Cancelling Cancelling
Clementine Morrigan’s podcast, Fucking Cancelled, feels like a breath of fresh air. They’ve concretely helped me reframe my stance and ethics on what it means to be an educator and content creator on social media. I’m proactively cancelling myself in (a likely failed) attempt to escape the abusive online “woke” culture.
Hey Clementine,
I was introduced to your work not that long ago in this way, “Clementine Morrigan has AMAZING resources on polyamory and trauma, but they’re super problematic.” I’m also a queer-polyam-sex-educator. I’m unfortunately familiar with cancel culture. I’ve also endured my fair share of public shaming and have participated in the cancellation of others. Point is, when I hear “amazing” and “problematic” combined in a single sentence I get suspicious. Turns out that person was half right, your work really IS amazing. I’ve recommended your zine, Love Without Emergency, to so many folks during my peer-support sessions who have benefited tremendously. But there’s always someone who has heard of you and predictably goes, “Weren’t they canceled?” When you dropped your latest project, the podcast Fucking Cancelled, I was obviously curious. Wow, did it surpass my expectations! Honestly, a couple of weeks ago I was so burnt out from the social media drama cycle I was ready to set everything on fire and quit. You’ve helped realign my ethics and values in a way that brings my offline integrity back into my online work.
Being canceled for having an opinion
On first listen, I was shocked when you said you don’t try to defend yourself against accusations that aren’t true. I know that should be obvious. But I realized I’d started to believe that strangers hold epistemic entitlement. In other words, I thought that if someone said I’m bad, it must automatically be true. Social media has distorted our reality in so many ways. The fact is, my followers are strangers. Regardless of how much they think they know me, they don’t. Most don’t even know my name. And strangers cannot possibly have the singular moral authority to make an objective judgment of character. Making sweeping defamation claims and organizing harassment campaigns based on a single interaction (usually in comments or DMs) fundamentally stripped of any interpersonal context is lunacy. It took me a hot minute to realign my brain. The vast majority of my followers are very kind and lovely. But brains have a shitty tendency to prioritize negative information, even when it’s untrue, really loud. Social media allows us to believe we’re playing God when in fact we’re enabling each other to act like petulant bullies. It’s become normal in the liberal social justice bubble, or what you call the Nexus, to believe with crucifying conviction a singular narrative based on nothing more than gossip.
Now I’m not saying that people don’t do shitty things to each other. They do. And I believe in reparative justice. But that comes from within. I still can’t wrap my head around the point of cancel culture. Sure, our inquisitors usually say their mob attacks are meant to hold the accused “accountable”. But at what expense and with what desired outcome? If we were to entertain the ridiculous notion that harm reduction is the goal of cancel culture, then I need a mother-fucking explanation for the blatant absence of ethical standards for this pursuit. Doxxing, shaming, threatening, harassing, assaulting, violating boundaries, name-calling, and beyond are all “normal” behaviors for people who claim to be concerned with the welfare of others. Bullshit. From what I’ve observed, it seems like the main point of call-out/in culture is to:
Entertain “woke” liberals through the public humiliation of others (let’s be honest social media is nothing more than reality TV and we only watch for the drama. There’s a delight to seeing others getting shamed, knowing we are *better* than them… until we’re the ones up for execution. We get publicly called out for “performative allyship” by clout chasers with no self-awareness)
Enable some to climb social ladders by “de-platforming” their direct competition (I’ll say it, it’s way easier to get that book deal/ speaking gig/ sponsored ad when you’ve canceled all viable alternatives to yourself. Social media fuels competition and we all know that leads to toxicity. We also know creativity and merit is way harder to achieve than backstabbing and grabbing)
Homogenize thoughts and prevent actual change (by promoting in-fighting we’re pacified into complacency and entirely disabled from enacting revolution. We’re so busy policing each other, we remain distracted and the actual people in power get to stay in power)
Ultimately, nothing shields us from the wrath of the online “woker than you” liberal social justice warriors. This system was designed to make us all fail and hurt each other in the most brutal ways in the process.
