Cancel culture has been a hot topic in 2023.
Cancel culture is a movement to remove celebrity status or defame them after a strong amount of backlash following controversial behavior on their part.
It normally happens when a celebrity or someone of notoriety is being “held accountable” because of something they did. It could be something recent, or sometimes it is something that people dug up from their past from years ago.
Ranging from a 10 year old tweet to a new fashion campaign, cancel culture can take away every sponsorship and campaign a celebrity has, at the hand of the public’s judgment.
When cheerleader Breanna was asked about cancel culture she stated “I think cancel culture can be important, but it’s also excessive at times with how strict society is now.”
Cancel culture is toxic with how it can affect people even if it is addressing something long in their past. It comes back to haunt people without knowing if the person changed and doesn’t allow people to grow. There also isn’t a lot of context when someone gets canceled. Canceling someone for different views is not at all mature or something that helps the person better themselves.
An example of this would be the situation between Balenciaga and Kim Kardashian. It’s well known that Kim Kardashian and Balenciaga have a strong partnership, and when an inappropriate child advertisement came out everyone began boycotting and calling Balenciaga out. The brand had to lower its prices due to the boycott. Kim Kardashian had to speak out during the boycott.
She took to Instagram saying she would “re-evaluate her work with the company”. A few days later she was seen wearing a Balenciaga dress. She lost around 20,000 followers and her comments were filled with hate and were calling her irresponsible due to her having children of about the same age.
She was canceled, and so was Balenciaga. Months later, everyone forgot and Balenciagas prices went back up and Kim had gained her popularity back. Her reputation was barely affected and Balenciaga was in this year’s Paris Fashion Week. This perfectly depicts that toxic canceling isn’t beneficial or effective as usually the person or brand getting canceled will continue to thrive after time.
This backlash was justified because the ad acted as a promotion of child abuse.
Canceling Kim Kardashian and Balenciaga was a move that was respected because it proved that brands could be canceled after inappropriate actions. The downside of this cancellation was that it didn’t affect the two entities in the long run.
Cancel culture continues to be a very toxic topic in today’s society. As well as continues to not be effective when trying to make a public figure change its views. Cancel culture should be reversed and seen as something negative. If this can’t change, many unjustifiable canceling will be happening.
Written by: Alizza Jacobo, Staff Writer