Culture Feature

8 Times Conservatives Proved They Love "Cancel Culture"

Boycotts and blacklists are tools conservatives perfected — they just don't like it when the tables are turned.

Emily Robison, Natalie Maines, Martie Maguire The Dixie Chicks, Emily Robison, left, Natalie Maines, center, and Martie Maguire, who earned five Grammy nominations, arrive for the 49th Annual Grammy Awards in Los Angeles.

Matt Sayles/AP/Shutterstock

I don't want to alarm anyone, but...THE LEFT IS CANCELING MR. POTATO HEAD THEY'RE CANCELING DR. SEUSS, AND NEXT THEY'RE GOING TO CANCEL YOU!

It turns out that the political Left in the US is actually made up of various literary estates and multi-national toy corporations that are intent on destroying your cultural values by erasing the biological sex of a plastic potato and ending the publication of racist caricatures in some obscure books you were never going to read. But these are just the latest instances of what the Right-wing outrage machine has identified as a violent attack on free speech.

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This photo shows a model wearing a creation by Burberry at the Autumn/Winter 2019 fashion week runway show in London. The chief executive and chief creative officer of luxury powerhouse Burberry have apologized for putting a hoodie with strings tied in the shape of a noose on their London Fashion Week runway.

Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP/Shutterstock

Let's travel back to 2019, when London Fashion Week attracted the standard cornucopia of high end brands showcasing their weird-as-hell designs, from Victoria Beckham disregarding the impracticality of peep toe boots in the winter to Burberry debuting a hoodie with a noose as the drawstring.

Yes, they did that. And yes, everyone was uncomfortable. But for all the outrage the offensive fashion incurred, image this happening in 2021. After the resurgence of Black Lives Matter, a Capitol insurrection, and a hotly divisive presidential election, these kind of mistakes by any brand would be inconceivable in 2021.

Hop into our time machine to ask the unthinkable: Have we as a society made...progress?

Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP/Shutterstock


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Ellen in her apology video

Proverbial "cancel culture" is not new, but it reached its zenith in 2020.

Everything was fodder for canceling and nobody was safe. People had the time to comb through old tweets and Instagram posts, while new content was prolific from every celebrity whose projects and vacations were paused.

From irresponsible pandemic comments and behavior to more serious unearthings of racism, 2020's cancellations ran a wide range when it came to who and why.

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Culture Feature

This Haunts Me: When Jeffree Star Ruined the Black-owned Beauty Brand Juvia's Place

How a cosmetics company representing African culture, vitality, and pride was "canceled" because of a known racist influencer.

Jeffree Starr at the Anna Nicole Smith Tribute Event

By s_bukley (Shutterstock)

As we're (finally) making more efforts to support Black-owned businesses, we should inevitably be wondering why there have been so few of them visible to mainstream consumers.

Within the astoundingly white-washed beauty industry, Black-owned brands account for a shamefully small fraction of the industry. This is especially egregious considering that, on average, Black women spend nine times more on beauty and hair care than white women. In 2017 Rihanna's Fenty Beauty released an inclusive range of 40 shades of foundation to wild acclaim, and the industry began to reckon with its lack of diversity.

Major brands like Dior, Rimmel, and CoverGirl have attempted to release more diverse shades, but their tactic of "diverse" advertising often commodifies and objectifies non-white skin tones. As writer Niellah Arboine critiques, "There is something really dehumanizing about calling [products] chocolate, caramel, mocha and coffee while all the lighter shades are porcelain or ivory."

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Culture Feature

Shane Dawson and the Plight of the White Male YouTube Star: When Cancel Culture Fails Us

YouTubers Shane Dawson, Jeffree Star, James Charles, and David Dobrik have all had major success in spite of "cancelable" offenses. How do we ensure they're held accountable?

George Floyd

Photo by Jean Beller (Unsplash)

Following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and the subsequent push from progressives to overhaul America's law enforcement, celebrities, and public figures have been forced to reckon with their own history of racism at varying degrees of severity.

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Culture News

Maybe Cancel "Lolita" Instead of Madison Beer?

But was Beer's off-hand comment so bad?

Madison Beer

By Christian Bertrand (Shutterstock)

It's not often that 65-year-old literature becomes the center of online controversy–but maybe it should happen more often.

On Monday, 21-year-old singer Madison Beer faced backlash when she replied to a fan's question about what she thought of Vladimir Nabokov's 1955 novel about a middle-aged man's predatory obsession with his 12-year-old stepdaughter. During the livestream, Beer said it was her favorite book and that she "definitely" romanticized the storyline.

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