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[scriver]

That's because it's not about 'punishment' or 'reform' for the targets, the Cancellers could not care less about any actually productive change being induced. They just want someone to beat on and harass. If we lived in some kind of sick society that, by lottery every day, picked out one person to be a pariah to jeer at, humiliate, and get gang-beaten to death, it would be these Cancellers that would be first in line to stomp on that daily pariah, because they just want a target that they can sadistically torture without consequence. The Cancellers are scum, the "Culture" is just a facade.

I don't think it's as easy as just malice. I've pointed to witch-hunt mentality mechanics before. In my opinion, it's very tied to virtue signalling – yes, I know I am doubling the buzz word quota of the discussion but please bear with me: virtue signalling is used as a social tool to signal that you are virtuous (duh), but also, it is another way to signal that you are part of an in-group and soecifically that you are worthy of being part of it. Classic examples of virtue signalling that everyone in the west can relate to is the old-timey image of Dickensian upper class people who go to church every week and sit at the front so that everyone can see them and then ignore the impoverished begging for alms as they leave, I'm going to use this contrast with what happens today because there's a big difference in the social mechanics here stemming from how on the Internet, you only exist if you're making noise. This causes virtue signalling to change from something passive into something that needs to be actively pursued.

Then, we have a very large population of people who are, as it had been dubbed, chronically online. These are people who have very limited interactions with people in the "real", offline world. Their contacts and communities are more or less entirely online-based. When coupled with the "exist only if you're seen" mechanic, this means that it's very hard to passively belong to an Internet community, and it's very hard to signal your virtues to it, because the realspace world and offline actions does not exist in the online world. You can't virtue signal by sitting at the front of the "online church", because everyone else in the "online church" are only seeing the "priest at the altar", the centre of attention, that is whatever hashtag is headlining twitter at the moment. But the feeling of wanting to feel like you belong to a community is just as strong in "chronically online" people as in others, the difficulty of feeling like so just makes the need to feel it stronger, and they chase harder to get it. To be seen as being part of the group you have to move yourself from the silent church goer crowd to being the priest.

This is where "witch hunt" mechanics enters the picture. A witch hunt, socially speaking, is just not a drive against a single target. It is also a way for people to signal how they are better than the target (more "virtuous"). But it's not easy to prove that you aren't a witch. You can say "I'm not a witch" but that's just what a witch would say – in fact any attempt at defending yourself against being called a witch, both preemptively or after an accusation, during a witch hunt will have the effect of making you seem more suspect and more accusable (even just defending somebody else under accusation will mark you as a witch). Socially, the only way you can show that you aren't a witch is by accusing somebody else of being a witch, preferabbly before the accusation is levelled at you. This means that during a witch hunt the only way to prove that you belong in the non-witch group is to join in behind the first accusations as soon as possible, the only way to signal your virtues is by attacking the unvirtous.

So all in all, we have:
1) An Internet where you only exist if you are being heard (I'd say this actually extends to our societies' media environment in general, but it's especially so on social media)
2) People who because of their lack of connection to realspace communities have a strong social need to prove themselves as being part of intangible Internet communities
3) The mechanics of the witch hunt meaning that as soon as a target is identified, social interaction devolves into a game of bullying and ostracition.

And when these are mixed together, you get a perfect storm. 3) mixed with 2) means that people have an increasingly strong need to prove their non-witchness to the group to feel that they belong in it, making them more likely to engage in the hateful "always attack" mechanics without pausing to think "is this a proportionate or reasonable response", and the addition of 1) means that your belonging only exist for as long as you are trending, and you have to keep making yourself heard to be part of the group. This means that not only are people going to be more willing to extend and go further during a witch hunt, they will also be more prone to seizing the opportunities to start witch hunts in the first place.

