Last month, an ordinary woman with an ordinary job discovered that she was the subject of a 3,000-word Washington Post exposé. Her crime? She had worn a tasteless costume to a Halloween party two years earlier. Two of the women who had also attended wanted her punished for it, and with that supposedly journalistic piece, they succeeded. The woman lost her job, her privacy, and her dignity as a result.
About a week later, a young investigative journalist for the Intercept, Lee Fang, was hauled before his publication’s HR department, publicly denounced by his colleagues, and widely accused of racism — all because he had shared a video on Twitter of a black man recounting his experience with black-on-black crime. As penance, Fang had to issue a public apology, admit to insensitivity, and agree not to rock the boat anymore if he wanted to keep his job.
Shortly thereafter, a viral video began circulating online in which a young black man confronted a white woman who had allegedly cut him off in traffic. He followed her car to her house (he claimed she had also followed him at one point) and began recording the entire interaction. The woman immediately realized what was happening and broke down, trying to hide her license plate number from him and begging him not to “cancel” her. For all she knew, her life was over. And it might just be.
These are just a few examples of what is widely referred to as “cancel culture,” a toxic environment fueled by a combination of leftist ideology and social media. Immediate access to information, a default assumption of the worst in everyone else, and a religious zeal for bad left-wing ideas have combined to create a culture in which nearly everything is offensive and nothing can ever be forgiven. The aforementioned stories are proof that this environment already exists, not just for major public figures, but for random people as well. It has all gotten wildly out of hand.
But to say so is an act of entitlement, according to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who would like to pretend that “cancel culture” isn’t real, and simultaneously argue that cancel culture is just about accountability, not punishment:
The term “cancel culture” comes from entitlement – as though the person complaining has the right to a large, captive audience,& one is a victim if people choose to tune them out.
Odds are you’re not actually cancelled, you’re just being challenged, held accountable, or unliked.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) July 10, 2020
Sure: No one is entitled to a platform, just as no one is entitled to a particular job. But we are entitled to basic respect and decency, both of which disappear as soon as the online mob catches a scent. There is a way to hold individuals accountable while showing them that respect, but that is often done outside of the public eye through the proper channels.
What happened to Fang and the two women mentioned earlier was not accountability or anything close to it. Fang has a platform, sure, but neither of the women mentioned above was looking for attention when the Washington Post released the first woman’s name, and the second was doxxed over a meaningless traffic altercation. All three are human beings who were unjustly targeted, harassed, and canceled because each managed to piss off the wrong person.
Ocasio-Cortez cannot be unaware that this is happening — it’s right in front of her eyes. The only alternative is that she’s willfully deceiving others about it, hiding the ball and claiming that, because she hasn’t succeeded yet in deplatforming you, it’s proof there’s no such thing as cancel culture.
If that’s not entitlement, then I’m not sure what is.
