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"Cancel culture" will shine in 2020.

Perhaps the most prolific man in this highly politicized term is then President Donald Trump. After the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent national protests and turmoil, Trump and his fellow conservatives have repeatedly called for change-whether successful or not, true It's still exaggerated—classified as "abolition culture."

At the same time, however, the cultural elite, who has long been Trump's foil, also opposes this concept. After a wave of high-profile dismissals and resignations in the press and academia, "Harper" magazine published a letter criticizing its so-called "intolerance of opposing views, popular public humiliation and exclusion, and the trend to resolve complex policies" . The problem of dazzling moral certainty. "

Approximately 153 scholars, writers, journalists and other public figures signed the 532-word "Letter of Justice and Public Debate", including Margaret Atwood, author of "The Handmaid's Tale"; linguists and society Critic Noam Chomsky; CNN host Fareed Zakaria (Fareed Zakaria).

There is also JK Rowling on the list. She is the author of the world-famous "Harry Potter" series. Less than a month ago, she also published an article of more than 3,600 words explaining her views on "transgender issues." the opinion of. Author and social commentator Roxane Gay described the lengthy work as "a spectacle of transgender prejudice under the guise of feminism."

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This article was published on Rowling's personal website, and several similar controversies followed, including a few days before its publication. The article itself refers to the December event as the author's "fourth or fifth cancellation."

In this explosive environment, interest in "cancellation culture" soared last summer. According to Google Trends, the week that Rowling published her article, Google’s search volume for the term hit a record high. Harper issued an "open debate" letter four weeks later, and a few days later Trump condemned "abolition of culture" as the "definition of totalitarianism." Although it did not mention "cancellation culture", the search volume for these phrases was even higher, reaching unprecedented levels until this winter's Conservative Political Action Conference adopted "U.S. cancellation" as its slogan.

Meredith D. Clark, an assistant professor in the Department of Media Studies at the University of Virginia, published a five-page article on the etymology of "de-culture" last October. This article is based on a chapter in a book she wrote on Black Twitter—partially in response to Harper's letter, and then only a little over three months.

"The problem with the so-called'de-culture' does not lie in the previously deprived and seemingly faceless public criticized by the letter, but in the signatories and their colleagues.'...institutional leaders', they're panicking Mental damage control is implementing hasty and disproportionate punishments rather than considering reforms," ​​Clark wrote, directly quoting the wording used in Harper’s letter.

Clark distinguished "cancellation" from "cancellation culture", describing the former as "a problem with digital accountability practices."

"So if people don’t have the opportunity to hold positions such as brands, celebrities, public officials—their emails are discarded or even not read, they don’t have a phone number to call people and complain, even if they do complain. It won't produce any results-people can use digital and social media tools to connect with that person as directly as possible," Clark told Rivet.

She added that when expressing this experience, others can join in, share similar stories, and pay more attention to the issue. She said that defense-the desired result-can take the form of an apology, or even just confession.

When someone may choose to use the word "cancellation" to describe their own behavior, few people will actively agree with the word "cancellation culture". Clark said that when people do use this phrase, it means "derogatory." "It's pathological in nature. These people are using digital and social media to express their voices."

"The difference between canceling someone and canceling culture is that canceling someone’s language is extracted from online communities (mostly queer, black, digital communities) and has been used, so it becomes A message sent by people. For whatever reason, they are afraid of being canceled-quoting-quoting'cancel'-this is not a legitimate criticism, this is a mob behavior, it is both a threat and a kind of Things to ignore or laugh at," Clark said.

Message delivery is effective. The Harvard CAPS-Harris poll, which made headlines in March, announced that 64% of Americans believe that "removal of culture" is a growing threat to freedom. The answer to this question-"Do you think that more and more abolition of culture poses a threat to our freedom?"-basically the same in terms of gender, age, region, income and education. The only major outlier appeared in the tabulation of political parties and ideologies. The Democrats chose “not a threat” with an advantage of 52-48, and the Republicans chose “threat”, 80-20.

Based on these indicators, there seems to be a general but not absolute consensus on the cancellation of culture. However, a study by public relations giant Porter Novelli makes things a bit more complicated—at least for brands and companies.

Porter Novelli’s report is based on an online survey of 1,004 U.S. adults conducted in December 2020, and weighted based on estimates from the U.S. Census, and found that only 20% of Americans believe that cultural cancellation is “harmful to society”, which means they Think that the company or individual cannot do or say anything without being cancelled. Although only 34% think it is “good for society—it makes companies/individuals aware of bad behavior”, the middle 30% think this practice is “effective but overused—too many companies/individuals are being used cancelled."

Importantly, Porter Novelli defined the terms "cancellation culture" and "cancellation" for its interviewees, describing the former as "after public figures and companies have done or said something offensive or offensive." The popular practice of withdrawing support for them" and Whitney Dailey's senior vice president of marketing, research and insight said that the latter is "withdrawing support or negatively discussing the topic online."

