Do you know any celebrities who have been labelled as “cancelled”? In case you don’t know what the term “cancel culture” refers to, the definition is: the phenomenon or practice of publicly rejecting, boycotting or ending support for particular people or groups of people because of their socially or morally unacceptable views or actions. A big target of this is celebrities such as J.K Rowling, Justin Timberlake, and Piers Morgan. Many people believe that this approach is inefficient and unfair, however what can be seen as a mean excessive way to deal with offensive opinions, can actually benefit us. 

 

Sometimes cancel culture helps to give marginalised groups a voice and allows them to seek accountability where the justice system fails them. I’m sure you have all come across at least once in your lifetime a celebrity who uses their platform and following to promote the wrong messages be that homophobic, sexist, racist or any other prejudice views. These groups within society can often feel vulnerable and under attack, especially by people who seem to have more power them. Through platforms such as social media, these minorities can come together to help cancel this person, without having to go through tiring, time consuming and often failed processes with police or any other system. 

 

A key example is JK Rowling who was cancelled for being transphobic.  In early June of 2020 Rowling made some controversial tweets on Twitter , replying to a tweet including the phrase “people who menstruated” with “I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomund?” and that “erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives”. Rightfully, these comments received a lot of backlash from fans and even Daniel Radcliffe himself backed the trans community clearly stating that “transgender women are women”. Transgender people are often victims of all sorts of hate for their gender identity with a shocking 78% of transgender and non binary youth reporting discrimination due to their gender identity. 78%. No one deserves to be discriminated against. In this situation, the transgender community was vulnerable from attack by someone who seemed so powerful, with fame, money with lots of support and followers. Social media gave this community a voice to speak out against this hate and discrimination, showing society that this behaviour is not acceptable no matter who you are, how famous you are, or how much money you have. J.K Rowling, the author of the world famous Harry Potter series, was a role model to many children across the world. Do we really want children having a transphobic role model? Is this the way we want them to grow up? Absolutely not. So something had to be done. And cancel culture meant that the situation could be dealt with. 

 

Another example of cancel culture working to benefit society is after Piers Morgan got cancelled for making outrageous comments on ITV about how he apparently “didn’t believe a word” of what Meghan Marklesaid about having suicidal thoughts. After being forced to quit his job, Morgan claimed to be a “victim of cancel culture”. However, in this situation he took advantage of someone vulnerable who was opening up about their own mental health experiences which takes a lot of courage and strength to do but he completely dismisses and invalidates. In 2020 in England alone there were 4,912 suicides. That's 4,912 lives lost. And Piers Morgan makes a comment like that on television for the whole nation to see. Through cancel culture, society showed Morgan that this attitude is unacceptable and that he was not the “victim”.  

 

In conclusion, when used correctly, cancel culture can benefit society by giving people a voice to stand up for what’s right and what they believe in. Many people would argue that cancelling someone is unnecessary, however ignorant attitudes and immoral actions must be dealt with in order to promote a positive social change and move forward into a society where there is less hate and discrimination.