Did you ever want to "cancel" someone for something they did? Do you know what the term "cancel culture" means? In this episode join Pooja, Dalal, Joshua and Amaan as they discuss "Cancel Culture,"and the effect it has on our society!
Intro Music Credits: composed by Pooja Maniyeri and Joshua Thomas
Editing Credits: Amaan Shad
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Speaker1: Hey, guys. Welcome back to another episode of Tea with Gen-Z, the podcast, where we discuss the latest topics by you and for you, today's episode, we're going to talk about cancel culture. My name is Pooja, and today co-hosting with me are Dalal and Joshua. We also have a very special guest, our wonderful producer, Aman Siddiqui. Say Hi guys.
Speaker2: Hi, everyone. Hey, guys, what's up?
Speaker1: So the question for today's episode is you guys use Twitter to all of you use Twitter.
Speaker3: I have Twitter, but I don't really use it. Last year during quarantine, when the 10 year anniversary for One Direction was coming up. I made it so I can see anything that they post on the anniversary, and I pretty much only follow the boys.
Speaker2: I've had Twitter. I just use it for basketball updates
Speaker4: And movie updates.
Speaker2: That's basically it. Nothing else. Yep, me too. I use it very rarely. It's mostly to see what my friends are posting out there, and if there's anything going on that I have free time for,
Speaker1: For me, it's the opposite. Like, I don't have Twitter at all. You know, so much stuff happens on Twitter and if anything like super controversial is there, it comes on Instagram as a screenshot. So that's the way
Speaker3: I accessed Twitter. To me, Twitter seems like a very scary place. I don't know why it scares me a little bit.
Speaker2: Yeah, it does. Actually, whenever I go there, like one of the reasons I don't spend too much time there is because it feels like everyone is constantly in a state of anger there. It's not really the best place to use free time or relax or anything,
Speaker3: But Twitter is the place where you can get canceled for
Speaker4: Using like a heart
Speaker3: Emoji or something like that. I swear every day you open Twitter, someone is getting canceled.
Speaker2: Guys, I have a question like, what is this process of canceling? What is cancel culture essentially?
Speaker3: Oh, we're getting into the details. Ok, so I'm going to read you the dictionary definition, and then we can all talk about our own definitions because I'm sure that we might not agree to everything that is being said here. Ok? Cancel culture is a modern form of exclusion in which we push out someone from our social or professional circles for something that they have done that we don't necessarily agree with.
Speaker4: Wow.
Speaker2: I think that's a bit vague if I'm being honest, like just excluding someone from your social or professional circle. It sounds a bit too personal, like as if it were an immediate colleague or a friend to me because it uses the word cancel in its title. It feels like it works, and people who have like an ability of being canceled for whom what they're doing is like their means of living like you'd cancel a Netflix subscription, you simply cancel a person so like a celebrity or a social media influencer.
Speaker3: I was going to say that I was going to say it's almost dehumanizing. Using the word cancel is very dehumanizing because it personifies us as
Speaker4: Non-living or just
Speaker3: An object that you can just cancel. But we're people. I think cancel culture is not
Speaker4: Just like
Speaker3: Excluding someone out of your social circle because I can't think of any examples personally where I've canceled someone in real life, like a friend or a colleague.
Speaker4: But sure, I haven't
Speaker3: Been friends with them, but I wouldn't say I counseled them for us as
Speaker4: Gen-z. Cancel culture is more of like celebrities,
Speaker3: Influencers, people we see online. So these online figures for us are not tangible as real people because we don't know them, we haven't met them, we haven't experienced what it's like to be their friends. So we find it easier for us to cancel them.
Speaker4: It's really toxic.
Speaker3: Cancel culture is scary.
Speaker1: It is scary, but don't you guys think that some celebrities or some influencers might deserve cancel culture? What's your take on that?
Speaker3: Oh my God.
Speaker4: That was going straight
Speaker3: To the point.
