In society, we treat celebrities like gods. They set our standards for beauty, fashion, and culture. Essentially, they are our modern-day idols. This is evident in how we buy their art, sing to their songs, and support them even when they are involved in immoral dealings and despicable scandals. We tend to shield celebrities and forgive them more than the non famous, despite the fact that everything we know about these celebrities are things we learn from the news and the images of themselves that they put on social media.
This highlights a double standard in how we approach sensitive matters. Whenever we hear about child and domestic abusers, and other hateful people, we quickly stand against them. But if they happen to be celebrities, we are willing to give them second chance, and even our unrelenting support.
There is enough bad publicity out there for a lot of our favorite celebrities for us to cancel them now. For instance, Chris Brown, Drake, Tupac, Michael Jackson, Cardi B, Kanye West, Logan Paul, have been involved in some ethical scandal in the past etc. Nonetheless, some of these celebrities still continue to receive unparalleled support from fans world wide. But despite the evidence, many of us choose to ignore, not believe it or superimpose their artistry over their behaviour.
Reading this, you might think that altogether many celebrities are doing shady things behind closed doors. If you could see the skeletons in everyone’s closets, would you stop supporting everyone you know? But this is not what I am saying.
Although it may not be fair to conclude that everyone is in the wrong anyway, the issue is if we pick and choose who we want to listen to based on their behavior or not.
My personal issue with the canceling party — which has run rampant all of 2018 and 2019 — is that it is not consistent. As the public, we decide who to cancel based on our biases about these celebrities and our relationship with their art.
Furthermore, the time at which we feel like cancelling a celebrity is necessary is also interesting. A lot of these breakout stories do not contain any new information the public does not already know. For example, with the R. Kelly situation, most of us are aware of what and who R. Kelly was for so long. We’ve known what he was doing since the tape leaked. We also know that Aaliyah was underage when Kelly married her. In my opinion, this was enough information for him to be cancelled. Why does the public wait to cancel a celebrity until it reaches an extreme and is too late to ignore it any longer?
If we cancel an artist, we should also stop supporting every other celebrity that falls under the same category.. If everyone falls into this category, then everyone should get the boot. Let’s not be loose and sloppy. Let’s be consistent instead.
