tell them to exaggerate victimhood more. Until then, maybe Nwanevu can engage with Chappelle’s defense of Kevin Hart without acting like Chappelle’s use of the phrase “celebrity hunting season” means he genuinely believes Hart is being led to the guillotine or to testify in front of HUAC with imprisonment and career annihilation hanging over his head.
Next, Nwanevu advances a dogma among left journalists to support cancel culture. Nwanevu figures that certain people, especially comics, take issue with cancel culture so they can use it to prevent their fading relevance. Nwanevu’s paragraph is rousing, but undermined by his earlier protests that few consequences exist for cancel culture opponents. If Dave Chappelle’s 99% audience score and salary mean he’s insulated from cancel culture’s harm, how can his gripes with the activity be explained as an attempt to remain relevant? If, as Nwanevu believes, Shane Gillis did not lose out on a shot at relevancy, then how can his supposed complaints (undetailed by Nwanevu) about cancel culture be desperate bids to preserve status?
Nwanevu must confine his relevance argument to comics because it crumbles when addressing other cancel culture cases. Nwanevu has it backwards: people do not attack cancel culture because they may become irrelevant; cancel culture often goes after people when they become relevant.
Take Kyler Murray. Last year, at age 21, he became the 79th individual to win the Heisman Trophy; Murray’s victory was met with a USA Today bombshell about how at 15, he tweeted homophobic jokes. Nwanevu reminds readers that Murray lost next to nothing as a result of USA Today’s “reporting,” and now starts at quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals.
However, Nwanevu elides what angered most people about this incident: that the happiest day of Murray’s life, the day he accomplishes what less than 100 people ever have, was exploited by a craven media outlet to gain attention at the expense of his name. Despite being a journalist, Nwanevu has surprisingly little interest in the ethics of the USA Today piece. He offers no thoughts about if it was right for the publication to capitalize on Murray’s relevance over petty tweets. He has no comment about if USA Today’s clickbait served a moral or informational purpose to readers.
For Nwanevu, all that matters is what happened to Murray. This makes sense; caring about only the result allows Nwanevu to evade one of the most troubling elements of cancel culture for critics: its ability to provide opportunistic media outlets a chance to publish one notorious story by impugning a person’s character over trivial matters. Cancel culture’s critics aren’t always worried about how it makes them and their favorites irrelevant; they worry that the bosses and editors of publications exploit the activity to gain relevance.
After being the 1,234,567th writer to critique New York Times columnist Bari Weiss this week, Nwanevu gives his last perspective on cancel culture— it raises up marginalized voices, the “young progressives, including many minorities and women who, largely through social media, have obtained a seat at the table where matters of justice and etiquette are debated and are banging it loudly to make up for lost time.”
Ah, so that’s why the Academy Awards replaced Kevin Hart as host: to give LGBT people a seat at the table of who gives out powerful Hollywood positions. That’s why USA Today went after Murray: to allow more gay people to vote on the Heisman. That’s why SNL fired Gillis: to lift up Asian-Americans; look, they even hired the first Asian-American comic, Bowen Yang, in the program’s history the same week they hired Gillis. That’s why The New York Times replaced Weiss with a Pro-Palestine columnist…wait, that didn’t happen.
Sarcasm aside, that Nwanevu believes cancel culture supposedly provides political mobility to marginalized voices reveals a remarkable obliviousness to the activity’s power dynamics. Yes, cancel culture’s targets can square off against “young progressives.” However, aside from the fact that someone’s politics and identity do not validate criticism, what Nwanevu fails to acknowledge is that these marginalized voices are heavily dependent on society’s entrenched powerful forces to intervene on their behalf.
Often, in order for their banging “at the table” over “matters of justice and etiquette” to be heard and acted upon, these people need established and formidable organizations, media outlets, companies, and individuals, usually with dubious track records helping minority groups, to support them. And frequently enough, these institutions and executives sacrifice employees, often over old speech, to reinforce this dependence. Nwanevu’s inability to see that cancel culture doesn’t meaningfully shake the traditional, largest sources of power is another reason to oppose the activity: it beguiles people into thinking that power dynamics are being restructured when they’re not.
