Birendra Madai

The terms ‘cancel culture’ refers to the popular practice of withdrawing support for public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive. It is generally discussed as being performed on social media in the form of group shaming.
When a determined collective of critics attack on someone's employment and reputation based on his/her opinion or an action alleged to be disgraceful is called cancellation.
Despite the fact that cancel culture emerged only in the past few years, it has become a ubiquitous phrase among English speakers.
Although supporters argue that cancellations help to demand greater accountability from public figures, its critics, most of the people, call out cancel culture as a negative movement owing to the fact that its consequences are too harsh in even minor instances.
In the beginning cancellation was a ‘cultural boycott’ of a certain celebrity, brand, company, or concept. However, within the turbulent past several years an individual person can too, be cancelled which implies that he/she can be culturally blocked from having a prominent public platform or culture.
Given how frequently it’s been used to repudiate sexism and misogyny, it’s ironic that the concept of ‘cancelling’ shares its DNA with a misogynistic joke. The first reference to cancelling someone came with the 1991 Hollywood film New Jack City where the protagonist plays a gangster named Nino Brown. When his girlfriend breaks down because of the violence he is causing, Nino dumps her by saying, ‘Cancel that bitch. I will buy another one.’
However it seems to have gotten its first big boost into the zeitgeist from a reality show entitled ‘Love and Hip-Hop: New York’ which was aired in December 2014 where a cast member tells his crush during a fight, ‘You are cancelled.’ A US based study carried out by Insider shows that the phrase ‘cancel culture’ experienced a notable growth in 2016 and 2017, particularly on black twitter.
Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling faced intense criticism from her own fans after she began to voice in transphobic beliefs. A series of fleeting cancellations of celebrities including Taylor Swift and Kanye West brought about more discourse. By 2019, more news articles had analysed the trend, and ‘cancel culture’ became a piece of mainstream vernacular.
In October last year former President of the USA Barack Obama, during an interview about youth activism at an Obama Foundation summit, criticised the trend without directly using the phrase. During 2020 alone, a number of people and institutions have faced public backlash for giving a platform to anti-progressive value.
In most of the cases people who are cancelled have been getting continued support that instead of costing their careers is turning into a blessing in disguise. With the rapid explosion of the internet it has changed the way we cancel, and also extended cancelation's reach making it one of the buzziest and most controversial ideas.
The debate around cancelling culture is partly about how we treat each other and partly about frustration with the lack of real consequences for powerful people. Even amidst COVID-19 pandemic, it has become a polarising topic of debate among the intellectuals.
So with a heated debate a question arises whether cancelling culture is an important tool of social justice or a new form of merciless mob intimidation.