That said, I think “canceling” has more meaning behind it than you might think.
Bill Cosby was an inauthentic and visible symbol of the black middle class and “canceled” among media types because his messy real life persona clashed with his clean cut image. Age didn’t factor in. I think many also had an ax to grind.
These days, to be “canceled”, I think you have to be profoundly inauthentic and ultimately accept the blame when the Twitter mob comes. Plenty of media figures have woven their careers to even embrace the image of fighting the Twitter moral police.
What is your point? Twitter isn't the government and doesn't carry a gun and doesn't get qualified immunity when they shoot people. But you knew that, right? Or are you one of those lovely people who thinks Twitter removing Qanon/Russian propaganda violates the first amendment?
The twitterati may not carry guns but they can certainly have a huge impact on people's lives and livelihoods, and while they don't explicitly have qualified immunity they often benefit from selective enforcement.
Yeah, hard to imagine people like R. Crumb (or Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, others) worrying what the hell Twitter thought. Some artists (lets add Frank Zappa?) would probably have relished the publicity.
That said, I think “canceling” has more meaning behind it than you might think.
Bill Cosby was an inauthentic and visible symbol of the black middle class and “canceled” among media types because his messy real life persona clashed with his clean cut image. Age didn’t factor in. I think many also had an ax to grind.
These days, to be “canceled”, I think you have to be profoundly inauthentic and ultimately accept the blame when the Twitter mob comes. Plenty of media figures have woven their careers to even embrace the image of fighting the Twitter moral police.
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