Speaker2: Well, I think it really depends on what that particular action was, but it's safe to say that most instances of cancel culture have been cases where I'd say it's unfair to lash out at that person. But that I obviously don't mean turning a blind eye to it. Rather engaging in conversation about it. But in certain cases where I've seen political
Speaker4: Celebrities openly call
Speaker2: For genocide and other things, I feel like there's no room for discussion and discourse that cancel culture is the way to go for them.
Speaker1: I think that's exactly where a person is innocent until proven guilty comes into play.
Speaker4: But I think
Speaker1: With cancel culture, a lot of people don't abide by that. Even before an allegation is proven or, you know, before we get full information about it, we just sort of hop onto the bandwagon and encourage toxicity. We start sending death threats. So there are a lot of people who are accused of something and they're being sent death threats. They're being bullied. And it later turns out that they were not guilty after all.
Speaker4: And all the people
Speaker1: Who tried to cancel them began to feel sorry and say and say that, Oh, we shouldn't have done this, but I think that's where you should try to first. Be sure you should stay neutral at first until something is proven.
Speaker3: I definitely agree with you. I think that cancel culture really shows how us, as humans follow the herd mentality in a way because. Honestly, though, when you see someone being canceled on Twitter nine out of 10 times, you're going to automatically cancel them in your head or like at
Speaker4: Least think that, yeah, they're a
Speaker3: Bad person before reading all the facts or before reading what happened to them and stuff, especially, for example, now, because we have ticktalk, we have Twitter, Instagram, if you show any kind of support to someone who is being cancelled, you are going to get cancelled yourself. Your friends are going to lash out on you. You're going to get hate by your friends. And if you're a social figure, you're going to get hate by strangers as
Speaker4: Well, which is scary.
Speaker3: I don't think anyone wants to experience that. So automatically, everyone just follows the bandwagon and the herd mentality and just
Speaker4: Blindly turns an eye and just
Speaker3: Agrees with whatever's happening online.
Speaker2: Yeah, I mean, I've experienced that where, like
Speaker4: I've not
Speaker2: I've not supported some of the decisions or the council that has been taken, but then when I don't support my friends are like, How can you
Speaker4: Not like, how can you be
Speaker2: Ok with everything that's happening? How can you not take a side? And my my thing is like, nothing's been proven yet. It's all speculation. There's no proof, right? Like especially one of the cases, like one of the big things was the MeToo movement in India, where, like
Speaker4: A lot of celebrities
Speaker2: Were just being accused. But half of the cases were not even investigated, not solved. And then all my friends like, How can you not pick a side? How can you like, think that the guy is innocent? I'm like, nothing's proved yet. So it does get aggressive at times, even in your friends circles, in your social circles.
Speaker1: And here we don't mean that, like a lot of people say that if you're staying quiet, you're supporting the wrong side. So we don't mean that once something is proven. We shouldn't stay quiet, we should take action. I believe in that. We shouldn't protect, you know, we shouldn't protect everyone. We shouldn't protect the celebrities that we like just because we like them. But what we mean is that we should stay neutral until everything is proven and until we have full information, because that's how you can. You can prevent a lot of other crimes as well.
Speaker4: Like I've seen, a lot
Speaker1: Of celebrities get death threats, even if they weren't guilty. And it is. It has led to so much toxicity in their life, which is really sad. So you shouldn't accuse anyone or cancel anyone without full knowledge of the subject.
Speaker3: I think that with the nature of social media and Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, all these things, when we see celebrities going live, when we see celebrities posting stories, they're talking to us. It builds a relationship with them and establishes a connection where in our head we assume or we start to think that these people are our friends. And that's wrong because they are not our friends. We don't know anything about this. They they don't even know we exist. How can we be so entitled to think that we know everything about their lives and assume that we know these people the way that they know themselves? You can never really know someone until you become their friend. So these celebrities don't owe us anything. If they're bad people, they're bad people. We can't do anything about them. All you can do is just not support them if that's something you
Speaker4: Don't agree with, but perhaps attacking
Speaker3: Them online is not the best
Speaker4: Approach to solving
Speaker3: These issues.