Things I’ve been “called out” for (this week)
I started noticing a few months ago how my body had a routine of anxiety every morning. It would go like this: I’d wake up, drink coffee with my girlfriend, and I’d start my day feeling extreme joy about the life we share together. I’d feel grounded in myself when I recognized the significant IRL growth I’d made in the past year to be together. My lovely lady would then go to make Vegemite toast, and I’d find the courage to open IG. My fight/flight would immediately kick in as I read accounts of the terrible thing I’d done according to my followers. These folks would explain (and mansplain!) how my use of a particular word in a particular sentence indisputably proved that I’m a transphobic, biphobic, heterophobic, racist, cisphobic, man-hating, woman-disaffirming, gender-traiting, animal abusing, dysphoria-inducing, trauma-exploiting, fucking privileged cunt, asshole who demanded money, unqualified fraud who was tricking folks into paying for “fake” advice, complete degenerate piece of shit garbage human who deserves everything in life taken away…. or else…
I would sit there in genuine self-hatred leading to panic attacks believing these random people I had never even laid eyes on with their private profiles could entirely rip my life away. They had me convinced that I didn’t deserve the life that I had grown for myself. They had me convinced that I was fundamentally unlovable. They had me believe that I was so toxic that everyone in my life would leave including the person who was making me breakfast. The mental toll it takes to endure that day after day after day after day….
I love, Clementine, that you don’t give them time. I fully respect the “don’t feed the trolls” approach. But I want to talk about the ridiculousness of these accusations for a second. In the legit quest to end sexual violence and specifically victim-blaming (which is a very real issue), we’ve become so used to accusers having epistemic entitlement that we’ve ceased to think critically about the claims at all. So here are my crimes this past week, I let you judge what I must repent for:
Not being vegan enough for vegans. Apparently, I support animal abuse by occasionally eating clams (because my food choices and feelings about animals should be decided by other people). Also I “did much harm to” Veganism as a whole by saying it shouldn’t be an identity that we police
“Inducing gender dysphoria for ALL trans people” (evidenced by five folks in my comments who fortunately are the spokespeople for the entire queer community) by using the acronym “WET folks” rather than typing out “women, enby/non-binary/gender-nonconforming, and transgender people who’ve experienced misogyny under the patriarchy” every time I write anything which I was informed means I’m “gender exclusionary in my inclusivity” and therefore a TERF
Going to the beach with my girlfriend (the implication being that having a life outside of my social media persona is a sin and selfish) and posting a picture rather than posting about the elections which prove I’m an elitist cunt who doesn’t use my gigantic privilege correctly and should therefore not have any
Charging money for my work proves I’m a “typical shitty white woman” who does nothing to rid myself of my unearned structural power. The suggestion from my follower was that I not have a salary and also to give everything I have to black SW (obviously this person doesn’t know me so doesn’t know that I budget a monthly allowance for this) who I apparently have been stealing from by making a living in a different industry
Being a monster that should be de-platformed for blocking folks who were verbally abusive and attacked myself and other followers for having a difference in *opinion* from them (how dare I take away their first amendment rights as a private individual with no duty to uphold the constitution???)
Refusing to TAKE ACCOUNTABILITY for my atrociousness, thus further proving the validity of the accusations, by daring to turn off my comment section to a mob of aforementioned vegans (never mind that my comment section is still open to over a thousand people who I follow and whose opinion I value enough to engage with)
Maybe it’s proof that I’m a monster after all, but I don’t know what I’m supposed to be sorry for. My work covers topics that are controversial. There’s not a single day where I can do my job and not make people uncomfortable. Nor can I possibly, represent every single person’s experience in my work. Yet my followers demand an impossibility. Everything I say is taken as a personal attack on their beliefs which justifies their vitriol and necessitates my cancellation. Ironically, these followers’ expectations mimic the same framework of toxic monogamy traits that I teach people to unlearn: ownership, perfectionism, and inflexibility. I base my polyam foundation on the counter principles of autonomy, abundance, and choice. I say over and over “not everyone likes the same things and that’s ok.” Yet there’s always a mob who punishes me for having an opinion that differs from theirs. You’ve described this phenomenon as “the nexus” (the combination of “identitarianism, social media, and cancel culture”). Thank you for giving me a word to describe the threat of cancellation that is always looming and inhibiting me from doing my actual job.
Things I’m canceling myself for
IRL I’m happy and growing, though admittedly messily. Online, I feel trapped feeling like shit all the time and seeing no way out. IRL I surround myself with people whose opinions I deeply respect and who help me when I HAVE made a mistake, recognize it, and support me to make an actual grounded change. I feel really good about this part of my life, it’s been deliberate. The only way I can do this job is by growing and learning. I’m an educator, which means I need to be educated. Cancel culture tells me that I’m not able to define the growth that I want to make for myself. It also assumes that mistakes entirely negate growth. IRL, I know I’m not perfect. I also feel inspired by the possibility of directing deliberate growth and change. Online, I’m simultaneously worshipped and crucified for everything and nothing. All nuance is erased and growth seems obsolete. People project their realities onto me and then punish me for not reciprocating in accordance with their fictional narrative. Conformity seems to be the only goal. I’ve been backed into a corner where my job requires my humanity and yet penalizes me for the complexity of humanness.