Although the word "cancel" may give rise to the idea of ​​permanent punishment, Portnovelli found that with the support of 38% of Americans, the most popular reason for canceling a brand is that "a company changes its approach."

Other main reasons include getting the company to change its political policies and positions (27%), persuading the company to fire individuals responsible for offensive speech (26%), and influencing the company to sever ties with the celebrity or spokesperson who caused the offense (22%) .

Only 18% said they would cancel a company in order to make it change its brand or external representatives. Fewer people (14%) said they want the company to "disappear completely."

"It has nothing to do with obsolescence," Daly said. "This is more of a constructive dialogue with the company in order to get them to a better position."

Fashion has provided sufficient material for recent cancellation attempts-whether successful or not.

Although he initially denied the so-called "absurd false allegations" against him, Alexander Wang finally apologized after the male model supported by St Model Mgmt and Diet Prada accused the designer of sexual assault. After meeting with the plaintiffs and the lawyers representing them, Wang said that he was "regretful for the behaviors that made them painful" and added, "Life is learning and growing. Now that I know, I will do better." "

After the Atlanta Spa shooting in March, a petition from Change.org demanding a change in the name of the Chinatown market came under fire again when Diet Prada filed a lawsuit. On March 25, a post condemning “white-owned streetwear brands for occupying a historical and culturally significant community” received tens of thousands of likes, and the petition also attracted thousands of signatures. The brand announced that it will change its name on March 29.

Like many brands, Man Repeller responded to last year's protest movement by publishing a letter supporting Black Lives Matter. When readers responded with criticism, treating the letter as an empty signal from a fashion blog lacking diversity, founder Leandra Medine Cohen announced that she would “take a step back”. However, the publication never seemed to regain its footing. It tried to change its name to Repeller in September, but announced its closure less than two months later.

Soon after the reform shared its support for the "Black People's Fate" movement, a post accusing the brand of not allowing black employees to be promoted went viral on the Internet. The former employee called for founder Yael Aflalo to step down, and more than a week later, the CEO resigned. In its 2020 Sustainability Scorecard-there are now goals and indicators for diversity and inclusion-the reform called its "people-oriented" low point for this year, and stated that "we are striving to prioritize diversity and equity. Sex and inclusiveness".

In 2018, the controversial Dolce & Gabbana (Dolce & Gabbana) released a marketing campaign that was quickly regarded as racist by people at home and abroad, which angered the Chinese market. The brand deleted these videos within 24 hours and cancelled scheduled fashion shows. Co-founders Domenico Dolce and Steffano Gabbana later apologized and vowed to respect Chinese culture. However, even though the wider world seems to have forgiven the brand-revenue increased by 4.9% in the year to March 2019-its products still cannot be found on platforms such as Tmall, JD.com and Secoo.

Margot Bloomstein, author of "Trustworthy: How the Smartest Brands Overcome Cynicism and Bridge the Trust Gap", will be cancelled—or at least, the company complained about the cancellation— Described as "the natural consequence of their choice".

She said that the difference between yesterday's boycott and today's cancellation is in scale and popularity. She added that this scale stems from the belief that if something is a "local level problem, it is usually a symptom of a larger corporate level problem."

Bloomstein said: “What I think has changed is that people feel capable of asking these questions to make better demands.” This view is consistent with Porter Novelli’s research, which found that 72% of Americans “feel better than At any time before, they are better able to share their thoughts or opinions on the company."

Bloomstein cited Old Navy as an example of true accountability. In early 2018, a customer named James Conley III walked into a store in West Des Moines, Iowa, and an employee later accused him of stealing the jacket he was wearing. The customer subsequently posted a video of this experience on Facebook, claiming that he was racially discriminated against. He wrote: "I was accused of not paying for the blue bubble jacket I wore on Christmas Day."

Less than a week after Conley announced the incident, the old navy publicly apologized to him by name and fired three employees involved in the case.

"Then they continue to dig, they will not simply sacrifice the local manager," Bloomstein said. "They said we need to continue to research in depth to figure out how this happened. Therefore, they conducted a more extensive investigation and continued to update the media saying, "Yes, this is a problem here, and this is what we are still doing. Things. "So, they kind of left this story in the news."

Clark pointed out that when a brand is cancelled, it does not always cause controversy immediately, citing Gucci as an example. In February 2019, the luxury brand was censored for a roll-neck sweater that looked like a black face. The incident happened a few months after Prada launched a model that customers called it resembling a black face, and shortly before Burberry apologized for sending out a hoodie with a lasso on the runway at London Fashion Week.

"It's not just because they used these blackface images," Clark said. "But it is also related to the way these labels have absorbed black culture in the past, the way they failed to hire and meaningfully locate and promote marginalized people... This is about the fact that, for example, [Gucci] stands for The well-known squeezing practices in the fashion and entertainment industries."

Bloomstein stated that in order to avoid facing such public influence, brands “should self-regulate, no matter how they treat employees, how their employees treat customers, how they create a culture that supports good behavior. If the brand is experiencing HR issues When the PR nightmare is resolved, they can get out of the PR nightmare."

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