The internet is a many-splendoured thing. Yes, that was a bad pun, and yes, for all its splendour, the internet, like all of us, has a dark side that can leave you reeling if caught unawares.
To say that social media has transformed our lives is an understatement. Many of the tools we use all day every day, like WhatsApp for instance, don’t even strike us as social media platforms (unless, of course, there’s an internet blackout).
The power that lies within each of us
The power we now have online makes it easier for us to be able to call out people of influence on their privilege and their biases, especially when they perpetuate negative social narratives, stereotypes, and exclusion or discrimination of communities, marginalised or otherwise. As a connected mass, we also now have the power to actively dissociate from a personality and their work and call out for people the world over to join us in making a statement in the hope of driving positive, more inclusive change.
Social media has amplified our voices, and, by extension, our power. We now have the power to call for change. This is not to say we didn’t have this power before, but that this power is now much easier to harness through social media. Through social media, we are able to drive social change and educate ourselves on our words and actions, and the impact it has on those we interact with, both online and off.
This culture that has formed, of being able to call out those in power from a safe space, has led to great change, most notably with the #MeToo movement sparked by actresses coming forward to speak out about sexual harassment they had faced at the hands of big-time film producer Harvey Weinstein. The #MeToo movement saw a huge amount of actresses (and many actors) in Hollywood standing in solidarity against sexual harassment in the industry. This coming forward of people sharing their experiences led to Weinstein being held accountable for his actions while also laying the foundation for a more inclusive entertainment industry.
Call-out culture can also lead to cancel culture, which is effectively a mass boycott of a person or product because of the values they promote or endorse (whether implicitly or explicitly). But what does call-out culture and cancel culture mean? And when can it cross the line and become something darker than a voice for change?
Defining the two
Call-out culture and cancel culture are often used interchangeably because they are related. Media analyst Nalaka Gunawardene shared his take on the difference between the two, explaining that in his understanding, “call-out culture is not the same as cancel culture. There are differences in what these two terms mean. Calling out entails holding individuals (as well as governments and corporations) accountable for their actions, current and past. Such accountability is essential for modern societies to function well. At the same time, with all humans being fallible, this reality needs to be factored in when judging and condemning any individuals with a public profile – whether performing artistes, sportspersons, politicians or others. ‘Cancelling’ someone means trying to end the public career of a person who has been accused of some misdemeanour. This action needs to be preceded by careful assessment, and judgement should be contextual”.
Gunawardene explained that most calling out and cancelling happens on social media, where discussions can rise and fall rapidly, with conversations often being heavily emotionally driven, and measured discussions something of a rarity, which can sometimes become problematic. “I agree that there must be zero tolerance for major offences such as (proven) sexual harassment and embezzlement of public funds,” Gunawardene said, adding: “Yet, at the same time, we need to guard against excesses of political correctness and ‘digital era witch hunts’.”
Call-out culture and the good it can achieve
The visibility of social media means that it is a means of drawing attention to issues where people aren’t even aware of things that are problematic, and allows discussion and reflection on problems that weren’t even being considered in people’s mindsets.
Mental health resource organisation Samana Head of Community and Content (and dude on the internet) Sharan Velauthan explained that social media and call-out culture holds people accountable. “It is 2021. We can’t say the things we used to say as kids. Especially as South Asians, we think that we can use racial slurs. But we often don’t know the meaning behind it and how much oppression and history it carries. So, in some instances, yes, it can be used for good. There are people who lose themselves in the process of gaining status and popularity, but it does not mean you are exempt from saying the wrong things.”
Public relations consultant Jessica Fernando agreed that the accountability that call-out culture brings is a huge positive. “It makes people be wary of how they behave and makes them take steps towards educating themselves – unlearning and relearning things they possibly never thought would be problematic in order to be inclusive for everybody.”
Gunawardene also commented on the power of call-out culture but cautioned that this accountability comes with its own issues. “The pros of call-out culture include the heightening of accountability at all levels, which serves as a good ‘cleanser’ of public lives and public institutions,” he said, adding: “But once such accountability is clearly established – that is when allegations are proven with evidence – the reaction that follows should be proportionate to the misdemeanour or offence proven.”
