The Evolution of Cancellation

Why we're all scared of saying what we think

I’ve said a lot of things I’m now ashamed of, things that if came to light today would get me cancelled.

In my 20s, I had the rather juvenile habit of talking about "Your mum”. I did it because it was juvenile, not because this was the limit of my humour. I did this in the workplace, which I treated as an extension of my family, or more accurately, as the evolution of the classroom, which was the last time I’d been in a group social setting regularly. While I had my moments of levity and fairness, I also had many moments of utter childishness.

One day I had a complaint from a manager.

“All I can hear through that wall is you going on about Stan’s mum. Can you stop that please Shahid?”

“It’s just a joke, Barry, I don’t mean anything by it.” I said, without any convinction.

“Look, it’s too much. Just tone it down a bit.”

“OK, fine. Is Stan upset?”

“He hasn’t said anything, but he shouldn’t have to.”

On another occasion, I made a stupid mum joke to a relatively new colleague, who had the presence of mind to ignore my relative seniority, thank goodness, and just stopped me in my tracks.

“Has it ever occurred to you that what you’re saying might be offensive?”

“It’s just a joke. I mean nothing by it.” I said to Jack, again, without any conviction.

“It might be a joke to you, but I don’t find it funny.”

I was a lot more careful after that, because it gave me pause for thought.

I didn’t get cancelled. There was no online anonymous forum talking about my toxicity. There was just Barry, a a manger, protecting Stan (who when I told about the manager’s telling off, just laughed in my face, because nothing affected Stan at all, and I knew this.) and there was a calm rebuke from Jack, in front of a group of colleagues that then caused me to change my behaviour.

Now this admittedly is a mild example. I hope I never made a female colleague feel uncomfortable. Yes, I told crude jokes, but never, ever at the expense of a female colleague. I hope I never made anyone’s working life miserable, because that would make me a bully, and if anyone ever felt that way, whether I was conscious of it or not, I’d hope they’d reach out and let me know so that I could make amends.

The point is, cancellation, had it happened, for this or a more serious reason, would have been confined locally, and unless what I did was worthy of dismissal, wouldn’t have ruined my life.

My reach was smaller, and it was confined to associates. There was no way to broadcast my inane mum jokes. There were no platforms.

Now of course, we can reach everyone, all the time.

And while some might complain that they feel restricted or censored, I’m of the mind that if my words are broadcast, if they’re in the public sphere, that I need to own the potential backlash, even if it’s ruinous.

Are the effects of modern cancellation ruinous? They can be. Expulsion from the tribe in evolutionary terms was a death sentence. The likelihood of finding another tribe before one was picked off, alone, by predators and earning their trust rather than immediately getting killed, were likely remote. It’s no wonder we don’t like it today. It’s why we’re so scared of giving presentations. (I’m not, but that’s a story for another time. Perhaps it’s something I can help with if you’re interested.)

The key is to be intentional with what we share. Twitter, and other short form media, encourages, and even incentivises shocking behaviour. Shock is how you get engagement. So to be intentional, and thoughtful, is to be less liked, but that’s a whole lot better than running the risk of getting cancelled.

If some of us say “I’m just saying what I think” with the expectation that we’ll be protected by freedom of speech principles, then the key is to think first. It’s to not think out loud on the Internet. Yes, I’ve done it, and it’s not been pretty.

The risk is we stop saying things as often, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing. The real problem is that with the majority of decent people not expressing themselves on short form social media, because of its perils or its bias to shock, that we think the world is like the hot takes and shock fakes when it really isn’t. The world is more like the silent. You just can’t hear them.

So if you’re one to despair at how the world is going, it’s worth reminding yourself that Twitter is tuned to reward extremities, and that the legacy media (because let’s face it, it’s become increasingly irrelevant) is tuned to capture attention, again, with bad news. The world isn’t like that. So long as we’re thoughtful, we’re highly unlikely to get cancelled.