“You can’t be cancelled if you haven’t signed up. Don’t sign up.”
Hollywood actor Denzel Washington’s advice sounds like the gospel, but does it really work in real life? Whether a form of mob justice or public accountability, cancel culture is a pervasive practice of ostracism. Individuals or organisations are cancelled because of objectionable actions, statements, or affiliations. Most of us have been touched by cancel culture either as the ‘canceler’ or ‘cancelee’.
A misspoken line or a joke that
“You can’t be cancelled if you haven’t signed up. Don’t sign up.”
Hollywood actor Denzel Washington’s advice sounds like the gospel, but does it really work in real life? Whether a form of mob justice or public accountability, cancel culture is a pervasive practice of ostracism. Individuals or organisations are cancelled because of objectionable actions, statements, or affiliations. Most of us have been touched by cancel culture either as the ‘canceler’ or ‘cancelee’.
A misspoken line or a joke that did not land is enough to start a war in a socio-economic theatre where groupthink becomes a strategy and human beings turn into weapons. Fear, shame, and conformity are all but ammunition to aid individual consciousness in carrying out ‘punishment’.
First described by American researcher and psychologist Irving Janis, groupthink explains how groups tend to put consensus above critical evaluation. Shunning any dissent or qualifications, groupthink produces decisions that may be irrational or harmful. In cancel culture, groupthink manifests as a collective performance of moral certitude. Once the group—or its stalwarts—has been convinced, a verdict is reached within the digital public sphere, and even uncertain individuals feel pressured to amplify the dominant narrative. They do not want to become targets themselves. Not just leading to the shaming of the cancelled figure, the groupthink is more about the colonisation of each participant’s mind. There is little room for independent reflection or critical distance.
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The theory of cancel culture seems to be derived from what Karl Marx described as fetishism—the process of turning social relations into objects. In the economy of cancellation, outrage is fetishised as a commodity. Individuals can possess, display, and exchange it for social capital. It’s the Goyard handbag of the socially conscious. The much-highlighted cancellation may not be a performance of ethical conviction but about accruing visibility, belonging, or status within the group. The anxiety to belong—or at least being seen as belonging—and the connected insecurity manifest as righteous certainty.
The biggest harm caused by this weaponisation of groupthink, however, is the reduction of moral complexity into a consumable gesture. The very act of cancellation becomes justice, and the pursuit of the latter becomes secondary or even a non-issue. Whether it’s the dogs of Delhi or the people of Palestine, seeking justice for them means merely outraging about them.
The recently released horror film Weapons dramatises this masterfully. The control of mind is not just an outcome of external pressure but of the willing surrender of individual critical engagement. As the plot progresses, the outraging individuals impede the process of seeking justice, fixating only on the act of cancelling. It’s only a matter of chance—and some sorcery—that the mind control actually achieves justice or catharsis.
Also Read: Essay: On the spectacle of cancel culture
What Washington said in the recent interview about not signing up, therefore, does not protect the individual from being cancelled. The disturbing potential for accountability to metastasise into persecution, as individuals shun their independent judgment for the will of the crowd, poses a real threat. The burning of the witches across the world or the beef lynchings in India are examples of cancel culture going too far, too easily. Silence or distancing are often seen as culpability.
Yes, the call to cancel a friend to punish an imagined slight is not on par with physical violence against an individual or a community. Both rely on the same groupthink toolkit. The fear of exclusion becomes its own weapon—more efficient than any external enforcement. The demand for ‘justice’ can be co-opted by the seductions of conformity. This is how cliques are formed. Cancel culture turns the individual mind against itself, caught in the vicious circle of the inability to imagine oneself acting outside the collective script.
Also Read: Cancel culture vs Ghosting
In such a scenario, freedom of speech and freedom of conscience are not undermined by any decree but dismantled by the quiet terror of disapproval. Nobody wants to risk being cancelled, and they hurry to cancel the Other without any critical deliberation. As American author Philip Roth says, “Only a label is required. The label is the motive. The label is the evidence. The label is the logic.”
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