The Black Mirror episode this week “Hated in the Nation” it brings up something that over the last couple of years and the blow up of social media. This being what we like to call as cancel culture. It shows individuals that have done things deemed to be unliked or hated by most of society. In the episode people are posting to a social media site like twitter where you’re able to post pictures, videos, hashtags, and reply to other peoples post. Then someone makes a post called Game of Consequences where people use the #Deathto with a persons name. Then the name with the most hashtags dies after 5pm each day and then the game resets after each day and you’re able to pick a new target. Now while post of the people doing these post did not know that these people were being killed they were still participating in it and it was the gang mentality of targeting someone who did something you did not like from a take in a news article to posing in a picture to look like they were peeing on a war monument. These two acts sparked a rage among people and they went all out on belittling and using the hashtags on these people who ended up being killed because of it. While cancel culture now a days does cause the person to be killed but pretty much does the same thing from getting a person fired from their job, losing draft position or not even being drafted in sports, and to just everyone knowing you name and face and you not being able to do anything in your life because no one wants to hire you.

We later discover that the people who were killed due to the hashtag were just collateral damage as those who participated in the game of consequences were the real targets. The person wanted to eliminate all those who had participated in the game and were spreading hate toward that person. This ended up killing thousands of people. I also thought it was interesting that robot bee were used to do the killing when something like those could be used in real life. The talk just a few years ago was that bees were possibly going to go extinct and if that does ever happen maybe robot bees are the solution to that problem. The way cancel culture has taken off I could see something like this happening in real life where someone creates a game like the game of consequences and a mass majority of people would participate. Then the person behind the game could use the robot bees to do the killing and then turn everything around just like in the Black Mirror episode.

We then read “How the Internet Created an Age of Rage” which talks about how with the internet the ability to either hide behind a computer or just an anonymous name has allowed people to just post hateful comments on or about anything they do not like. This article talks about stand up comedian Stewart Lee and just all the hateful tweets or post that people make about him and Lee said he would look at these and then try and make more jokes like the ones that were pissing people off. I think this goes for a lot of what comedians do where they talk about topics that people are sensitive about or do not really wanna talk about and then make jokes about them. I think comedy is suppose to do that its suppose to make things that are hard for people to talk about and do it in a jokingly manor to kind of ease the tension around the subject. Now with cancel culture I think there is some good about it where is someone is being openly racist toward anyone or doing things that are deemed completely wrong by all of society then they should be canceled. Context does also matter just like in anything like how old is whatever people are mad about because times change and people are allowed to change as well and that all has to be considered. A recent example would be with Jimmy Fallon when people were trying to get him canceled for a skit he did on Saturday Night live I believe in the early 2000s were he did black face. This was the 2000s where this did occasionally happen and it was on Saturday Nigh live where the script and everything of that nature is looked at and okay by higher ups in the show and it was allowed to happen. Now if that happened today where something like that is not socially expectable then I would be all for it. There is also a lot a negatives and they way I look at things is if it does not personally affect you or if you don’t like what someone is doing then do not pay attention to them and go watch someone or something else. Are you someone who just looks the other way or do you run with mob and become apart of cancel culture?

News Article

https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/08/us/2019-canceled-stories-trnd/index.html