CANCEL culture is a term that has been widely used in recent years but what is exactly means appears to be rather confused.
Ted Cruz opened his CPAC speech February 26, 2021 by blasting cancel culture with the theme of the conference being “American Uncanceled.”
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Texas Senator Ted Cruz opened his CPAC speech in Orlando, Florida Credit: Associated Press What is cancel culture?
Dictionary.com defines cancel culture as the "popular practice of withdrawing support for (cancelling) public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive".
Essentially, people are "cancelled" when they say or do something offensive - and this prompts a widespread boycott of that individual's work.
Vox say that the phrase originates in the 1991 film New Jack City, in which one of the characters dumps his girlfriend and says he's "cancelling" her.
Many argue that "cancelling" some individuals for past actions is justified, such as those who have committed crimes or seriously hurtful actions.
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But it has also placed great scrutiny on the actions and opinions of famous people, with some claiming that it poses a threat to freedom of speech.
And some argue that it demands unattainable moral purity from public figures, who are shamed for making offhand jokes or comments online and then have their careers or reputations destroyed as a result.
Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage has also hit out at cancel culture, claiming in November 2021 that he had been a victim of it after a rugby club that was meant to host him for a charity event cancelled his appearance.
Farage said the “vindictiveness of the cancel culture mob knows no limits”.
Actor and Reclaim leader Laurence Fox has also hit out at what he sees as cancel culture, saying there was "growing infringements of the public's right to speak freely in the face of a culture increasingly ordered to self-censor."
Writing in the Express, in October 2021, he said: "The United Kingdom has fallen in line with the rising trend of Western democracies being slowly killed off by institutional kleptocracies who profit from claims of disinformation, polarisation, and radical ‘wokeness'."
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Influential feminist journalist Gloria Steinem also signed the letter Credit: Getty Images - Getty What is the cancel culture open letter?
On July 7, 2020, over 150 people from a diverse range of sectors published an open letter in Harper's magazine denouncing the "restriction of debate" caused by cancel culture.
The letter was signed by a huge range of influential celebrities, from author JK Rowling to public intellectual Noam Chomsky to celebrated feminist journalist Gloria Steinem.
In the letter, they say that cancel culture and social media has created "a vogue for public shaming and ostracism" and "a blinding moral certainty".
Other celebs have previously hit out at the phenomenon, including Taylor Swift who told Vogue it represented "a mass public shaming" and was "very isolating".
Demi Lovato also hit out at cancel culture, telling Elle: "Where is the forgiveness culture?
"There are some people, if you have used up your second and third chances with a certain topic, you’re cancelled and you should stay cancelled."
Spike Lee rips ‘cancel culture’ and says ‘you can’t just erase someone like they never existed’