Clementine, the other thing your podcast has done is replace this notion of “accountability” with “responsibility” in my mind. You framed it as: responsibility is an initiative that you own because you want to. Accountability is being forced into a rigid ritual display of remorse motivated by an exterior force. I align with that philosophy entirely. I love that you commit and dedicate yourself to upholding your principles rather than living by the values others seek to place on you. No one is saying we shouldn’t grow or learn from our mistakes. Of course, we need to. That’s a fundamental part of treating others with respect and being authentic. There’s no space for authenticity when we’re forced to conform to a single way of thinking that prevents us from making mistakes or otherwise punishes us irrevocably. I make a similar distinction between living authentically or acceptably. Striving to be acceptable drives me further from myself. I stop recognizing the fundamental me. I want to trust myself again. That means going back to my authentic source. I know I’m good at what I do, the folks I teach tell me so and I believe them. But I can’t teach effectively if I’m constantly afraid of being punished for not being a good girl. Here are the things I HAVE done wrong that I don’t want to do anymore:
Participating in cancel culture
Promoting identity politics rather than authenticity
Creating fear-based content to appease my audience
Shying away from “controversial” topics out of fear of punishment
Feeling bad for existing and making a living
Offline I don’t believe in moral objectivity. People have the right to be however they feel most authentic and genuinely aligned with others. That’s not how I behave online though. Because the space is so toxic, it’s really easy to get dragged into the sludge, and boy have I! A few months ago, my team at Honey Play Box and I created a bad list of influencers that had been canceled. This was meant to protect the brand from also being canceled simply by being associated with “bad” people. Clementine, you’re on that list. I put you there. I never looked into what your “crimes” were because honestly, I didn’t give a shit, and gossip’s good as fact online. I’m sorry for that. Being on the receiving end of cancellation I know how those negative messages others spread about you online impact you IRL. I know that my contribution to your canceling did nothing at all to make you a better person. It makes me feel gross participating in the destruction of my peers, regardless of how much other people claim they “deserve it”.
Canceling definitely doesn’t align with my authenticity. I don’t think being “held accountable” through social media has helped anyone become a truly good person. Shaming people into change is delusional. I want to go back to giving people the individual possibility and responsibility of directing their growth. It’s not my place to sit in Godly self-righteousness and tell people how immoral they are. I only degrade my own integrity through that behavior. The loss of my sense of authentic self is truly worse than what anyone has or will accuse me of.
Anyways Clementine…
Where I authentically land is this: we enact what we are taught. Our culture taught violence over love. We have all hurt other people and take it for granted. Many of us don’t know how to love in the first place. I’m 27, recently divorced, and trying to love (and receive love) for the first time in my life. I don’t think that’s unusual. Most of us, are VERY familiar however with shame, violence, and punishment. I sure am. The penalty is not how you make up for hurt or switch to a model of love. Every single person deserves to learn how to not hurt others, and that can only be done on a foundation of love and respect. Abuse does not justify abuse. Certainly, abuse doesn’t teach us to love. You cannot beat love into someone. Victims need love to heal. Victims absolutely deserve justice. Justice is active change, not punishment. Justice is grounded in love. Taking responsibility to me means changing my behavior and focusing on my growth then sharing my wealth of knowledge in a kind way with others. It also means giving myself the space to make mistakes again. It means letting go of perfectionism and replacing it with humility and curiosity which jive better with my inner self. It means refusing to participate in this cruelty. I feel like we really align on this too: we can’t abolish police and jails then resort to authoritarian dogma and social ostracism. I’m tired of being scared of other people’s opinions of me. I’m tired of being punished by strangers and taking it personally. I’m tired of being forced to participate in others’ cancellations. I truly think I am better than that. And Clementine, I’m very grateful to you for reminding me. I’m grateful for you giving me a path forward and you can bet I will continue promoting you and your podcast with authenticity.
Best of luck navigating all the bullshit in the nexus, and hopefully we will connect one day!
Love,
Sam
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