Speaker2: I feel like one of the main reasons people actually do this, it's because most of the people involved in cancel culture are just keyboard warriors. They're not spending a lot of their time doing things that are productive. So when they see people who have actually accomplished stuff, it helps in their self-esteem
Speaker4: To kind of put
Speaker2: Them down. And this is like a basic psychology thing. The moment they see, like an influential person or someone who's done something with their life makes even the tiniest mistake. And maybe it's not even a mistake. It could just be the way they perceive that they're going to jump onto that because it gives them a sense of superiority. So I think that entitlement is something we're really highlighting with a lot of cancel culture moments that go off track.
Speaker3: I just want to clarify that I don't I'm not saying that I'm a saint. I'm not saying I never made any mistake in my life. I'm not saying I never partake in any of these things. I have been a part of cancel culture movement. I don't know if you guys remember, but when the James Charles controversy, the original
Speaker4: One where he
Speaker3: Was being canceled to death, getting death threats when he was losing all his following. I was a senior in high school and I genuinely remember sitting there in class watching his follower
Speaker4: Count go down like
Speaker3: There was these live streams that go on
Speaker4: Youtube where you can see the
Speaker3: Live count of their subscribers. And I was just watching as the subscriber count dropped and the amount of joy I got from that is unhealthy. I don't know what was wrong with me that minute, but I just got so happy seeing that his followers dropped because of what he did. And I don't know. I feel guilty about it now. Maybe I don't support this person anymore. I definitely don't support James Charles anymore.
Speaker4: I don't really watch his content anymore,
Speaker3: But I don't know it was a bad thing to do.
Speaker2: Yeah, I can definitely agree with that. I remember
Speaker4: My biggest
Speaker2: Participation counterculture was when Kevin Spacey was being cancelled in the
Speaker4: Metoo movement, and
Speaker2: I was just I was waiting for like I was watching each and every update that was coming, and I was watching him being dropped from House of
Speaker4: Cards and they
Speaker2: Were shooting movies with him in it. I was I got this sense of joy somewhere in my soul for like him being cancelled because he he did do something really bad. But like when I look back on it, I feel like that just made me feel like superior to him, and I felt that I could cancel them without knowing the guy at all. But I don't condone what he did at all. At the end of the day,
Speaker3: I think Kevin Spacey is an example of a very successful case of cancel culture. We can see that he was definitely held. He was definitely held accountable for what he did, and he did horrible things. So the fact that he was dropped from a show where he was the main character in is amazing. The fact that he was shooting a movie and then the directors
Speaker4: After they shot everything,
Speaker3: Scrapped him out, got a new actor and reshot everything. It just shows you that there are people out there who are able to hold people accountable and that there are movements on social media do have a sense of power to them. And I know it sounds like we're being hypocritical right now because we're both saying different things at the same time. But I just think that it's really important to look at both sides of the spectrum and then really analyze where you fall.
Speaker1: Yeah, I think that's the thing with the cancel culture. It's I'm not against it fully. I'm not for it fully. I think in some way, cancel culture is needed because people in power, celebrities, rich people, they're not accountable to us for anything. I feel personally that this is one way to keep them in check where they're afraid of being canceled, so they might monitor the actions a little more carefully. And especially like Kevin Spacey, he's someone who completely deserved it. And I think that's where cancel culture comes into play because we should not let these people who do such heinous and criminal acts still enjoy power and be as successful as usual.
Speaker2: I feel like cancel culture should not be just a generalized thing. It should be evaluated on a case to case basis. We can't just start cancelling everyone because we don't like what they did.
Speaker1: That's exactly what I mean. I feel like for the more severe acts. Cancel culture is justified, even though it's again like, it sounds like we're being hypocritical because one one place we're saying we don't want cancel culture and the next second, it sounds like we're endorsing it. But I think, like Joshua mentioned, it just depends on the case to case basis and for some acts or for some celebrities, whether they're really openly, whether they're openly promoting things which are really harmful. I think it is justified to carry out cancel culture campaigns so that they realize the severity of their actions and they sort of cut down and they don't have the power that they used to have.