However, maybe Nwanevu doesn’t want power dynamics to change? The strangest element of Nwanevu’s article, the strangest element of many cancel culture apologists in journalism, is how they contradictorily celebrate its supposed ability to uplift marginalized voices while reassuring critics of its ineffectiveness. Nwanevu spends three-fourths of his piece joking or calmly telling readers that cancel culture results in very limited consequences. Assuming his spin is true, though, why wouldn’t such circumstances frustrate Nwanevu? If cancel culture can truly resolve issues of “justice and etiquette” for sexual abuse victims, gay people, trans women like Muhlaysia Booker whose tragic story Nwanevu relays, why does Nwanevu seems so content and relaxed when he informs readers that “tweets are just tweets,” most cancel culture targets end up with a “good life,” and that this is the “golden age” for facing little consequence for offensive expression? Why present two views on cancel culture—it helps the marginalized and that it doesn’t matter—which cancel each other out (pun fully intended) and weaken your apologia?
The reason might be that Nwanevu knows the cancel culture war is a losing proposition for the left. While left-wing politicians have enabled censorship in the past, the most famous incidents in American history often see authorities target people for leftist views. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. uttered his famous and absurd phrase “you can’t shout fire in a crowded theater” to strip the free speech rights of a socialist protesting against conscription in World War I, McCarthyism sought to punish people for their suspected communist beliefs, and many of the famous freak-outs over edgy entertainment in the 1990’s and 2000’s came from conservatives.
Nwanevu is aware of this history. It’s why the only truly joyous moments in his article, as opposed to the ones that radiate self-satisfaction, are the paragraphs where he contends that the costs for offensive behavior are at a historic low (“the golden age”) and that cancel culture targets don’t end up completely broken (the “good life”). Even though Nwanevu lazily argues cancel culture helps marginalized voices, he remains influenced by the old position of most left academics, artists, and athletes: excepting a few cases, offensive expression should not be met with punishment against an individual’s mass public perception, social status, and professional opportunities because that punishment can turn against the left and individuals already undermined by society.
Aside from understanding history, Nwanevu is also educated on one other matter: conservatives, despite their professed hatred of cancel culture, participate in it, and are better at exploiting it. While the left might make more noise on cancel culture and harms some of its targets, the right is more effective and more devastating. It’s surprising that Nwanevu’s essay only mentions right-wing cancel culture in passing with a hyperlink; there’s no smug paragraph on how Colin Kaepernick is fine because he got a Nike deal, no joking about how the alt-right got James Gunn fired from Disney over pedophilia jokes only for him to end up hired at Disney and Warner Brothers, no spin to pretend that Samantha Bee apologizing for calling Ivanka Trump a “feckless c*nt” was an example of maturity and growth. Couldn’t these examples be twisted to reinforce Nwanevu’s argument: cancel culture has minimal consequences and those who complain about it are hypocritical conmen?
The problem is Nwanevu and his ideological allies know well how potent right-wing cancel culture can be. Activists spent years trying to no-platform Milo Yiannopoulos only to make him more famous. Conservatives destroyed his career in a day. The left garnered over 200,000 signatures for a stupid petition to cancel Netflix’s Insatiable because it supposedly fat-shamed. Trump supporters mounted a successful and stupid campaign to force Universal Studios to pull the release of The Hunt, a picture designed to appeal to them. Liberal and left journalists have spent the last month on a futile campaign to assert that because Chappelle made fun of their beliefs for 30 minutes, he’s the one who can’t handle criticism. Conservatives got Kathy Griffin fired immediately for holding up a fake, decapitated head of Donald Trump. In fact, while the left can live up to its reputation of being punitive against controversial professors over dubious concerns about how their politics hurt security, since Chappelle’s special, two university employees have had to resign for defending antifa and upsetting Breitbart.
This is the environment surrounding cancel culture, one the right, even with some genuine critics of the concept on their side, benefits from more than the left. Along with history, this environment scares Nwanevu. Sure, he’ll take the modest victories the powerful give “young progressives, including many minorities and women” because they help his ideological allies and he doesn’t like “jabs leftward.” However, he’ll do so while spending most of “The ‘Cancel Culture’ Con” downplaying and spinning cancel culture’s effects, knocking its impact and influence any chance he gets. He will react this way to soothe and calm his anxieties. He must react this way to blind himself from the reality of what he and his journalistic colleagues are doing: sustaining cancel culture for its compromised victories even though it threatens their ideology’s core values, the political groups they claim to care for, and themselves.