Balancing out the dark side of cancel culture
A dark side of call-out culture that Fernando drew attention to was that with social media and calling out, situations can sometimes get blown out of proportion, especially when the people involved have the power of visibility and don’t share grounded information, which is then taken as gospel truth by their following which can become quite detrimental for the person doing the calling out because of the backlash they may face from the audience of the person they’re holding accountable. Fernando stressed the importance of taking responsibility for what you’re calling out, explaining that in a lot of cases, this is not always something that takes place.
Speaking on the effectiveness of call-out culture and the impact it can have on the people being called out or cancelled, Velauthan stressed caution. “Some people might be ignorant of the fact that some people’s mental health can be affected. We need to be careful about what ‘holding people accountable’ even means. Just because you can, does not mean you should. There is always a better way. That said, if the person concerned is highly influential and purposefully ignorant of what they have said/done, and conversing privately has not worked, I believe calling them out plays a role. However, again, being careful of people’s mental health is important. Cancelling someone to oblivion could cause more damage than you or I could possibly imagine.”
Gunawardene too underlined the importance of calling out responsibly, explaining that call-out culture is good for holding people (and institutions) in power accountable, but that it is very much a double-edged tool that can harm as much as it can help, because the process can sometimes be emotionally driven to the point where evidence and reason can become secondary.
“Call-out and cancel culture reduces human behaviour and relationships to an all-or-nothing kind of binary choice. Human beings are complex, and human societies are complex too. Yet the social media mentality is either unable or unwilling to deal with that complexity – online activists seem to want either outright villains or outright heroes, and nothing in between.”
Undoing cancel culture
So can someone be uncancelled? Fernando shared that a large con of cancel culture lies in the fact that a lot of it can be gatekeeping, which is incidentally the worst form of cancel culture. “You can’t call someone out and not expect them to fix it. Say they do something in 2020 and you bring it up in 2025 – they could be completely different entities by then; evolved beings who have learned and changed. So stop gatekeeping,” Fernando said, adding: “Let people evolve. Uncancelling is possible; people can change and once they’ve done something for the better, acknowledge it. There’s nothing wrong with that. You don’t need to hate an entity if they’re willing to make those changes. The whole point of calling out is so that people can be uncancelled. So they can educate themselves.”
Explaining further, Fernando spoke of an instance of positive change where she called out a popular Chinese restaurant where an employee was repeatedly harassing women walking by the restaurant. Calling out the situation led to the restaurant dismissing the employee, issuing a public apology, and putting training systems in place that made all their employees more knowledgeable on ensuring that does not happen. Calling out the situation also helped more women who had faced similar harassment to come forward and highlight the severity of the issue. “If you do it right, with evidence and reasons to back your claim, it can go a long way,” Fernando said, adding: “But doing it responsibly is important.”
Gunawardene commented on uncancelling, acknowledging that there is indeed room for error when calling out or cancelling, especially as the online process is driven by emotion and rhetoric. “Former US President Barack Obama himself highlighted this in December 2019 during an interview about youth activism at the Obama Foundation Summit. ‘This idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re always politically “woke” and all that stuff…You should get over that quickly,’ he told his youth audience. ‘The world is messy; there are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting may love their kids and share certain things with you…’”
Gunawardene stressed that we need to pay attention to these words of caution, as Obama himself is a former community activist. “I would say social activism and feminism are a vital
part of the 21st-Century social justice movement,” Gunawardene shared, adding: “But all activists must walk their talk, and that includes holding themselves accountable even as they seek to hold others accountable.”
Velauthan too agreed that coming back from being cancelled is more than possible. “The world is a big place. We as humans are great at forgetting. I would only hope the person cancelled learns from their mistake,” Velauthan said, adding: “And if they were mistakenly cancelled, we have failed as humanity and I hope we learn better. There is always recovering and hope, given time. I believe everyone should be given the chance to change. If not, we aren’t any better than our painful past.”
Main Image ©️CHRISTOPHER OTT ON UNSPLASH
