Culture 2 Omar Cook Culture 2 Omar Cook

The Performative Nature of “Cancel Culture” And It's Inconsistency

The growth of social media has led to the phenomenon of "cancel culture”, but the inconsistency lies with certain artists being excused from bad behavior because they make good music or create nice products. We discuss it here!

 
247 Live Culture
R Kelly

By: Cory Utsey

The public spectacle of withdrawing support from a famous person or brand is nothing new, as those who do questionable things in the limelight have always existed and received public scrutiny, or ostracization, for it. The main difference between this concept being applied in the past and in the present is the existence and the power of social media.

Referred to as “cancel culture”, what often happens is the following: a public figure or company will commit an act that has been deemed problematic, and social media users will either expose said act or shame it. Then, in the process of explaining why this action was wrong, people will call for the deplatforming of the brand or individual.

This phenomenon, which has worked hand in hand with movements such as #MeToo, has proven to be quite effective with the cancellation of some individuals, such as R. Kelly, Bill Cosby, and Harvey Weinstein. But with other individuals--such as the former president-- and even with certain companies, problematic behavior seems to be ignored and at times forgotten, with very little change in their level of power. 

The idea of being cancelled is often thrown into any conversation surrounding the troublesome behavior of someone or something in the limelight, but the performative act of engaging with cancel culture is just that-- it is performative.

The implications of controversial behavior are relative because controversy itself is relative; although there are many societal commonalities in what might be considered vile versus what might be considered virtuous, individual biases still play a key role in the way that people determine what is good and what is bad.

In many cases, biases will present themselves through forms of discrimination such as racism or misogyny, and they are so prominent that certain actions will only be considered “cancellable” if they are committed by certain people. Additionally, those on the receiving end of different types of discrimination are often taught to be complacent in the face of prejudiced activity; they are told that because these activities are “normal”, there is no reason to be upset over them.

Even if biases are not inherently discriminatory, every individual experiences life differently, meaning that every individual’s perception on what is acceptable is also different.

But even if an action has been collectively deemed as wrong by society, this does not necessarily mean that they will be deplatformed.

Everytime the user of a social media app watches the video of an influencer or streams the song of an artist, they are putting money in someone’s pockets-- it does not matter if that click comes from a place of outrage or a place of praise. In turn, if content from these public figures goes viral, then the number of clicks will greatly increase, and so will their revenue. 

When the inconsistent labeling of cancellable offenses is combined with the potential of profit, the vast majority of those who do “bad things” receive very little punishment. Their names are brought up in Twitter discourse, they might issue an ingenuine apology, and people move on. 

Cancel culture, in theory, is quite effective in ensuring that power is taken away from those who do terrible things, but in application, it simply serves as a spectacle.

At the end of the day, people deserve to be held accountable for their wrongdoings--regardless of what is labeled as. 

But biases should not take the place of morality.

If people truly want to engage with cancel culture, then they must be consistent with the parameters of cancellable offenses; one should not be excused from bad behavior because they make good music or create nice products. 

This consistency must also be applied to the ideas of redemption and growth. Some actions are certainly unredeemable, but once again, redemption should not be offered only to those who create nice things.

And in regards to the use of social media, Twitter threads and “Exposed Videos” should not be the start and endpoint of accountability; if someone is truly undeserving of a platform, then the energy should be put towards minimizing that platform as opposed to amplifying the reach of their offenses, especially if these offenses are triggering.

Cancel culture itself is not the problem; it is inconsistency, along with the desire to receive mass social media interaction, that serve as the main culprits.

But with some slight redirection, deplatforming might become much more viable.

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Disrespecting Black Women Is An Easy Way To Gain Social Media Clout

Disrespecting Black Women has become an easy way to gain social media clout, specifically through tik tok! We discuss it here!

 
247 Live Culture
Disrespecting Black Women

Disrespecting Black Women Is An Easy Way To Gain Social Media Clout

By: Kwana Adams

Have you been having trouble promoting yourself and your work on social media? Are you just not getting the clout that you feel you deserve? It’s difficult making yourself known when so many others are trying to do the same thing but there is a way to get around that. There’s a great way to boost your online presence and make you an overnight sensation!

If you want to gain clout quickly without ANY effort and hard work, just start talking shit about black women unprovoked! This method has been proven time and time again to be effective. Let’s take that recent video for example. You know the one I’m talking about so I don’t even need to link it here. A man with an unwashed ass and an opinion nobody asked for decided to make a Tik Tok where he claimed he’d rather go blind than date a black woman.

Of course, the video spread rapidly. Most videos of that nature usually do. Not only did this man have the absolute nerve to use a song sung by two talented, successful and beautiful black women to disrespect black women, he then created another video where he tried to explain the original. In this video, that again, NOBODY asked for, he claims that he wasn’t hating but he’d rather go blind than marry one of “your kind.” As he says this, he also acts out “vomiting” and whispers “disgust me”. What’s crazy is, he is one of “our kind.” No sir, YOU disgust ME. 

This brings me to my next tip on how to gain internet clout. If you are a black man, or a man of color, who is trying to gain internet clout, this method is definitely for you. Self hating black men and anti-black men are the most successful in gaining clout when they shit on black women. Make sure your opinion was unprovoked, and don’t forget to profess your love for “snow bunnies” and “spicy latinas” because we all know you can’t have a preference if you don’t talk about how much you hate Black women first! 

