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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   Edited 2yr ago   34787 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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There is, i feel, a degree to which cancel culture is just... Twitter culture. Where do mobs find stuff to hate? Twitter. Where do they organize? Twitter. Where are the employers nice and easy to contact via, essentially, short form open letter? Twitter again.

Don't get me wrong, cancel culture can still exist without twitter, but i expect it to be far more of a minor and localized phenomenon.

Anyway, this is a silver lining if shit all goes south and Twitter dies. Though for my part i still gain value from Twitter and i'd be bummed out.

And on reflection, cancel culture is just the dark mirror of legitimate accountability-- MeToo would not have gotten off the ground without twitter, nor would protests over various police abuses of power.

A failed Twitter would have lots of cultural consequences.

but twitter is also a force against cancel culture. Some of the most popular accounts are individuals who are critical of the left.

I feel like one core insight of cancel culture is that if you have 1000 detractors and 20000 supporters the detractors can still make your life shit in ways your supporters can't really help with (phoning your boss, doxxing you, sending rape threats, harassing organizations that have the capacity to inconvenience you, etc.)

Or in other words, it's the same old Heckler's Veto, just at international scale this time.

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