8 October 2019
Douglas Androsiglio
Ah, the court of public opinion. It is a kangaroo court, at best. To those of you that do not follow current discourse online: lucky you. You still have functioning brain cells left.
“Cancel culture” is the process of ripping down a person’s entire career or livelihood over an old tweet or video that displays controversial behavior. It is systematically going over a person’s past with a fine-tooth comb and presenting decades social media post as evidence for a supposed “crime” that has been committed. It is making and believing in accusations with no credible evidence whatsoever and not caring about the truth of the matter.
Here is the part where I state the obvious: I do not think sexual harassment is to be taken lightly. Nor do I think that spouting slurs and tired stereotypes constitute good comedy. If someone did any of that in my presence, I would call it out immediately.
The mistake that people are making is believing that the internet is serious business. Anyone remember when that was just a meme and not the current reality?
A man named Carson King was at some college football game with a sign saying, “Busch Light Supply Needs Replenished” and asking people to Venmo him money for beer. Pretty funny, right? Well, this humorous sign compelled so many people to donate to this man’s account that he felt he had to do something more with the money coming in. He ended up taking the $2.2 million he received and donated it to the Children’s Hospital.
This makes me forgive him for his bad grammar and choice of beer. This story warmed my cold, dead heart and restored my trust in humanity again.
That is, until Aaron Calvin from the Des Moines Register came into the picture and decided to ruin it for myself and everyone involved in the fundraiser. Seriously, this man is why we cannot have nice things anymore.
Calvin and his actions are the epitome of everything toxic about “cancel culture” and is exactly why people do not trust journalists anymore.
What he did was dig up King’s tweets from when he was 16 years old and hold up the dirty laundry to everyone like a red cape in front of an angry bull. After that, Busch pulled their endorsement of King and cut all future ties with him. Over tweets from a 16-year-old kid. I do not know about you, but I take absolutely nothing a 16-year-old kid says seriously. Which is why I will continue to use plastic straws and eat cheeseburgers.
I would tell you what the tweets said, but they are now lost in the memory hole of Twitter. Never to be seen again. Apparently, they were “Tosh.0” jokes. So, retelling jokes made by a funny man on Comedy Central is now reason to ignore the fact that someone RAISED MILLIONS FOR SICK CHILDREN and set them on fire like the witches in Salem?
What is the point of asking people to delete tweets during the heat of a cancel culture frenzy, anyway? You are asking the accused to remove the only evidence that your little witch hunt had to begin with. Plus, you make my life harder. If I have no tweets to point to, how is anyone to believe that I did not just make all of this up?
As if life was not filled with enough irony, people on Twitter dug up Calvin’s past tweets and uncovered so-called racist tweets he made years ago. I say “so-called” because his tweets were deleted as well. I have no idea what they said After his tweets were brought to light, the Des Moines Register fired him.
You could see this as justice served, but then again, in a court of kangaroos, justice has no real value.