Viewpoints

How “Cancel Culture” Blasted a Boy

By Natalie Villacres

Spectrum staff

From where he sat on a concrete bench in a Queens park, he rocked back and forth. Nervous, his hands shook as he spoke his answers into the microphone.

“It was pretty traumatic, a little bit. Pretty traumatic.”

The 15-year old boy was recounting the backlash he faced after he posted on Instagram his support of the officer who killed George Floyd. “I made a statement that wasn’t, you know, um … probably thought through right …But I didn’t really mean any harm in what I said at all.”

Because of the incident, his mother, fearing for her son’s safety and mental health, refused to have his name published for this article.

He is symbol of what’s happening, controversially, in what some are calling “cancel-culture.” Those, including teens, who post their thoughts and beliefs — things others object to — on social media platforms risk being called out and labeled as homophobes, misogynists, xenophobes, racists and others who are frowned upon. Even social media influencers such as Skai Jackson, the former cast-member of Disney’s “Jessie,” have exposed text messages, screenshots, and videos of people engaging in controversial behavior.

Cancel-culture itself has its critics. But just how should society handle these disagreements? Even that is being debated.

David Dent, a professor of journalism and social and cultural analysis at New York University, talked about it. “The polarization in our society has become so intense that it has left people with an inability to be charitable to those who might have a point-of-view that differs,” Dent told The Spectrum. “It limits people’s abilities to really engage in the ideas that may be oppositional. But … it’s important to engage. That may create new, thought-provoking solutions to problems.”

That 15-year old boy, who’d sat shaking on a park bench, agrees with Dent, adding that his situation was blown out of proportion.

“Usually, it’s [cancel-culture] well placed,” he said. “But sometimes I just think it’s an over exaggeration, you know. Cause sometimes the person says something that they don’t really mean.”

After he learned the whole story of what happened with Floyd, his opinion about that murder changed.  But, by that time, his original post had been screen-shot and spread around.

Dozens of his classmates and now former friends fired back at him. “Some people went as far as to say they hate me,” he said. They set up an Instagram page with the username “Cancel ___.” (His name filled in that blank spot.)

He wishes they had reached out to him before they did that. “The best way is to, just, like, you know, talk to them,” he said. “Talking to the person, trying to understand why they think the way they think is the only way of doing it in an actual peaceful way.”

But Laura Pisciotte, 17, senior at high school in Florida, doesn’t believe folks who say and write bad things online people should just get a free pass. She believes that people sometimes need to face the consequences for what they post.

She told The Spectrum that school officials did nothing after she reported a classmate who had posted online xenophobic remarks about her Latinx friend.  “As an immigrant myself, it was just absolutely disgusting,” she said.

But she also feels it may not help to always publicly shame people who. “I truly feel that if he was given consequences and if he was really educated on the issue, he could change in the future.”

She is angry that school officials did nothing. That says something about the times we’re.

“It’s kind of a trend I have noticed in my school,” she said. “The kids that are African American or Latino that … even remotely disrupt the class have severe consequences, compared to him who made pretty derogatory comments … and received nothing Although he is half-Hispanic, he himself is very pale, blonde hair blue eyes. And he just has that white privilege.”

But, the 15-year-old New Yorker, said cancel-culture doesn’t leave white people unpunished: “If you’re white you’re automatically kind of targeted. We’re just seen as more arrogant.”

NYU’s Dent, who is black, warns against targeting white people just because they’re white, and of making generalizations about anyone’s opinions. “Black people and African Americans were reduced to limited opinions that didn’t appreciate their diversity,” he said. “I now see that happening in terms of perceptions of white people in our society. That it limits the view of the individuality of white people like the way the individuality of black people has been limited.”

Especially as people are spending more time at home and alone, during Covid-19, they should be more careful about what they post, the 15-year-old said.

“I think that everyone just has more time on their phone,” said the boy, who has apologized on Instagram about is wrong-headed post about George Floyd’s death. “And, so, it kind of makes things scary. You know, like, you say something. One second and then 10 seconds later, it’s just everywhere.”

He added, “I’m not really a victim. Of course, you know, um, it’s just kind of over exaggerating to think of it like that. But sometimes, it’s hard not to feel that way. They just found the worst in what I did … I didn’t mean to hurt anybody. I really didn’t mean for anybody to hate me. I guess you can say it was all a mistake.”