My Take on Cancel Culture

I have a generally middle of the road stance on cancel culture.  I firmly believe that adults should be held accountable for their actions or the stupid things they say.  But let's not ruin someone's life over something they said on social media when they were a preteen.  Humans mature and we certainly learn that a lot of the things we said when we were little spitfires are not acceptable.  Kids have influences and a lot of the time the influences are bad.  All it takes is one instance where they pick up a slur and they think it's the funniest thing ever.  They get enjoyment out of saying things they shouldn't.  My oldest brother swears like a sailor, and I picked up on it at a very young age.  I would be going around saying the f word on the playground in kindergarten.  The bottom-line is we must take what kids say with a grain of salt.  We shouldn't let them go around saying bad things, but if it gets kept on record let's not crucify the adult because of the kid.

Like I said before, I'm lenient with incidents that occur at a young age (Brewers pitcher Josh Hader used some slurs on Twitter when he was young and living in a time where certain profanity was surprisingly acceptable).  By the way, I'm not condoning what he said by any means because it is terrible--the lowest of the low--but there's no saying that he's the same person today.  He has a little bit more room to breathe because he hasn't repeated any of the offenses.  It is a little alarming, however, that he never thought it was a good idea to delete those tweets after time has passed.

I got on a tangent there, but what I was going to say is that there is little to no tolerance for adults who say or do something bad.  My specific example I'll be discussing is the incident with Morgan Wallen.  Wallen was caught on video drunkenly yelling the n word at his friend during an argument.  Fans will try to defend this, astonishingly, saying things such as 'he was just drunk' or 'he didn't say it about an actual black person.'  But I am a proponent of the saying 'drunk words are sober thoughts.'  There is no way that the alcohol was strong enough to cause him to say the n word in that manner for the first time in his life.  He has definitely used that word before (I would bet a lot on it). And even if he was very drunk, it's very unrealistic that he had no control or will-power over his actions.  Sure, drunk people say things they wouldn't normally say, but people who don't use the n word don't all of the sudden decide the n word is in play when you've had some drinks.

It doesn't help that Wallen is a part of a music genre that is symbolic of the American south. I am hesitant to put him under this umbrella because there are genuine country artists out there like Luke Bryan.  But in my opinion, country encourages and embraces conservatism, which is sometimes synonymous with racism (at least in olden times).  That is my personal opinion and it's very bold to say, but the country music genre doesn't sit right with me at times.  Jason Aldean is someone who is starting to go off the deep end now.

I give Wallen the benefit of the doubt with regards to the country thing because, I have to admit, he does have some enjoyable songs.  My girlfriend likes a lot of his music and it rubbed off on me (I communicated to her that I am not a fan of him personally).  It sucks that this had to happen, but he did a terrible thing and I think it's inexcusable.  I believe cancel culture is certainly in-play here.  Morgan Wallen is so popular and has a vast influence on younger generations as they listen to his music.  You can't let someone who uses racial slurs continue to have an influence on our younger generations.  It was disgusting that as people were calling him out for his actions, his record sales rose drastically.  I hated that, it made me sick.  How can someone use a racial slur and benefit from it???????????

Cancel culture is appropriate when the person could potentially negatively influence people. We can't let people going around saying crazy stuff because we all know, related to my ideas in the first paragraph, younger kids will parrot it. However, Morgan Wallen still escaped cancellation.  It leaves a bad taste in my mouth when I hear his music.  And it does suck because he has enjoyable songs.  It leaves me with no choice but to hate the person and like the music, if that's possible.