Being Mean to Scabs Is Working

jeffw@lemmy.worldmod to News@lemmy.world – 977 points –
Being mean to scabs is working
motherjones.com

Drew Barrymore and Bill Maher are now not resuming their shows amid strikes.

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Again, as I said in other comments, I’m not talking about boycotting. You obviously shouldn’t support people you don’t like. But you also shouldn’t create online campaigns against them, unless they’re currently doing something bad and you want it to stop, which is not the case most of the time.

"Boycotts" are large scale campaign. Nobody cares if a few odd people don't buy a product; it's en-mass or it's just belly aching. You're making a distinction that does not exist.

unless they’re currently doing something bad and you want it to stop, which is not the case most of the time.

That’s the difference.

You want to stop buying Nestlé products because they are currently exploiting child labor? Nothing wrong with that, I’m on board. They need to stop.

You want to “cancel” a musician because of comedy videos on a Youtube he already stopped posting 3 years earlier? That’s just stupid.

So for example Harvey Weinstein gets a pass on all his shitty rapey behavior? How long in the past does it need to be? What is the ‘statute of limitations’ on shitty activities?

The Marbles woman did some shitty stuff. She agreed what she did was shit but issued the standard non-apology apology that she didn’t intend to hurt anyone with her shitty awful shit. Also she just quit. Apparently she made so much money it didn’t matter.

I have no idea who kobayashi is other than a guy who quit the hot dog eating competition.

If this is all you’ve got, it’s pretty thin sauce.

Weinstein did slightly worse than a blackface on youtube. The stuff he did would’ve been clearly seen as wrong even when he did them, it’s just that people didn’t know.

No one cared about a random youtuber painting their face for a satirical video in 2011. But suddenly when it got dug up 10 years later she was the most horrible person on earth. That’s just hypocrisy.

Kobayashi is a Japanese comedian that was chosen to direct the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony. Suddenly a guy online posts one sketch from 20 years earlier where he mentioned the holocaust and poof, job gone. Because you wanted to be a little edgy on a comedy sketch about “stuff you can’t say on tv” on Japanese TV in 1998. Is that okay to you?

I think you are getting confused about the definition of cancel culture.

Definition one: Not supporting celebrities when their problematic actions come to light. This is the one that was made to prevent people from banding against or facing consequences for their actions.

Definition two: A harassment campaign where people bring up actions from years ago even when they changed, taking things wildly out of context, and calling out in bad faith to bully small-scale content creators.

The commentor is talking about definition one here, and it seems that you are talking about definition two.

Exactly. But there’s not really a distinction in the term.

I said it’s terrible as a whole, because actions taken in case one rarely have any considerable effect, while I can list a few for case two. If they were two separate terms I would’ve obviously been against the second definition only, but they’re all under the same umbrella.

Not to mention people can make bad faith arguments for both (“yeah we just found out that guy raped 27 girls last year, but after that we don’t know anything so he’s changed!” / “ok, the only racist remarks that person did were 40 years ago, but have they really changed or are they just hiding it?”) so the line gets blurry.

Overall, the number of “campaigns” that actually worked at “cancelling” a bad person is way too small to justify the harassment to all the other people. That’s why I think it’s not worth it, just support who you want, let people live their life and only harass them if they’re currently doing something bad (or if the bad thing they did in the past was straight-up illegal like the aforementioned Weinstein).

The article is literally about a case in which it has worked, which doesn't fit your definition of it being bad.

And what I said was "Let’s not excuse it because of some rare cases where it achieved something good." I'm not trying to frame this specific case as a bad thing, I absolutely don't think it was.

There are other examples though. Lots of them. I agree with your premise, but the evidence is that the threat of cancellation does trigger action in many celebrities and public figures.

I honestly didn't see much of that, except in cases where it was a legal issue like Weinstein or Kevin Spacey. Rowling is still around and didn't care in the slightest. Kanye can't shut his damn mouth and still sells like crazy. Not to mention Musk who keeps getting worse. It seems unless the law is involved, it only works on small creators and people with a slight sense of guilt.

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unless they’re currently doing something bad

Ahh, this is his issue. He thinks that people should get a pass because they've gotten away with doing bad things in the past.

Essentially, if you don't catch them in the act, then you shouldn't get to criticize them or hold them accountable.

What a shitty take, probably from a shitty person who wants to be held to the same shitty standard so they can get away with similar shitty behavior.

I feel bad for those close to you that have to put up with that.

So if someone ever said something barely racist in a satirical context or whatnot and then went on to have a successful career by joking about less offensive stuff they should live in fear of that one thing getting dug up and their whole life crumbling in front of them.

Cool, I guess you’ve never changed your views on anything during your life, good for you. I mean, what’s the point of becoming a better person if the one mistake you did is forever etched in history.

That's not what "cancel culture" is outside of the right-wing media network. I'm very staunchly progressive, all my friends and most of my family are left leaning, and we literally NEVER engage with "cancel culture" the way your media says we do. In fact, I don't know a single person that has ever talked about canceling anyone, ever, as far as I'm aware. This, along with all the attempts to make it seem like the left supports perverts and killing literal infants is all part of a very, VERY obvious attempt to paint MILLIONS of people as some sort of boogeyman. People on the left react to you the way they do because you believe in and spread nonsense that only exists to demonize them, all from atop some kind of high horse made up of default human values, as if you're proud of being a basic human (protecting children/property/public wellbeing). The right literally fabricates stories, then tells you millions of regular Americans support pure evil, and you guys eat that shit up every single time, not because it has any basis in reality, but because you're addicted to feeling reviled by, and better than others.

I believe that every human has the ability to be rational and do good in the world, and I also believe that every human can be misled and manipulated into living a terrible fear-ridden life of baseless hate and paranoia towards others. Which kind of human do you want to be?

"Your media"? "You guys"? My guy I'm not right-leaning. I'm not even American, and if I was I would've wanted Bernie in charge. But I've seen a lot of times people facing backlash for stuff like that. Those news get on mainstream media as well (talking mainly about Kobayashi, Oyamada fits the definiton too but that's way less excusable). Not to mention, if you follow content creators online you get to know about the backlash firsthand (like with the dumb #Jojisoverparty that luckily didn't gain traction).

For someone who isn't right leaning, you're pretty good at sharing text book right wing talking points. If the American propaganda machine were a boat, the online content you consume would be in it's wake. Further, it doesn't matter if you don't watch the propaganda directly if you're watching "content creator's" who watch it and then relay the information to you in an easy-to-digest "here's how you should think about this" 20 min video.

What “text book right wing talking points”? That cancel culture is mostly bad, when they push to ban books because they mention gay people existing? They love it as much, if not more, than the left. Even if they might’ve “coined” the term, it’s very much a bipartisan issue.

And no, I’m not talking about that kind of “content creators”. I’m talking people who don’t talk about politics at all and get their comments stormed by people complaining because they found a tweet from when they were like 15 using the n-word.

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