Years ago I said that celebrities beyond their power, wealth, and fame, are human beings with the right to speak on whatever topic they are so moved to speak upon. I wasn’t wrong, but I am curious, are we going too far with the cancel culture?
Well, that depends on who you ask, and who you’re talking about. If we look at Kanye West we can honestly say that he has said some truly horrendous things, while supporting the white supremacist system that has colonized most of the planet, while simultaneously destroying it through war and oppression. He has supported – openly – Nazis and said that Hitler didn’t get it all wrong. He said those things, and there are people on the left who think he’s gone too far.
I’m one of them, but who am I to decide whether or not he has a career? Publically I have come out many times against Kanye, and the truth is that I’ve never been a fan. Men like him, Donald Trump, and Tucker Carlson are all the same.
Then there are people like Zachery Levi who came out and said he agrees that Phizer has too much power on the planet.
Okay, and? I don’t see this as a bad thing. As a fan of his work and a fan of comic book movies I look forward to seeing him in bigger adventures, but many people are saying that because he’s said one thing, he really means something entirely different, and again I am forced to remind you that what is said, is not always what is heard.
I do think that anyone with a platform, regardless of the size, needs to be careful of what they say and how they say things, in part because that platform follows us for specific reasons. Fans idolize people with large platforms, and when we speak out one way or another, it’s really easy to convince people to join us.
I feel for my friends who are famous, who gets chased by paparazzi, who are willing to do anything including create car crashes, to get the perfect shot.
But, that being said, we also know that people get weird when they are around famous people and we’re now living in a society that is convinced if it’s not on social media, then it didn’t really happen, and we need to get rid of that rule.
When it comes to interacting with celebrities – and this includes famous politicians – people genuinely forget their manners. They think that because it’s the internet you can say and do whatever you want, and often times we get away with it because the cops are buried in cases of harassment that they can’t keep up.
So when it comes to “cancel culture”, fans often rally together – I remember participating in ending the career of one actor who had repeatedly gone out of his way to be sexual with his youngest fans and got away with it. Travis is no longer working in Hollywood and I feel zero regrets, because it was important to me, to make sure this man didn’t have open access to child fans.
I think there are consequences for your actions. If you behave in a way that people appreciate and respect, if you make sure your life isn’t entirely about making yourself happy at the expense of others, then you have fans who love and adore you, but when you cross a line when lives are literally on the line and you show that you don’t care, yeah, people are going to stop supporting you. And maybe you deserve it.
People forget that everyone has a right to speak, but not everyone has to speak, this is a lesson I’m learning as I grow older, and hopefully wiser.
People are growing older, and the behaviours we accepted in the days of old, are not behaviours that we accept in our world today and nor should we. The Nazis’ were effective at killing, but that doesn’t mean that what they did was the right thing. They murdered millions, and still many haven’t been named yet, so if you support Nazis and Nazi rhetoric, then you deserve what you get, and I won’t feel sorry for you.
But to go a step further, this isn’t just about white supremacy, it’s also about men behaving like what happens to women is okay. Cancel Culture isn’t just for the famous folks on the planet, we just talk about it more because more people know about it.
Some of you need to cancel your friend groups too.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall
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