Cancel culture: Cancelling the cancellation

Abstract

In this article, I try to reconstruct how cancel culture has been defined and propose my framework for understanding this phenomenon. In order to do this, I review its definitions and point to the links between the culture of nullification and universal processes of grassroots, extra-legal punishment. I also present five interpretive frameworks in which cancel culture is usually placed. Then I offer my approach to this phenomenon, arguing that the concept of cancel culture came into existence as an establishment reaction to disseminating network forms of grassroots punishment. It can be recognized as an attempt to maintain control over the processes of attracting attention and building a reputation by those who dominate. In the article, I also try to show that the construction of cancel culture is counterproductive: It leads to the dissemination of network annulment, weakens trust in constitutive actions for affective capitalism, and strengthens the processual nature of culture.