Speaker4: So it affects them
Speaker1: In some way because if they've ruined lives. Then they should then they should face the consequences.
Speaker3: You know, at the beginning of the episode, when I mentioned the modern definition of cancel culture, I didn't talk about the old definition of cancel culture or like the old form of cancel culture. And maybe if I say it, you guys are going to be like, Oh, it all makes sense. But old cancel culture is just plain old protests in the street, holding rallies, carrying signs, storming places. That is cancel culture, it's not something that our generation has created.
Speaker4: It's just
Speaker3: Something that our
Speaker4: Generation took
Speaker3: And transferred into an online platform. And I think perhaps made it a little bit more toxic because
Speaker4: Now we have a lot more power
Speaker3: Of sending these direct messages to the people. And yeah, but it's not something that we invented. So Gen Z is not accountable for the creation of cancel culture.
Speaker2: Yeah, for sure. But I would say Gen Z is definitely accountable for changing the way cancel culture works
Speaker4: Like now, the way it
Speaker2: Works online. It's mostly targeted at individuals and we have and we have moved on to include celebrities and whatnot. So if we talk about all cancel culture, protests and everything like I would say, 99 percent of them would be
Speaker4: Political and I
Speaker2: Don't want to. I don't think political cancel culture comes within the cancel culture we're talking about because those kind of protests they're done against people who is little job is to represent the people. So if they're failing
Speaker4: To do that, it's almost
Speaker2: Like they were out there and
Speaker4: Asked to be
Speaker2: Canceled. But that's really not the case with companies or individuals. Additionally, I feel like the old cancel culture of protests on
Speaker4: The street for many
Speaker2: Places that that's in the Constitution, like it's not extrajudicial but modern cancel culture. The ones Chelsea are doing that extra judicial, it's not really a guaranteed right in most places.
Speaker3: I think that where our generation takes it too far is going
Speaker4: To send death threats
Speaker3: To these people, and we forget that they are human to like everybody makes mistakes. You know, I've said that before in many episodes, but genuinely everybody makes mistakes. It becomes a problem when a person continuously makes the same mistake over and over again and sends out fake apologies to people just so they can get them to quiet down and stop
Speaker4: Talking about it.
Speaker3: But I just think that. If I were to put myself in the position of someone who is getting cancelled and God forbid that ever happens because that's the scariest thing that could ever happen to me, I think that I would be terrified. It would be really scary and I would not want to wake up to these death threats, you know? It's where this episode's making me look like a bad person. No, you guys, I'm not a bad person. I just I just think that everybody deserves a second chance.
Speaker4: I would agree with that, but
Speaker2: Like it also depends on what the action was at the end of the day. I think if it was something really heinous, then like I don't think that person would deserve a second chance. So I've noticed that we've covered a lot of things here. We've talked about individuals, the legal system making things right, bringing justice. That makes me want to ask what exactly is cancel culture trying to achieve?
Speaker3: Has anyone here watched Loki?
Speaker2: Yes.
Speaker3: I feel like cancel culture is like the TVA.
Speaker4: They make sure
Speaker3: Everything is
Speaker4: Kept in check and nothing
Speaker3: Goes wrong. You know, like which I mentioned earlier on in the episode. Cancel culture is this they're at the back of everyone's head to remind people not to be horrible. So they wouldn't get canceled.
Speaker2: Yeah, but actually, I like to see
Speaker4: Things in a lot like
Speaker2: A much larger picture, and
Speaker4: I feel like just cancel
Speaker2: Culture existing in the back of people's heads. It doesn't solve a bigger problem, like if it's issues like racism, cancel culture only sends out a message to people like, Hey, hide the fact that you're racist. It doesn't tell them to not be racist. It doesn't explain them why racism is an issue at anything so.
Speaker3: But that's not our responsibility.
