cancel culture

noun

1. The cultural phenomenon of publicly shaming, rejecting, and ceasing to provide support to people, companies, stores, etc. that are deemed unacceptable, and calling on others to boycott them.

   “Ms. Nakamura said that cancel culture was born of a desire for control. People have limited power over what is presented to them on social media platforms, which are notorious for being poorly regulated.”

   “With roots in Black Twitter, cancel culture is an unavoidable mainstay of our infotainment age. In an era of too much everything—TV, opinions, news—we’ve come to rely on a vocabulary of consolidation: likes, tweets, emoji. Cancel culture is one of these argots—a governor, a self-regulatory device I have come to wield with pride (if infrequent recklessness). In the collective, the gesture is absolute: we can’t. We’re done. And so we asphyxiate support from a notable cause or figure. Roseanne Barr referred to Valerie Jarrett as an ape? Cancelled. Harvey Weinstein was outed as a sexual predator? Cancelled.”