黑料吃瓜

Eve Ng, associate professor in the School of Media Arts and Studies and the Women鈥檚, Gender, and Sexuality program, has published a new book on a phenomenon that has emerged in recent years across social media and in the culture at large 鈥� cancel culture. traces the origins of cancel practices and discusses their evolution within celebrity and fan cultures, consumer culture, and national politics in the U.S. and China.

Ng defines cancel culture as comprising two central elements: cancel practices and cancel discourses. She explains that being 鈥渃anceled鈥� doesn鈥檛 necessarily mean that the individuals, brands, or organizations are made to become insignificant indefinitely or are made to suffer consequences for the rest of their lives; rather for many cases the cancel targets are only affected temporarily.

鈥淐ancel practices, or just 鈥榗anceling,鈥� is made up of the things that people do to cancel other people, brands, and so on, like 鈥業'm stopping following you on social media鈥�; 鈥業'm going to post a hashtag cancel so and so鈥�; 鈥業'm not going to buy certain goods anymore,鈥欌€� Ng explained. 鈥淎nd then what I call 鈥榗ancel discourses鈥� is what people say about canceling.鈥�

The book explores the origins and nature of cancel culture through case studies examining the cancellations of celebrities, television shows, brands, and even countries. Ng said the concept of consumer nationalism was one of the more interesting aspects of cancel culture she came across in her research.

鈥淐onsumer nationalism involves a nationalist approach to consumption, like, 鈥榃e鈥檙e not going to buy such and such a brand because they insulted my country,鈥欌€� Ng said. 鈥淚 talk about consumer nationalism in China, where a lot of Western brands get canceled on a regular basis鈥攍ike the NBA got canceled in China for a long time because of certain remarks some players made about supporting Hong Kong.鈥�

Ng said that one element that characterizes canceling, and differentiates it from longer-standing practices like boycotting, is 鈥渄rama.鈥� Take the example of fashion brand Dolce & Gabbana, which was canceled in China in 2018.

鈥淐anceling is often much more dramatic,鈥� she said. 鈥淚n China, it wasn鈥檛 enough to say, 鈥業鈥檓 never buying Dolce & Gabbana again.鈥� People had to burn their bags and clothes and post the videos of the burning things on social media.鈥�

Those videos and other social media posts, along with news reports, opinion pieces, and comment sections across the internet, made up the data Ng used for her research. As a qualitative researcher, Ng utilized methods that didn鈥檛 require the kind of massive number-crunch a quantitative analysis would have called for. 

鈥淭here are ways to qualitatively sample data,鈥� she said. 鈥淥ne is to look at which tweets or which comments have the highest number of likes or retweets, and that鈥檚 a rough indication of what people are thinking, saying and feeling about this topic.鈥�

In the cases of the actor James Franco and the comedian Louis C.K., who were both canceled following sexual misconduct allegations at the height of the MeToo movement, Ng found that many of the most popular social media comments were actually those supportive of the men.

鈥淚f you just looked at media reports, you might get a misleading sense of how people felt in the digital sphere,鈥� Ng said. 鈥淏ut looking at the comments allows a more complex view of opinion.鈥�

The support shown in those comments from the outset of the canceling would eventually be borne out: C.K. was received 鈥渞elatively well鈥� when he returned to the public stage roughly a year after the initial scandal.

鈥淭hose comments from way back when he was first canceled weren't just an aberration, it was a sign that, yeah, not everyone agrees with this canceling,鈥� Ng said.

One of the most high-profile (and high-stakes) instances of cancel discourse occurred after Ng鈥檚 book was published, when Russian president Vladimir Putin compared western reaction to his country鈥檚 invasion of Ukraine to the canceling of Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling.

鈥淏ecause I wrote this book last year, I wondered if, by the time it's published, will cancel culture just be passe?鈥� Ng said. 鈥淏ut no, it's still in the public discourse.鈥�

Ng said she sees opportunities for future research into cancel culture in the Putin episode.

鈥淚t would be really interesting to look at what Putin said: How did people respond to his critique of cancel culture?鈥� she said. 鈥淭here are first order discourses, right? People saying 鈥榖lah blah blah cancel culture.鈥� But then there are second order discourses of people commenting on people commenting about cancel culture, et cetera.鈥�

Ng also sees opportunities for further research into the cancellations of non-celebrities. Her research cites a few articles about regular people who get canceled after their racist behavior gets captured on cell phones, for instance.

鈥淎 lot of that data is really interesting, but we need more of it precisely because it鈥檚 a relatively new phenomenon that people are just starting to look at,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 worthwhile just to follow cancel events and see what happens after the spotlight moves elsewhere.鈥