The Dixie Chicks are a great example. They vanished from the mainstream basically overnight. People still hate them to this day and probably don't even really remember what they said.
“ In March 2003, the American country band the Dixie Chicks, now known as the Chicks, publicly criticized President George W. Bush and the imminent Allied invasion of Iraq…
After the statement was reported by the British newspaper The Guardian, it led to backlash from American country listeners, who were mostly right-wing and supported the war. The Dixie Chicks were blacklisted by thousands of country radio stations, received death threats, and were criticized by other country musicians. The backlash damaged sales of the Dixie Chicks' music and concert tickets and lost them corporate sponsorship.”
It went way beyond offending their audience. The Dixie Chicks were black listed. This was also a time when people started calling french fries, freedom fries, among other insane "patriotic" things.
> Search for the Dixie Chicks, a country group who spoke out against the war, and read about what happened to them.
In case anyone is curious, the group fka the Dixie Chicks spoke out against the Iraq war in 2003. In 2005, they won a Grammy award. In 2007, they won five Grammies, including all three overall major categories (excluding "best new artist" from the four general field categories, because they weren't new). They are also the first female band in chart history to have three albums debut at No. 1.
In 2020, the group dropped the word "Dixie" from their name ... because of cancel culture? In any case, the Chicks then performed "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
Is this sarcasm or a window into a different side of American culture?
In my circles the Dixie Chicks rebounded from the Bush backlash and had their biggest pop hit ever in response to it ("Not Ready to Make Nice"); they became more respected in the wake of it than they ever had been.
On a related note: arguably one of the biggest "cancellings" of the post-9/11 era was that of the Dixie Chicks [1].
"Just so you know, we're on the good side with y'all. We do not want this war, this violence, and we're ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas."
The above comment (made by the lead singer at a concert in England) was all it took for them to receive death threats and get blacklisted by thousands of radio stations in the US.
In the early days, I recall Bill Maher & the Dixie Chicks being eviscerated in the media for questioning the war machine. There were undoubtedly more, but IIRC, the reactionary mob attitude was de rigueur.
This doesn't seem accurate. For example, The Dixie Chick backlash involved listeners calling radio stations and telling them to blacklist their music[1]:
> The Dixie Chicks were blacklisted by thousands of country radio stations. On May 6, Colorado radio station KKCS suspended two DJs for playing their music. WTDR-FM in Talladega, Alabama, dropped the Dixie Chicks after more than 250 listeners called on a single day to complain about Maines's comments.
That's not to mention the baying for blood that happened in the early 2000s when anyone came out against the Iraq War[2].
What are you talking about? They were wildly popular long before they started singing anything edgy. If anything, their popularity is what allowed some of their more unusual ideas to enter the mainstream and be accepted.
The conservative cancellation of Dixie Chicks in 2003 would seem to suggest otherwise. From wikipedia "At a 2003 performance in London, Natalie Maines of the American country band the Dixie Chicks, now known as the Chicks, made a statement criticizing President George W. Bush and the imminent Allied invasion of Iraq. The criticism led to backlash from country listeners, who were mostly right-wing and supported the war. The Dixie Chicks were blacklisted by thousands of country radio stations, and the band members received death threats."
> only slightly more recently, the Dixie Chicks. They called up advertisers as well.
If you want recent examples, look at WAP, its Super Bowl and Grammy's performances, Lil Nas X, or the NFL and Colin Kaepernick. There's also the witch hunt and boycott on teachers, companies and anyone else they believe are part of a nationwide critical race theory conspiracy.
While speech suppression is a weapon that both sides are more than happy to wield, are you familiar with the history of parental advisory labeling on speech in music? That was the left, specifically Al Gore's wife Tipper, that was responsible for keeping 'fuck' out of earshot of teens in music. TV and The Dixie Chicks are a different situation (although notice that now they are no longer called the Dixie Chicks, and not because of a conservative backlash.)
“In a poll by an Atlanta radio station, 76 percent of listeners who participated responded they would return their Dixie Chicks CDs if they could.[15] Protesters in Bossier City, Louisiana, used a tractor to destroy Dixie Chicks CDs and other items.[13] The Kansas City station WDAF-AM placed trashcans outside its office for listeners to dispose of their CDs, and displayed hundreds of emails from listeners supporting the boycott.[13]
The drinks manufacturer Lipton canceled its promotional contract with the Dixie Chicks.[4] Maguire's tour bus driver resigned in protest of their remarks.[11] Maines said: "It seems unfathomable that someone would not want to drive us because of our political views. But we're learning more and more that it's not that unfathomable to a large percentage of the population."[11]”
Couldn't the same thing be said about '90s grunge/alternative bands and rap/hiphop groups? They were "influencers" as well, with a clear impact in art and fashion. And they crafted their legend in part by wrecking hotel rooms, arriving hours late to shows and making public spectacles of themselves.
The common thread among them is that they were polarizing. It was OK that lots of people hated them and would never buy anything they were pitching, as long as there were thousands of others who went the exact opposite way and bought in to the whole charade.
Well, that's a pretty poor example to use to try to make your point. The Dixie Chicks (a country music group with a socially conservative leaning fanbase) went to a foreign country and decided to shit on their president for whatever the early 2000's equivalence of 'woke points' was. Europe was wildly anti-Bush at the time, so I'm sure it played well over there.
Their American fanbase (yanno, the MASSIVE group of people that enabled the Dixie Chicks' success... it sure didn't come from European audiences) turned on them because their values were obviously different and I guess Natalie Maines couldn't grasp that.
I don't have any evidence, but I'm leaning towards thinking that the people calling for Joe Rogan's cancellation aren't his main fanbase. That's the common thread with today's "social liberal" influence on media- people that are complete non-consumers of whatever winds up in the crosshairs just go to fucking war nowadays against whatever they've decided is offensive.
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