Imagine you wake up in the middle of the night to your phone blowing up with notifications. You see messages such as “canceled” or “clown” light up across your screen. This is what our generation is becoming known for, our ability to jump to conclusions and cancel someone for making a mistake. This idea of canceling an individual is the most prominent on social media platforms such as Tik Tok. With this being said, the idea of cancel culture is harmful to society due to being used inconsiderately, causing mental illnesses, and not being beneficial overall. 

     A recurring issue with cancel culture is that it is often misused. Individuals who have not done anything to harm society get canceled. People on social media pick and choose who to cancel and who not to cancel. They choose who to critique and pick apart and who to get away with no consequences. Cancel culture plays into the roles of bias and favoritism. For instance, in 2017 fans of Kim Kardashian canceled Taylor Swift after they got into a feud. Taylor was exposed as a “snake” on Kim Kardashian’s Snapchat story.  A “snake” is a social media term to describe a liar. Taylor Swift was then harassed on social media with the snake emoji and received various attacks (Diaz, 2020). Although Taylor Swift did nothing to harm society she still was canceled because Kim Kardashian said so. Favoritism was shown to Kim as her fans stopped supporting Taylor due to behavior that did not affect them. 

     Furthermore, cancel culture has a negative impact on humans. It can lead to mental health issues such as social anxiety (Tzoumas, 2020). Social anxiety is a disorder that causes fear in social settings. According to the ADAA, 15 million people are diagnosed with social anxiety. It is most common in young children around the age of 13 (Higuera, 2018). People feel pressured to appear “woke” and not make mistakes. The term “woke” means to be alert to injustice in society. This fear of peer judgement evolves further and results in the person keeping their thoughts to themselves. They may feel guilt over their internal thoughts and become socially anxious. For example, someone who appears confident and optimistic may feel the need to hide their true self to others. They are constantly worried about their image. 

     Despite everything, cancel culture helps hold people accountable for their actions and brings awareness, however, it is simply not effective. The president of the Australian Association for Professional and Applied Ethics, Hugh Breakey, claims, "On the flip side, being consistently outraged by opposing viewpoints provides a ready reason not to consider them. This feeds directly into confirmation bias and group-think.” (Breakey, 2020). Breakey interprets that overwhelming people with contradicting opinions causes them to not consider them. In addition, trolling people with cruel words online does not bring about a social justice change. The only thing that cancels culture achieves is further dividing our already divided nation. An effective way to go about this issue would be to sit down and have a private meaningful conversation with the person who was in the wrong. Tell the person why their behavior was inappropriate or offensive in a respectful manner. This allows them to reflect and work on themselves as an individual without receiving large amounts of hate online. Ultimately, canceling someone is not efficient nor practical.

     In the end, there is no room for growth when being watered with poison. In today’s society, we are quick to dismiss people without giving them a second chance. We are constantly putting each other down instead of lifting each other. We are all quick to jump to conclusions and cancel someone without giving them time to work on themselves and improve. If we want to move past this and come together as a nation we need to stop the hateful behavior and allow room for change. If our generation listens to this message, our world will be a kinder place.