Cancel Culture Is Restricting Creativity In Music

By Jack Bartholomew

I know what you’re expecting. “Cancel cancel culture.” Was that the quote you thought I’d recite? Whilst essentially it’s the truth in most circumstances, I wasn’t going to use it but now it’s been mentioned, I’ll say it again. Cancel cancel culture. Again? Cancel cancel culture!!! I can say it louder. CANCEL CANCEL CULTURE! Happy now? Well, now we’re on the same page and have established that it’s detrimental to society, let’s talk about how it’s decimating to the music industry and disallowing anybody to surpass boundaries. Here we go…

First and foremost, let’s define ‘cancel culture’ in the simplest terms. The premise is people that feel the need to voice their opinion on social media in an overbearing manner because they disapprove of something that has been vocalized either recently or in the past. Then, like a petulant child, they want to throw a tantrum until it disintegrates from existence by campaigning on social media platforms. This could range from a celebrity, film or a song. In most instances, it almost certainly is affiliated with a person who they deem as responsible.

Whilst I can understand some instances like if a celebrity has committed an unforgivable crime, the reasoning for most individuals is ludicrous and taken entirely out of its contextual environment. In most instances their ideology comes down to “I don’t like this, please erase it from existence.” It can ruin an individual’s reputation especially when their perception of the “truth” spreads over mainstream media or trends on social media. It’s changing society rapidly and now it’s beginning to restrain any creative freedom from people within the music industry. This is problematic because, y’know, music is an art form!

One of the more recent tragedies has been Eminem. People have been insisting that he’s a rapist sympathizer because he wrote the song ‘Love The Way You Lie’ eleven years ago. Yes, the song was written from a rapist’s perspective but it’s not exactly glorifying it. Art is allowed to reflect upon deplorable acts and you CAN do that from the individual’s perception to make an impact about their heinous thoughts. That doesn’t make somebody evil, does it? Are we not allowed to discuss the flaws in our society in case a small minority are offended? Ludicrous!

Imagine if the ‘cancel culture’ crowd became aware of the existence of Alice Cooper’s ‘Cold Ethyl’, a song from a man’s perspective about killing his wife, locking her in a fridge and committing necrophilia. Yet, does that make the born again Christian, golfer that regularly does charitable work for the community a depraved individual? No; it’s all about context. It’s part of a conceptual album about a nightmare – the song itself is providing some dark humor in its ridiculousness. What’s so difficult to understand about that? Is it really a concept that is complicated?

If this continues authenticity will officially be dead. You won’t be allowed to write anything that doesn’t align with their very specific and uneducated beliefs. Which means every artist will be a product of the system. Fuck! Isn’t there enough of them? Just imagine, it’s 2032, you’re browsing through Spotify and anything mildly inventive has been removed due to the fear of these people. You’re stuck listening to a hack justifying their every choice of word because they’re too afraid to voice any opinion or statement that causes harm to their career. Everything pre-2015 has gone. ARRRRGGGHHHH!!! I’m getting a migraine just thinking about it.

The angry mob have also been infuriated by past statements by artists too. Acting like they’re the principle of a school angry at a student for stating something they think is unacceptable. Sometimes, it is, but very rarely. It makes you wonder if it’ll soon impact the personality of international music superstars. How boring will the music industry become? Everyone will be too scared to say anything.

Imagine if the Sex Pistols were around in modern day civilization. They couldn’t make a statement on any beliefs or act courageous as people might tweet about them on social media in an attempt to ruin their career. Why? They’re not doing anything harmful other than their rebellious antics and provides us with entertainment whilst they do it. Nowadays. it’d be seen as ‘reckless’ or ‘anti-social’; people would be advocating for festivals to remove them from the lineups, get Spotify to delete them entirely and disallow them from entering any talk shows.

This needs to end. Desperately. If people don’t stop giving in to the ridicule we really are setting up for a tedious, insipid future with no variety. We’ll have no one to challenge the democratic system or at least not in an intriguing, powerful way. It’ll limit artists visuals and integrity. We need to teach the people advocating to erase artistry how context goes a long way. Not everything what you see is in black and white. Sometimes you have to read between the lines to diversify your knowledge on certain subjects. Just because you don’t understand it, doesn’t mean you have permission to demolish it.