Outrage culture ("Three! Three buzz word terms! Ah-ah-aah!") is also strongly connected, I guess

In the end, it's the result of people becoming more and more isolated and having a lack of real connections to real people in realspace. But I know you folks probably don't agree with me about the terribleness of Internet, computers, and digitalisation of society.

[McTraveller]

I agree with most of that, scriver.  Also, join my "analog computers are superior*!" club

Spoiler: * fine print (click to show/hide)

For some use cases.

[Great Order]

If you're a far-right public figure or an apologist thereof, or say genocidal shit in public, you deserve to get cancelled. They do not deserve existence. Otherwise nah.

Most people don't call that "getting cancelled" though.  Most people call it getting "cancelled" when people get drawn through the streets for a single comment or very few comments often taken way out of context.

If you are unequivocally saying "death to the <X>!" and people call you out, that's not being cancelled.  It's only "being cancelled" if you get drawn and quartered because you say something "insensitive" like "oh man I wish I had a darker complexion because I get sunburned so easily" and a mob thinking that is somehow a racist remark.

Still scream that they're getting cancelled, and a large number of people agree. There's a difference between Being Cancelled(TM) and actually being cancelled. Not to say it isn't a problem, but it *is* turning into one of those useless words like fascist where the definition's becoming so broad in the public perception that it applies to damn near everything.

[Lord Shonus]

If you're a far-right public figure or an apologist thereof, or say genocidal shit in public, you deserve to get cancelled. They do not deserve existence. Otherwise nah.

Most people don't call that "getting cancelled" though.  Most people call it getting "cancelled" when people get drawn through the streets for a single comment or very few comments often taken way out of context.

If you are unequivocally saying "death to the <X>!" and people call you out, that's not being cancelled.  It's only "being cancelled" if you get drawn and quartered because you say something "insensitive" like "oh man I wish I had a darker complexion because I get sunburned so easily" and a mob thinking that is somehow a racist remark.

Counterpoint: Scott Adams

Besides introducing a character into his comic that is fundamentally offensive to nearly everybody (the company's first black employee, who identifies as white, and is then shown telling HR redefining pronouns as she/her while openly stating that it is a form of extortion), he went on a video rant about how black people are a hate group and white people should never ever interact with them for any reason. This last was enough for nearly everybody to stop doing business with him and his syndicate to straight up fire him, so he no longer has a daily newspaper comic.

He's ranting on Twitter about being "cancelled", and a lot of people are bending over to kiss his ass for it, including Elon Musk.

[McTraveller]

Yes that's a valid point. Unfortunate too, because I used to somewhat enjoy his work.  But clearly his statements aren't just "one offs taken out of context."

The bizarre counter-counterpoint is JK Rowling; she also has made known her stance on various topics well known, but is still raking in the monetary units.

I can't quite figure out what's different in those scenarios, to be honest.  Is it just country of citizenship? Something else?

Suffice it to say, people are too people-y.

[Lord Shonus]

There's two big things with Rowling. The biggest is that the property she's making money from is one she has almost nothing to do with anymore - the HP books are finished, most of the adaptations have fairly little input from her, if any. Her later books are largely flops. Adams's big work was entirely his baby and his alone.

The other thing is that very little of the attitudes she's getting slammed for make it into said works - even if you assume her shitty ideas were there from the beginning and not something she got radicalized into, it is very hard to read transphobia into the HP books without getting pretty "um..." yourself. Meanwhile most of the other bigotries claimed to be in there either aren't supported by the text or are explicit "hey, wizard society isn't a paradise, and in some ways is really fucked up" plot points. Interact solely with the Harry Potter franchise and you'll never run into it.  Meanwhile a fair bit of Adams views leaked into Dilbert, especially once you have an idea they're there.

What makes this more important is that, despite the impression you get online, most people are not aggressively online. Rowling's shit has all been on Twitter, and most people aren't mainlining that the way the online crowd is. "Celebrity says Bad Thing on Twitter" is something most people either miss completely or (if it gets enough attention) a two-second soundbyte on the evening news.

