Cancelling Cancel Culture

hough it feels like ‘cancel culture’ is a relatively new concept — one which has become so popular recently it’s now almost memeified — the term can be traced back to a 2014 episode of US reality TV show . Not long after, the term was picked up by Black Twitter. In 2013, the late British author and cultural theorist Mark Fisher wrote one of the first in-depth criticisms of the new online phenomenon, citing digital call-out culture as a reason for increased division between both political and socioeconomic classes. Nowadays, cancel culture is at the root of discourses surrounding digital and social-her number-one media activism, and the term has been used by everyone from actress Jameela Jamil to author JK Rowling. Cancel culture has been effective at combating sexism, racism, and various other kinds of harmful abuse or wrongdoing to others; it has held people and businesses accountable for their actions in ways that weren’t possible in the past, and has helped minority groups to reach the masses. But as the world has turned increasingly digital — and events have resulted in rising levels of stress, anxiety, and uncertainty — this culture around cancellation, public shaming, and humiliation has