Editor's note: Film Sessions is a weekly feature here on Media Madness in which I share, analyze and expand on a relevant video created by someone on the left wing of YouTube.
You're Not Cancelled If You're Still On My TV
I must confess that personally, I've always struggled to take the discourse around what its critics have dubbed "cancel culture" very seriously and, aside from perhaps some passing commentary on the No Fugazi Podcast, I've never really bothered to wade into the discussion with any vigor. This is, at least in part, because I am extremely online enough to know that half the folks who signed the now infamous "Harper's letter" are virulent transphobes, former friends of billionaire pedophile sex slaver Jeff Epstein, or the kind of folks who think acknowledging that Palestinians are people and deserving of basic human rights, is somehow anti-Semitic. Oh, and there's also that part where the whole debate is clearly a stalking horse for the reactionary American right; it's rather hard to take folks who call Tucker Carlson a brave truthteller very seriously, after all.
Even setting right wing f*ckery and craven self interest aside however, there has always been something about the class character of the discussion that felt significantly off to me. After all, the labor class (especially in America) overwhelmingly works under a system of "at will" employment, and can therefore be fired at any time, for almost any reason, or in many cases no reason at all - "congratulations, you've been downsized!" Yet in the larger "cancel culture" discussion you find a completely manufactured moral panic, being pushed by bougie media muppets drawn almost exclusively from the upper classes, about the possibility that other, upper class media muppets might face online criticism and the periodic book boycott, for their crappy and often bigoted opinions. The vast majority of the people whining about cancel culture haven't lost career opportunities for their odious behavior, and given their ability to find a sympathetic platform full of other bougie class media muppets to gripe about the issue incessantly, you can't really suggest they're being "silenced" somehow either. Of course, corporate or institutional censorship does indeed exist online and in the media, but we already have words for those phenomenon and any reasonable person can see that has little to do with some folks online deciding not to buy JK Rowling's next (explicitly transphobic) book because she's a piece of dogsh*t.
Taken altogether, that certainly doesn't sound like anything a labor class person should really give a damn about, so I didn't much give a damn about the "cancel culture" debate. Alas, naval gazing media minions obsessed with presenting their class grievances as mere "common sense" have never really cared about the opinions of the peasantry, and thus this "cancel culture" debate continues to rage on to this day; and sometimes, from some rather frustrating sources. In light of the interminable nature of the subject, I've been waiting for the right moment to offer some of the above opinions on the cancel culture hysteria, and this week's Film Sessions post is precisely just such an opportunity.
Today's feature sees the return of popular creator Tom Nicholas and his series What the Theory; which we examined in detail during our previous discussions about media bias and neoliberalism. At this point, I feel like we know what we're getting with Nicholas's work; longer videos with high production values, pinpoint editing, and a firm background in the kind of theory you have to actually read books to learn. In "Cancel Culture: Fear of the Mob" however, Tom also shows off a delightful talent for comedic sketch-work, and some genuinely subversive sensibilities when it comes to class issues and the nature of crowds.
This highly watchable presentation is divided into two parts, intertwined with each other throughout the entire forty-seven minute episode. This first portion is a subversive, darkly comedic, and extremely snarky little comedy sketch about the fictitious "cancellation" of Tom Nicholas, that includes winking allusions to the theatrics of notable sh*theels like Jordan Peterson, JK Rowling and indeed, the entire celebrity whining cycle surrounding cancel culture. The second part of the episode, which I'm choosing to focus on here so as not to spoil the fun for those enjoying the skit, is a far more stringent, academic study about the class issues surrounding both the spurious literature on crowd psychology, as well as the relation between "cancel culture" fearmongering in the media, and a ruling class that has promoted the idea of the bloodthirsty mob for centuries to undermine popular direct action.
Nicholas opens by examining the principle arguments and selection bias of those promoting the cancel culture moral panic, and discovers that they directly echo longstanding pro-ruling class, anti-direct action theories about the danger of mobs, and the madness of crowds, put forward by upper class, pearl-clutching muppets like Gustave Le Bon, Charles Mackay, and modern writers who apply the same theories to online life; folks like Jon Ronson. So what's the problem? Well, as Nicholas notes, academic studies of crowds, protests and mobs have utterly discredited those theories from a scientific perspective, and they remain with us only because they are repeated over and over as "common sense" by a ruling class that is eager to police protest actions by the proletariat, and remains altogether uncomfortable with being criticized by filthy peasants.
Our presenter then transplants this understanding into a fascinating discussion about how the mendacious presentation of cancel culture arguments encourage us to treat all incidents of public shaming as identical (when they most certainly are not,) while observing that the very purpose of attacks on the "online mob" is to police who counts as an individual, and whose ideas are treated as valid or self-determined. Along the way Tom also kicks the crap out of that putrid, self-serving Harper's letter (while noting the obtuse tone-deafness of releasing it at the height of a fascist crackdown on demonstrators protesting the extrajudicial murder of George Floyd by an American police officer,) points out that the cancel culture discussion provides an unwarranted veneer of legitimacy for otherwise blatantly bigoted opinions or behaviors, and lays waste to the idea that online criticism has any real long-term impact on the careers of affluent whiners pushing this moral panic.
Throw in the genuinely humorous skit, and that sure is a lot of "bang" for your time investment. As regular readers of my work will undoubtedly be aware, the above-mentioned class tensions and assaults on objectively reactionary "common sense" in capitalist societies are kind of my jam at this point, and as such I found Tom's video absolutely smashing. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that the inclusion of these elements makes "Cancel Culture: Fear of the Mob" one of only a very few truly worthwhile videos about the subject on YouTube.
You can check it out by clicking the header, or watching the embedded video itself, below:
"Cancel Culture: Fear of the Mob"
Additional Resources
Tom Nicholas's Youtube Channel
Cancel Culture Is Not Real: At Least Not in Way People Think
Political Correctness Is Destroying America! (Just Not How You Think)
The “Free Speech Debate” Isn’t Really About Free Speech
Harper's Platforms Famous Writers So They Can Whine About Being Silenced
The Class Politics of the Harper's Letter
Cancel Culture is a Class Issue
‘Cancel Culture’ Is How the Powerful Play Victim
You’re Getting Called Out, Not Canceled
Transgender people and the Harper’s Open Letter
What’s Wrong with “Cancel Culture”?
How White Religious Conservatives Invented Cancel Culture
Why the Right Is Obsessed With Cancel Culture
Tucker Carlson, Ariel Pink and the Cancel Culture Grift
The Reality of Cancel Culture Is that it Is Not Real
Don Cheadle Tells Fox News Cancel Culture is ‘A Fabrication’
Our Political Upheaval Wasn't Caused by Mob Rule
The Myth of the Mob: How Crowds Really Work
Donald Trump and the Myth of Mobocracy
How Being Part of a Crowd Can Change You For the Better
Crowds Are Not People, My Friend
nina illingworth
Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus. Please help me fight corporate censorship by sharing my articles with your friends online!
You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog
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