Living In America: The Cancel Culture

 

Image: Dick Thomas Johnson (CC BY)

From what I've personally observed in the USA, there is definitely a competitiveness, an eagerness to be successful, to be elite, to own the newest car or most luxurious home, to not just keep up with the Joneses but completely leave them in the dust.

While there's nothing wrong with wanting to be a success, with wanting to own many nice things, there is fundamentally something wrong with wanting to do it just to rub it in other's faces, just to lord it over less successful people. In my mind, when you get to the top and you gloat, brag or be obnoxious, you instantly fall to the bottom, because the people who you are gloating to are the ones holding you up there. This is partly how the "cancel culture" was formed. Celebrities are celebrities only because the people allow it. Just because you've had a string of successes and you are making enough for you and your line to live off for life doesn't mean that you're better or greater than the person struggling to put food on the table in a low paying job. Some celebrities forget that, some don't.

But there's a fine line. There seems to be an unwritten rule that a celebrity can't have their own opinion and their opinion, when asked for, should conform to the watchdog's own, the watchdog being the person who lives on social media waiting for a celebrity to put a foot wrong so they can 'cancel' them. Now, I'm not saying that celebrities shouldn't be held accountable for opinions that go against basic human rights but if you're having a meltdown and trying to stir up the cancel culture because Tom Hanks posted about hating avocados, then maybe you need to look at your own life and get off social media.

Note: I have no idea if Tom Hanks hates avocados or not, I don't know him and neither do you. Unless there is the remote possibility you actually are Tom Hanks and you're reading this right now, if so, Hi Tom Hanks, I loved you in 'Forrest Gump' and 'The Terminal'! Oh, by the way, do you like avocados?

My digression onto Tom Hanks and avocados aside, I still think there are instances where the cancel culture needs to calm down and be more aware, as they claim to promote, of just general insanity on their part.

If I am to be cancelled for my opinion, then so be it.

-Dominic