is infiltrating everywhere.

And it doesn't even. - The way of me making change

- And this cancel culture. - Is be as judgemental as

possible about other people. - Cancel culture in a nutshell

Cancel culture actually. - Cancel culture.

- Freedom of speech. - Cancel culture.

(dramatic music)

- Let's talk about cancel culture.

I'm gonna assume you know that cancel culture is a form

of a boycott involving an individual.

Usually a celebrity, who is deemed to have

had problematic behavior

or who has said something questionable and controversial.

There have been countless videos and numerous takes

on why cancel culture itself has become problematic.

The way that we judge an entire flawed growing human being

by one moment in time taken out of that time

social context, thanks to social media and the internet.

Ironically enough, cancel cultures origins apparently come

from a misogynistic joke.

Possibly the first reference to canceling someone comes

with the 1991 film, "New Jack City".

In which Wesley Snipes plays a gangster named Nino Brown.

In one scene after his girlfriend breaks

down because of all the violence he's causing.

He dumps her by saying,

"Cancel that bitch, I'll buy another one."

Jump to 2010 when Lil Wayne referenced the film

and a line from his song, "I'm single".

"Yeah. I'm single, had to cancel that bitch like Nino."

This callback to the earlier sexist cancel joke

probably helped the phrase percolate for a while.

And then several decades later gained massive popularity

in 2018 and 2019 as evidenced by this Google trends data.

Of course, there are certain cancel people

who absolutely deserve to be stripped of their power

and made to pay the consequences of their actions.

If you're a serial rapist,

abuser, convicted pedophile, murderer

or someone who likes fucking cantaloupe

then you deserve to be canceled.

And more importantly, probably serve jail time.

'Cause if you actually enjoy cantaloupe

you should not be free to walk the streets

and there's something incredibly wrong with you.

What I do wanna add

to the cancel culture conversation are three things.

One, how cancel culture is weaponized against others.

Two, how we weaponize cancel culture for ourselves

and three, how we can actually fix

this monster that we have created.

Though cancel culture began with good intentions

and undeniably has brought some predators to light.

We're now witnessing the intentional weaponization

of cancel culture against others.

Some people use this

to their own advantage, hurling accusations

in order to get revenge for personal matters.

If you're not familiar

with the Tati Westbrook and James Charles drama,

Westbrook insists her video calling James Charles

out a video that used language to insinuate

that he was a sexual predator,

was because Westbrook thought this was the only way

to get Charles the help he needed

and not because she was upset

that he promoted vitamins that weren't hers.

You can watch the hours

of videos if you want they'll dissect this topic to all hell

but I can tell you, it was about the vitamins.

This weaponization of cancel culture is not exclusive

to individual against individual.

(upbeat music)

Fandoms rally against properties they aren't satisfied with.

Most notably the "Sonic the Hedgehog" film.

Now, when the trailer came out in April of 2019

it was heavily roasted online

and had a nearly 50% dislike ratio.

And I mean, yeah, he looks horrifying.

The reaction of the internet was not wrong here.

I mean, he had a human freaking teeth for crying out loud

this a creepy boy, but the Twitter outrage mob

on Sonic was according to the Hollywood reporter.

So immediate and loud that Paramount pushed the release date

and had the VFX team redesign Sonic

with an appearance that matched the Sega games.

It's hard to argue that this weaponization

and power of the internet of Fandom was necessarily wrong

because when you compare the two designs

one is clearly way less creepy.

I think we can all agree that the redesign is cuter

and more approachable and feels less

like a creature who eats and enjoys cantaloupe.

But nonetheless, this is still weaponization.

And in this case, things came seemingly all

out for the better

given that it set the record for the biggest opening weekend

for a video game film in the United States

and Canada hauling an estimated 57 million.

I mean, Sonic ultimately ended

up grossing over 319 million worldwide.

And even with the redesign, the budget was about 95 million.

So this entire debacle had a happy ending

but I would argue that it sets a pretty dangerous precedent.

I mean, how much

of a say should audiences have over creative choices?

How many times have we seen movies canceled based

on their trailers, which by the way

most filmmakers have no control

over the way that their movie is marketed.

Usually, it's at the discretion of the film distributor

and we all know how misleading trailers can be

in order to get us to watch the movie.

And though this Sonic incident turned out well

we've seen outrage mobs in other contexts,

particularly academics.

And these mobs have often succeeded in silencing professors,

philosophers and journalists.