Nwanevu’s “The ‘Cancel Culture’ Con,” then, is itself a con. His downplaying of the harms of cancel culture betrays that the consequences are not minimal. He cannot adequately show that cancel culture’s targets inflate their victimhood. He confuses who gains more relevance through cancel culture: its critics or its journalistic practitioners. And he argues that cancel culture boosts the voices of the powerless while ignoring how it makes them reliant on traditional sources of power for action.
The contradiction between Nwanevu’s declaration that cancel culture uplifts “young progressives, including many minorities and women” and his pleased tone when he states that the activity lacks effectiveness and power clarifies he is his con’s mark. Nwanevu gives up reconciling the dependent gains cancel culture makes for the marginalized with the way damage to mass public perception, social status, or professional opportunities due to offensiveness hurts the left, hoping an evasive and confident tone will mask his ambivalence.
Nwanevu’s “The ‘Cancel Culture’ Con,” ultimately serves as a glorious example of why to reject cancel culture. There are times when offensive behavior is so hurtful it deserves to be grappled with, particularly if the offensive party has caused or can cause political and physical pain. The mind need not conjure defenses of racist politicians being stripped of Congressional committee seats or Women’s March activists losing leadership roles after expressing anti-Semitism. The heart need not ache for Roy Moore because he lost an election over his history of pedophilia or Harvey Weinstein because his influence over Hollywood and politics crumbled due to his sexual assault history . Still, most offensive behavior should be met with a hope that even while expressing criticism, tweets will remain tweets, not serve as the start of a campaign to cause damage, and that anger and frustration will remain emotions as opposed to justification to fire someone. The hope exists to help us avoid conning ourselves like Nwanevu did with his defenses, evasions, and contradictions about cancel culture’s value.
How badly did Nwaevu con himself? The day after his piece, the Des Moines Register published a story on 24-year old Carson King, who through a College Gameday sign and partnerships with Anheuser-Busch and Venmo raised $1 million for the University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital, known for their cancer treatment. The Register’s story exposed King’s history of racism: eight years ago, nearly a high school junior, King tweeted two racist jokes.
Even before the story broke, King held a press conference to apologize. However, it did not stop Anheuser-Busch from ending their partnership and scrubbing any social media interactions between them. Nwanevu, so bold and brazen in declaring cancel culture’s limited influence on offensive speech, sub-tweeted the incident siding with…the Register and Anheuser-Busch by pointing out tweets are public.
While King is at least still being honored for his contributions to charity, Register reporter Aaron Calvin found out tweets are public when conservatives spread his own racist ones as retribution for writing the story. The Des Moines Register responded by saying it will investigate Calvin’s racist history. Thursday night, three days after Nwanevu’s piece, The Register announced Calvin had left the publication. The Register did not comment if the editors who ran the story will resign. Nor did The Register say if it planned to launch an investigation looking into the history of race at Anheuser-Busch, who have yet to apologize to King.
Aaron Calvin’s last action on Twitter before he published the story that began this mini-fiasco: a retweet of someone praising Nwanevu for writing “The ‘Cancel Culture’ Con.”
Update: Since the publication of this essay, Aaron Calvin spoke to Buzzfeed about the Carson King situation. Calvin stated “this event basically set my life on fire,” more evidence reinforcing Nwanevu’s point that cancel culture targets inflate their victimhood. Yes, Calvin claims he lost his job, received harassment, and saw death threats, but he’s not literally burning to a crisp. Luckily Calvin is growing from the experience; he, like Wen Zhao and Jackson, apologized in an entirely voluntary manner to “comply” with the requests of his editors and “hold onto my job.” Calvin also revealed how cancel culture helps “young progressives” by stating that he felt “abandoned by my former employer.”
If you want to read a lengthier, better piece with a slightly different view of this issue and the flaws of Nwanevu’s essay, read Jesse Singal. He also provides more examples of cancel culture.
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