Cancel culture, the universal enemy of divergent opinions

BY STANLEY ALIEKE

Cancel culture is a call-out culture and it is a modern form of ostracism in which someone is forced out of social or professional circles over his views or opinions which does not conform to a particular sect. It is the secular way of giving an individual a ‘back seat’ when he shares a different view or opinion that is held to be the accepted views or opinion of the majority. Those subject to this ostracism are said to have been cancelled; culturally blocked from having a prominent public platform or career. It can also be described to be an open conspiracy to publicly boycott an individual who is popular, an event or an organization for sharing an opinion which conflicts with the cancellers’ opinion. It’s literally; if you say or do anything that does not show support to us then you are against us and we will in turn be against you.

It won’t be far from the truth to say that the cancel culture is one of the major reasons why people struggle to be politically, socially and religiously correct in a public setting even at the detriment of their private and personal views on a matter and it forces them to be hypocrites for the fear of not to get cancelled by the majority.

Many American celebrities have been burnt from the fire of the cancel culture in recent times:

J.K. Rowling, the creator of the popular Harry Potter series, was not spared when she began to voice out her personal views and opinions about the LGBT community. She has faced a lot of brutal criticism even from her own fans as some even threatened to boycott her movies and never to buy her books. She earned herself the title of the most “canceled” person at the center of the cancel culture.

American pop star, DaBaby, was also recently ‘cancelled’ and was forced to tender a public apology after making some homophobic comments at the Rolling Loud music festival in Miami, the USA in July 2021. Organisers of subsequent festivals announced that DaBaby had been removed from the 2021 lineup which was the result of him being ‘canceled

The most recent case is that of Dave Chappelle’s. Chappelle is a renowned and controversial American standup comedian and actor. Due to his series of transphobic and homophobic comments during his Netflix comedy special, cancel protests were staged against him in different American cities, calling for show organisers and media executives to cancel him and never have anything to do with him again and for his fans to stop attending his comedy shows or ever watch any of it. The protesters threatened Netflix to pull down the comedian’s Netflix special video or they would boycott the platform too. This is still unfolding situation as a high school in Washington, DC, Dave Chappelle’s alma mata, had to postpone a planned fundraiser with the comedian after students threatened to stage a walkout because they were uncomfortable with remarks he made about transgender people in his recent Netflix special, according to a new CNN report.

The cancel culture gained prominence in Nigeria during the 2020 #EndSARS protest where many politicians were canceled for not supporting the movement, many celebrities were canceled too and some were threatened that their songs will never again be listened to or their movies will never again be watched for expressing different opinion during the protest. Financial organisations like banks were also canceled and people threatened to withdraw all their funds from some banks so that the banks can collapse for the sole reason of the organisation having a different view about the movement.

The cancel culture is also in play in the eastern part of Nigeria whereby every politician or public figure who openly criticises the modus operandi of the Biafra movement will be forced into unpopularity or face public lashing for having a divergent view.

This cancel culture is a bullying culture which is totally uncalled for, this should only be the case in the jungle and the animal kingdom and mustn’t be given room to thrive amongst mankind as one of the characteristics of human beings is the ability to have and express different views and opinions.

It shouldn’t be a case of ‘either you’re with us or against us’ and if you’re against us, you deserve to be ‘cancelled’ as the cancellers make it seem. People should not be cowed into swallowing their views or opinions, humans should be able to share their views without the fear of getting backlashed or canceled. That we share different views about an issue doesn’t necessarily mean I am against you or I don’t support you, it may mean that although I support your movement, I don’t support the mode of operations of the movement.

Roger Joseph Ebert who was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and writer is quoted to have said, “I think both the left and the right should celebrate people who have different opinions, and disagree with them, and argue with them, and differ with them, but don’t just try to shut them up”.

Rowan Atkinson Aka Mr. Bean a popular British actor has openly cautioned against so-called “cancel culture”, describing it as the “digital equivalent of the medieval mob roaming the streets looking for someone to burn. He went ahead to say that the cancel culture had made it hard for people to be “exposed to a wide spectrum of opinion” and he was fearful for the future.

Reproducing his statement here, he stated thus: “It’s important that we’re exposed to a wide spectrum of opinion, but what we have now is the digital equivalent of the medieval mob roaming the streets looking for someone to burn. So it is scary for anyone who’s a victim of that mob, and it fills me with fear about the future.”

I will end this by quoting Juan Pablo Galavis a former professional soccer player and television personality: “Different people have different opinions, and it’s okay to respect all of them.”