Let’s Discuss: Cancel Culture, Putting Artists on a Pedestal, and Separating Art from the Artist

If you know much about me at all, you know I won’t ever have a Twitter. Even without one, you can spend very limited time on there. I use this to check up on creators I follow on Youtube or anyone else I’m curious about. It’s probably the most toxic space I’ve ever encountered (no hate to anyone who loves it).

If you have one, you probably know that already, and it seems like every day now something new comes out about a celebrity or a musician or an author or that guy you met at a gig 3 weeks ago who seemed, like, really cool. Turns out he kicks dogs for a living, and your favorite artist has some more than questionable views about people who remind you of someone you love, or even yourself.

I recently saw a Tweet from a creator I watch on Youtube asking for opinions. What do you do when someone you truly respected and/or looked up to has some seriously problematic opinions?

I want to preface this by saying this post is going to be quite the ramble, and I’m going to fire off a lot of thoughts. My goal here is not to sway you one way or the other. My goal is to make you think.

The first thing I want to say is that in this “Era of the Internet,” we are constantly berated with more knowledge, opinions, news, rumors, speculation, thoughts, and politics than we know what to do with.

Much like how people’s opinions changed drastically on war during Vietnam because it was televised, and people finally knew what we did when we went to war, the same happens now with individuals who publicize their lives.

It may seem wild, comparing war to cancel culture, and it is. But it’s also an easily understandable example of what I believe is going on here.

And it seems like common sense, right?

War is hell. And celebrities are human beings.

The problem is human beings have a tendency to only believe what they see. But when you see the Napalm Girl, or when someone you’ve put on a pedestal your entire life as a creator and a hero thinks people like you shouldn’t believe what you believe, or even go so far as to suggest you shouldn’t exist, I can see why it would hurt.

And people suck. They always have. There are bad doctors, police officers, teachers, presidents, Youtubers, authors, factory workers, soldiers, church-goers, and every career type in between.

But until you see it with your own eyes, you can hide from that fact. You can pretend every celebrity you love cares about everyone, and thinks everyone and every opinion is valid, and has no bias. And you can believe war is only about hurting bad people who want to destroy everything good in the world, and not about doing what the country doing the beating up believes is a good reason for beating other people up.

As humans we tend to see things in black and white. People who have done bad things are bad people. And people are only good as long as they don’t do a bad thing.

The problem with that is that nobody has ever gone through life without doing a single bad thing, or having a bad opinion.

And when those bad things are publicized, millions of people see that, and they decide for themselves whether they can still support that person.

And every single one of those people draws a line in the sand somewhere.

For some people, animal abuse is an inexcusable act, for which there can be no forgiveness. For others it could be SA, murder, transphobia, homophobia, misogyny, or any number of other grievances, regardless of what you personally feel is “bad enough” to warrant these feelings.

And I’m here to tell you that it’s okay for someone’s opinion or behavior or words to inspire you to no longer respect or look up to that person.

But I’m also here to tell you that when we put people on a pedestal, we should always remember that they are just that. People.

I doubt a single person in the world exists that has the exact same views as you on every single thing you have an opinion on. If they do, it’s probably either because they don’t have opinions on much, or they’re adopting your opinions so you don’t feel ostracized in your choices. Because as people we also tend to be afraid to express polarizing opinions, especially online.

And it’s not like we shouldn’t be. People online can be especially passionate about their opinions. And when you have a billion people watching what you’re doing, it’s unlikely you won’t offend someone with your actions.

But much like the fact that wars still happen despite the dramatic shift in people’s opinions on them, and we happen to be living in the most peaceful time in human history despite the news being full of violence, cancel culture rarely stops or changes people’s opinions, or even impacts their celebrity status.

So, what’s the problem then? If millions of people are watching someone, and even one hundred thousand of them decide that person has done something bad enough to warrant a loss of respect for them, that is still a tiny percentage. And if it’s a tiny percentage, then why is cancel culture bad?

It’s not.

W-What?! Cancel culture isn’t terrible?

I don’t believe so, no.

Everybody has something that they can’t handle hearing from someone they care about. And you’re bound to hear one of those from someone you used to enjoy.

And regardless whether people think a kind of relationship forming between artist and appreciator of that art is “unhealthy,” it still happens.

So, what to do?

I think we should remember to pick our battles. And remember we all have bias. An artist might do something we consider bad enough to drop them. Maybe we didn’t particularly adore them anyway. But we still listen to the music of another who did something similar because they happen to be our favorite artist.

But that’s hypocritical!

Wait until I tell you about another human trait.

Hypocrisy used to be the thing that annoyed me the most in life, until I realized how often I was annoyed.

Because hypocrisy and bias are very closely linked, everybody does it. Because everybody has bias.

Your perspective is uniquely yours, and you’ve built your opinions based on past trauma, experiences, and relationships, and it’s 100% unique to you. And yes, I did mean to be redundant. That means everyone you know, even to a tiny degree like the persona of a celebrity, is also unique to you. There are millions of different versions of you to everyone you’ve ever met, and the same goes to people you see.

And in my opinion, people shouldn’t be belittled for that.

So I suppose the problem is that people are belittled for that. But at the same time, we can only control how we react to a situation presented to us.

I bet that no matter how hard you try, you couldn’t force 100 thousand people to change their minds about something. It wouldn’t even have to be something polarizing or political or controversial. It could be something as simple as whether chili should include noodles, whether people with pink undertones should wear red, or whether that damn dress was white and gold or blue and black.

So, my advice? Do what you need to do to protect your peace. Whether it’s to stop listening to someone or reading their books because they express an opinion you can’t respect or tolerate, or whether it’s continuing to enjoy someone you enjoy despite other people’s opinions on them. The key is to allow other people to feel what they feel, regardless of whether you agree with it.

Because at the end of the day you probably can’t change their opinion, and if you’ve informed them and they continue to believe what they believe, you’re unlikely to hurt them, but very likely to hurt yourself.

We should also remember that some people are capable of separating art from an artist, and others aren’t. Neither is good or bad.

And so it’s for each individual to decide whether they can find life in their favorite books or movies or music in a world where their creator doesn’t exist. For me, Harry Potter is a living thing all in itself, and I rarely thought of its creator either negatively or positively back in the day. But for some people, that creator is so deeply ingrained in the source material that people can’t enjoy it anymore.

Also okay.

I hope you enjoyed this discussion, and I hope I said something that at least made you think. The world is a huge melting pot of experiences, opinions, thoughts, and feelings, and we should all do our best to try and understand each other.

Thank you so much, have a very happy and love filled Thanksgiving, and I hope to see you next week!

Happy reading!