Now, I’ve personally seen ‘that’ video on my Twitter timeline multiple times in just a day so I imagine the Cinnamon stick from the Apple Jacks commercial must be seeing all of the comments, RTs and quote replies. Checking the comments, I discovered that this man is a tattoo artist and a musician. Suddenly, it all makes sense… This is probably what he wanted all along.

He made sure to record himself lying next to a white woman to really get the people talking. I’ve scrolled past this video and responses to it multiple times in less than an hour, so I’d say he executed the method very successfully. The fact that I’m even writing this article proves this as well! 

In all seriousness, stop using black women to gain clout. It’s old, it’s tired, and quite frankly, it’s very lazy. Black women are constantly just minding their business and having to be reminded that men, especially black men, are looking down on them. The same things that other races of women get praised for, black women get abused for.

You can have your preference without bringing up black women. It’s really that simple. The 15 minutes of fame you’re getting  are not worth disrespecting a group of people who didn’t do a damn thing to you. Let us exist in peace and keep us out of your mouth.

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Is TikTok A Safe Place For Black Content Creators?

The rise of TikTok has seen Black content creators going uncredited for their work and a number of racist posts targeting minorities. Is TikTok a safe place for Black Content Creators? We discuss it here!

 
https://844burrows.com/
Black Content Creators

By: Emily-Ann

Here we go again, recently another social media platform has taken off with countless new accounts being made and a new means for people to come together and make content for our already oversaturated consumption. What’s one more social media account to add to your long list of profiles. Right?  

Don’t run up and sign for tiktok just yet. Tiktok was created by Zhang Yiming, a Beijing-based company founded in 2012, and launched it’s app for IOS and Android users in 2017.  The company is owned by ByteDance and worth $16.2 billion fortune and Zhang Yiming who is China’s 13th-wealthiest person. Reportedly making quite a bit of coins for himself and when I say coins, try thinking about 12 billion in 2018.

But who is regulating the tiktok app and why are there so many racist videos going around? This app is being downloaded by young impressionable people with billions of downloads by its users. It is becoming the new social media competitor. 

 
 

More and more I am starting to see many black creators either not getting the credit they deserve, or being insulted by other account holders, who of course are not black. I recently came across a Twitter post on my feed shared by a young lady, whose name I will omit from this article. The post caught my eye because of the nature of the post. The post was of a young teen named, Colby Howell, a senior in high school from Helena, MT. The post he uploaded was insulting and insensitive in nature. The video is as tasteless as his sense of style, and what he deems as a sense of humor. I wasn’t surprised at the ignorance displayed by this individual. Sadly, there are many people like him on social media and around the world.

 
 

The saying, “laugh now, cry later” comes to mind. Every time I see this type of content, I am constantly reminded that there are still people who think like this. Never mind the fact that countless people are dying right now, but yet he had time to put out such hateful and disrespectful content. I often wonder why tiktok is allowing such content to be displayed on their app. Aren’t they worried about the brand and stock decreasing in value? In my eyes the app has already decreased in value.

There have also been black creators getting fed up about not being credited for their work. The countless copy cats who get famous for their work. For example, creator of the Renegade dance, Jalaiah Harmon. Her copy cat took credit for the dance and thought that she could get away with it. Little did she know she would get called out on it. The story was everywhere on social media, and I caught wind of it when it hit twitter. Now you know black twitter will come for you, and it’s worse if you try to ignore or deny it. The lack of credit that black creators have to deal with. For example, Megan stallion challenge creator, Keara Wilson. Her story is just one of many in the bin of black creators. They do not get the credit they should have from the jump. Only after being called out did the copycat, Charli D'amelio admit what she did. 

After stealing black creators content or making racist videos, we get pathetic apologies of them begging people to stop treating them a certain way, and only because their chances at getting into college get shot do they seem remorseful. Key word here “seem”, since they get a little taste of their own medicine. A pinch of what the black community has to deal with on a daily basis. They're changing their accounts or taking down these disgusting videos only after they get caught. It should have never seen the light of day! Yet, they already recorded and uploaded it to their accounts for views. 

Future employers have already seen it. When will they learn that this type of behavior will no longer go unnoticed? Even when speaking about the African American community, they both refer to us as “Blacks/You blacks”. Wait, what? Everything that comes out their mouth, or what they type just sounds insensitive and not authentic. Just stop already, please you're making it worse! 

 
 

I think it’s time for us as creators and artists to find a safe place we’re we can create and display our talents and not be copied, mimicked, laughed, or impersonated or worse by a group of white people who’ve been taught this type of behavior.

Why do we continue to support these companies or platforms that do nothing to protect the rights of the creators who make them the most money? I myself do not intend on signing up for tiktok at all, because of the increasing amount of racist content coming out of the woodworks. One twitter follower commented on the Colby Howell video saying, “ tiktok take everything else down but leave this racist ass shit up”.

I did enjoy watching the videos that were often shared among the black creators on twitter and IG. Lately, with all the insensitive thoughtless comments and videos I am seeing on the tiktok app, I want no parts of it.

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