Speaker4: If a person is
Speaker3: A bad person, we're not their personal counselor. They have to solve these issues to themselves. Just don't bring them on the internet. Don't let them affect us.
Speaker1: Yeah. Because with celebrities and with people in power saying there's a lot of young people can be influenced by the content they put out, right? So that's why, as the public, we try to
Speaker4: Influence them to stop
Speaker1: Doing such acts or to stop speaking
Speaker3: Like that. I don't know if you guys remember about the whole Doja Cat thing. When she got canceled last year, it was at the beginning of when her career was really, really taking off. Thanks to Tik Tok, she was becoming super popular. All her songs were trending. And then I guess someone got really jealous and went up and dug up her old mistakes and then brought them to light.
Speaker4: And then she did, in fact,
Speaker3: Go under fire and was canceled for a short period of
Speaker4: Time.
Speaker3: But the question I want to ask you guys here is when that occurred, there was a lot of debate whether people who were not affected with the situation were entitled to accept her apology. So it was a race
Speaker4: Issue and
Speaker3: A lot of people who were going ahead and saying, We support you, it's
Speaker4: All good. We're from a
Speaker3: Different race than the people who are affected by the situation. Do you guys think that this is a good thing? Do you guys agree with this? Should people only accept apology if they're affected by it?
Speaker4: What do you guys think?
Speaker1: Yeah, I think only the people who are affected by it can really accept an apology because it's like, let's say the lull, I punch you by mistake and I say sorry this day.
Speaker3: Who is just venting out all her?
Speaker2: Oh my god, it's Pooja. Pooja, what is this behavior?
Speaker3: Pooja? What is this behavior like?
Speaker2: I kicked it by mistake.
Speaker1: Yeah, but then like, so I say, sorry, the lull and Joshua goes like, It's OK, Pooja. Like, That is so weird. It was. The apology wasn't even intended for Joshua. So I think it is really it's really weird
Speaker4: When you're
Speaker1: The celebrities apologizing to a particular section of the society and another section just takes it up and goes like, OK, we
Speaker4: Support you, like you want it
Speaker1: Affected by it in the first place. You don't even need to have an opinion on it.
Speaker3: But at that example is brilliant. It honestly just highlighted exactly what I was trying to get from you guys. And it makes so much more sense when you say it that way because it just makes the person look dumb if they accept the apology that was not even intended for them. But going back to Doja Cat when she was being
Speaker4: Cancelled, a lot of people
Speaker3: Were still streaming her
Speaker4: Music.
Speaker3: So is it fair
Speaker4: To separate the art
Speaker3: From the artist when a person is being counseled?
Speaker2: I think it is, so I'll give you a small example.
Speaker4: I watched
Speaker2: House of Cards very
Speaker4: Recently,
Speaker2: Right, like after Kevin Spacey was cancelled and everything. And I like the show, right?
Speaker4: And I felt that I could keep
Speaker2: Kevin Spacey's controversy away, and I could enjoy that show on its own because he was already punished for what he did. He was cut out from the show. He was cut out from a movie, right? They did take actions for
Speaker4: What he did. They did.
Speaker2: His actions did have consequences. And like, I separated the art from the artist and I could enjoy that show on its own right.
Speaker3: So for the Kevin Spacey example, I definitely agree. You can separate the art from the artist
Speaker4: Because he's not associated
Speaker3: With the show at all. He's been completely cut off. So there's no way he's making any more money or he's benefiting from
Speaker4: Us watching these old
Speaker3: Seasons. But with J.K. Rowling, for example, if you buy a copy of her book, if you go and stream her movie, if you go and buy some merchandise, you are indirectly supporting her and adding more money to her bank account, which is
Speaker4: Something that
Speaker3: Is going to entice her and give her more power and allow her to continue doing these bad things without any consequence.
Speaker4: But see, with
Speaker3: Music again, music is another good example when you continue to stream an artist's song after they're being cancelled, you're getting the song to trend. You're getting more listens to it. So you're benefiting the artists in an indirect way, which then shows them that it's OK to continue doing whatever you're doing and we support you. It's supporting someone. So I definitely don't think you can separate the art from the artist in every situation.