Take the case of Rebecca Tuvel

who in 2017, published an article, addressing the question

of transracialism, which was relevant at the time

because of the news coverage of Rachel Dolezal,

a white woman who claimed black identity.

In the paper, in defense of transracialism.

Tuvel examined the arguments

you use to defend a transgender identity

and applied these to the question of transracialism.

This is a very common technique among philosophers,

testing if reasoning used on one issue would apply equally

to a different issue that appeared to close parallel.

The negative social media response to Tuvel's article, huge.

An open letter with 500 signatures

which apparently was mostly signed by non-academics was sent

to the publication, demanding that the article be retracted

and it was, an unprecedented move.

Now the academic community itself largely supported Tuvel.

Pointing out how several statements

in the open letter were false and misleading

and did not reflect the actual content of Tuvel's paper.

The Intelligencer has a great breakdown

of Tuvel's paper that debunks most

of the assertions in the open letter

and I'll link it if you wanna read it.

Tuvel herself went on the record to say

that she had written the article from a place

of support for those with non-normative identities

because she saw transphobic logic lay

at the heart of the attacks against Dolezal.

Now I'm not here to comment on who was right

or who was wrong 'cause I'm not an academic

or a transgender person or a transracial person.

My only thought on the entire controversy

of this, is that if people found fault with it

they should have addressed it critically

with critical thought.

The level of outrage

and personal attacks that Tuvel faced was not warranted

for an academic article rooted in philosophical thought

and examination, because this is what philosophy is

for - to examine why we think the things we think

and bring different viewpoints to the discussion for debate.

But the culture we live in is moving at such a rapid speed.

What is socially acceptable

or not changes incredibly quickly.

The norms around gender

and identity are in flux and philosophy.

You know, they got a lot to examine right now.

And if we find fault with one of those assertions

we should make sure to note the context is

within academic speculation and address it accordingly

without threatening someone's life or family or employment

when they're doing the very thing

that they're employed to do.

Now, if Tuvel's article was like a hate piece

that attempted to invalidate trans identity

and was laid in with obscenities

like that's a different story, but it wasn't.

And I'm very curious how many people who signed

that open letter one, actually read Tuvel's article

and not just the provocative headline

and two, have the academic background

to even understand why the explorative article was written

as a parallel to trans racial identity

and the conclusions it made.

Now the weaponization of cancel culture

against a myriad of others seems like a no-brainer.

But the second, and I think more harmful effect is

that we weaponize it for ourselves.

We weaponize cancel cultures that we feel better

about ourselves, because feeling angry

and feeling superior and feeling outraged

feels fucking great.

- But I do get a sense sometimes now

among certain young people, and this is accelerated

by social media, there is this sense sometimes

of the way of me making change is to be as judgmental

as possible about other people.

And that's enough.

Like if I tweet or hashtag

about how you didn't do something right

or use the word wrong verb

or then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself.

'Cause man, you see how woke I was?

I called you out

- Yeah. Calling someone out makes us feel real good.

It automatically places us above the person who did wrong.

The problem is, we forget

that we do wrong shit all the time.

- 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.

(audience laughing) The world is messy.

There are ambiguities,

people who do really good stuff have flaws.

- There's a wonderful book it's called

"So You've Been Publicly Shamed" by Jon Ronson

and it examines the Twitter outrage mob

and the real life effects that this digital judge

jury and executioner have had.

Some of my favorite standout quotes are,

"The snowflake never needs to feel responsible

for the avalanche."

And, "We were creating a world where the smartest way

to survive is to be bland".

Cancel culture in its most extreme form

often forgets that we judge an entire person based

on one moment in time, out of context

of actually knowing that individual's background,

exposure, upbringing, and growth.

And if cancel culture's goal is to make people more aware

of their harmful behaviors.

Yeah. It's succeeding.

But if its ultimate goal is

for those harmful behaviors to be adjusted

so that people can move forward

in their lives and integrate that awareness and get rid

of that problematic behavior, then it's fucking failing.

I think Sarah Silverman put it the most eloquently

on an episode of her podcast.

- Christian Picciolini my friend,

who was a Neo-Nazi for years

since he was from 14 to, you know, into his twenties

late twenties maybe was the head

of a Neo Nazi, whatever KKK chapter, where he lived.

He has spent the last 30 years getting people

out of hate groups.

That's what he does.

But he went towards love.

He was 14, he was smoking a joint

and an older kid took the joint out of his hand

and threw it out and said, "You don't need that stuff, man."