[lemon10]

It feels likely that her attitudes are new; or rather not quite new, but were at the very least much milder like 20 years ago when the books came out.

Because her shit has indeed made it into her newer work(s) in a pretty major way.

I agree that due to the gap of time Harry Potter contains none of her transphobic shit, but if she wrote it today I wouldn't be surprised if say, Voldemort or some other villain was trans.

E:

I have heard the argument that 'climate change' was pushed by the liberals to replace 'global warming' so as to cover the climate hoax falling apart. Now I hear the conservatives did it to control the narrative. (As if both terms haven't been in use in literature since climate science was a thing)
The readiness with which some people want to make everything a US partisan issue is getting tiresome.

Fair enough. After a bit of looking it turns out I was wrong on that.

[Maximum Spin]

I think the key difference is just that there are some things you can say that a lot more people care a lot more about than other things.

[delphonso]

I think the key difference is just that there are some things you can say that a lot more people care a lot more about than other things.

Sometimes it reminds me of TV standards. You can't show a boob on American TV, but if you cover it with blood and gore, then you're golden.

[hector13]

I think the key difference is just that there are some things you can say that a lot more people care a lot more about than other things.

Sometimes it reminds me of TV standards. You can't show a boob on American TV, but if you cover it with blood and gore, then you're golden.

I’m pretty sure there was an episode of South Park that had one of the adult characters take drugs and have a massive hallucination in which they were some kind of Mad Max-type hero in a world in which everything was made out of boobs because it was fine to show boobs, just not in a woman’s chest.

[jipehog]

If you're a far-right public figure or an apologist thereof, or say genocidal shit in public, you deserve to get cancelled. They do not deserve existence. Otherwise nah.

I would be much more comfortable if that was the case. However, people who ascribe to traditional moustache villain acts like genocide are rare and universally being shunned. Instead in hyper-politized usa terms like far-right means any right, with subjective policy issue becoming wedge issue, and this being fought not just against public figure but in any online political discussion including those kids thrive at.

I believe in X, influential person says NOT X, therefore they are --insert suitable stereotypical slurs-- and we need to shut them up is essentially what Trumps fake news are about (yes, I  intentionally try to compare you guys to Trump, knowing how strongly you feel about him) or if you prefer Putin Nazis is really self righteous us vs them narrative.

I agree with two exceptions. First while I think that internet and changing media environment has played a large role in this, I also think that vast majority of people who [unwittingly] contribute to this are normative people, you don't need to live in an online echo chamber to be affected and become part of the outrage culture there are plenty of echo chambers in the real world as well.

And on your final comment, I don't think of these as terrible, just that we should be proactive about addressing the risk and continue developing it responsibly

[Frumple]

I would be much more comfortable if that was the case. However, people who ascribe to traditional moustache villain acts like genocide are rare and universally being shunned.

If by "universally being shunned" you mean "speaker at CPAC", I guess. "Eradicated from public life entirely" isn't exactly subtle, and at this point his ilk is not nearly as rare as it should be.

I don't remember where I saw it, but fairly recently I saw someone make a hell of an observation: If you've ever wondered what you'd do in the face of part of your country trying to commit genocide, and you live in the US, you know, now. There is a current and ongoing effort to do exactly that to our trans demographics, and it's already gone as far as laws passed in state legislatures with no indication attempts are going to do anything but continue.

[jipehog]

In the context of what we are talking, that like saying that vigilantism is good because it dealt with insert example that affected you personally.

[hector13]

They are literally trying to legislate people out of existence ffs.

[King Zultan]

I’m pretty sure there was an episode of South Park that had one of the adult characters take drugs and have a massive hallucination in which they were some kind of Mad Max-type hero in a world in which everything was made out of boobs because it was fine to show boobs, just not in a woman’s chest.

That was based off of several segments from Heavy Metal an animated anthology.