Speaker4: I think that
Speaker1: Is one way to show them that this is not OK. Let's say a singer does something horrible, and then if their songs are still being streamed, they're not affected by anything. But if we all take action together and their songs are not getting any more streams, that's when they're going to realize that this is going to affect my career and they're going to stop doing that or do less of that.
Speaker2: And I also feel like that coming back to the film industry, like if one of the actors does get cancelled and then they do stop production on a movie or something, it's not only that actor getting affected, it's the rest of like a thousand people working on a crew that's getting affected.
Speaker4: So that's why
Speaker2: I want to bring up Kevin Spacey's
Speaker4: Example again. They removed
Speaker2: Only him from the
Speaker4: Movie, and they
Speaker2: Enabled the others to continue to keep their jobs, which is still a good example of how cancel culture worked in favor of that campaign. But people still got to keep their jobs, which is very important because you're not only affecting one person in that case, you're affecting a thousand people if you do stop production at that point. Yeah, and I also want to say that although it would be great if things worked out that way for a lot of times, cancel culture doesn't exactly work the way it's intended towards the way it worked in your case. Well, the example you gave
Speaker4: Rather like, for
Speaker2: Example, if we look at certain Indian actors and actresses, if I were to name Kangana Ranaut with an open call to genocide was still not cancelled by people still not cancelled by different production
Speaker4: Houses, and a lot of
Speaker2: Politicians and individuals still continued to support what she said. Although Twitter banned her, and I feel like that brings us back to emphasizing a lot of conversation, a lot on the whole bigger picture and our responsibilities. At least I'd prefer if we looked at it that way of understanding and pulling each other up as a society instead of vigilante like justice that doesn't work the same way.
Speaker3: As I was researching for today's episode, I came across a ridiculous case of cancel culture and I just had to share it with you guys. So some food bloggers are trying to cancel the word curry as in the food, and they're
Speaker4: Claiming that
Speaker3: It's routed to British colonialism. What do you guys think about that? Have you ever heard of a word being canceled?
Speaker2: This is why this is so like silly. Like a curry is a broad term that's used for a lot of like curries in our culture and what we eat, and it's a very normal word that's used. I've never heard of a word getting canceled. This is the first I'm hearing of it.
Speaker1: And I think Curry is like a word which you can describe a wide variety of dishes with. And if you take the word out of my vocabulary, I don't I don't even know what I'll say anymore. But I think where they're coming from is that they do not want people to generalize all the dishes, you know, of a of a whole
Speaker4: Continent based on just
Speaker1: Curry, Indian food or other countries as well. Pakistani Sri Lanka and Nepali, it's just curry category. So I think that's that's what they're trying to do. I think canceling the world is too extreme.
Speaker3: I think that, yeah, when you say that way, it makes sense. But it's just a funny thing that I say.
Speaker2: It makes complete sense if it's about like any racist undertones to it. But it's just if it's just canceling the world as a whole, then I feel like it's just the internet doing their whole silly thing of oversimplifying everything and the whole know-it-all vibe that makes them
Speaker4: Feel politically correct.
Speaker3: I think that if we were to summarize social media or cancel culture in general,
Speaker4: We would say
Speaker3: That if someone were to say. I prefer mangoes to oranges. A random person would reply with. Wow, so you're basically saying that you hate oranges. You also didn't mention anything about pineapples, bananas or grapefruits, so educate yourself and your canceled. I think that's a great way to end today's episode. Thank you guys so much for tuning in today. I had a lovely discussion with you guys. Thank you, Joshua. Thank you. I'm on. Thank you, puta. Is there anything else you guys would like to add?
Speaker1: Thank you guys for tuning in. We hope you enjoyed it.
Speaker3: Remember to keep sipping tea with Gen-Z and we'll see you on our next episode. Make sure to follow us on Instagram. Tea with Gen-Z