The faces of cancel culture in 2023

When the term “cancel culture” emerged in the American lexicon a decade or so ago, it seemed like a trend with a short shelf life. People struggled to define it, even as they pointed out instances of it with furious certainty.

On social media, it seemed something like a bad cold, a passing annoyance, especially when wealthy celebrities were said to be canceled for trivial things. (Chris Pratt may hold the record for the most “cancellations” — which, for some, is proof that cancel culture doesn’t really exist.)

However, in recent years, cancel culture came to have a more serious — and ominous — meaning for everyday people losing jobs for having unpopular opinions and beliefs. And it seems to have matured and put down roots in 2023.

Multiple books were published on the subject, including “The Cancel Culture Curse” by Evan Nierman and Mark Sachs, “The Canceling of the American Mind” by Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott, and “The Case for Cancel Culture” by Ernest Owens. Databases have emerged that track instances of cancel culture in academia and people who have been “disinvited” from speaking engagements, a form of cancel culture. There was even a movie that dealt with cancel culture: “Dream Scenario” starring Nicholas Cage.

Meanwhile, social media continues to be the primary driver of cancellations, and there is still widespread disagreement over whether cancellation is really just accountability by another name, and whether a boycott (like those launched by some social conservatives this year against Bud Light and Target) amount to cancellation. There have also been prickly discussions about whether actions against students protesting the Israel-Hamas war amount to a form of cancellation.

But cancel culture was in the news every month this year, in one form or another. Here’s a look at the faces of cancel culture in 2023.

January

NFL commentator Tony Dungy, the first Black coach to win a Super Bowl, was the first attempted cancellation of the year in a case that met the classic definition of cancel culture: He said something that some found objectionable and others called for him to be fired.

In Dungy’s case, his “offense” was announcing on Twitter that he and his wife were going to the March for Life “to support those unborn babies who don’t have a voice.”

February

“Dilbert” cartoonist Scott Adams said he was canceled this year for comments about race that he called deliberate hyperbole. But others — including newspapers that pulled his comic strip (The Deseret News included) and a publisher that canceled his scheduled book — said that Adams’ remarks about race were beyond the pale. The story made headlines for weeks and prompted serious discussion about what constitutes cancel culture — and what doesn’t.

Related

• Perspective: The Tony Dungy controversy is a wake-up call for people of faith

• Deseret News statement on ‘Dilbert’ comic strip

March

The month of March saw calls for Donnie Yen, a movie producer and actor who was born in China, to be deplatformed for his support of the Chinese government. Yen was scheduled to be a presenter at the Academy Awards on March 12, and he was, despite the presence of protestors outside. A petition calling for Yen to be canceled as a presenter did not reach its goal of 150,000 signatures.

April

It’s unclear whether the Budweiser Clydesdales were canceled by social conservatives or by a distributing company for the label. But in light of the backlash to Bud Light putting the face of transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney on a promotional can, appearances by the iconic team of draft horses were canceled in April, the New York Post reported.

Related

• Evan Nierman on the ‘least cancelable person on the planet’ and how to end cancel culture for good

• Perspective: Is Hollywood courting or mocking the right in ‘Dream Scenario’?

May

She became known as “Citi Bike Karen” — a pregnant New York hospital worker who was filmed yelling for help and crying when teens swarmed around her as she was trying to unlock a bike.

For a while, it looked like Sarah Comrie would suffer the same fate as the Central Park dog walker who was filmed by birder Christian Cooper in 2020. Comrie was put on leave from her job, doxxed online and said she had to go into hiding, as the mother of one of the boys said they had reason to think the bike was theirs. But Comrie had receipts — literally — and after showing that she had paid for the bike, a New York Times columnist came to her defense. (That didn’t happen for Amy Cooper, the dog walker who in November wrote an essay for Newsweek saying that she is still in hiding, three years after her encounter with Christian Cooper.)

June

Showing that it’s not just conservatives who get canceled, country singer Garth Brooks found himself in the crosshairs of cancel culture when he pointedly said in June that he would serve “every brand of beer” at his new bar and implied that people boycotting Bud Light are ... well, in a politer term than he used, jerks.

“I know this sounds corny, I want it to be the Chick-fil-A of honky-tonks. I want it to be a place you feel safe in. I want it to be a place where you feel like there are manners and people like one another,” Brooks said.

But the boycott of Bud Light turned the beer name into a verb and, as The Wall Street Journal pointed out, was the beginning of a “rough year for beer.”

July

Another country singer, Jason Aldean, had to call out cancel culture in July when his song “Try That in a Small Town” was decried by some as racist and promoting gun violence, and the video was pulled from CMT. Speaking about the controversy at a concert in Ohio, Aldean described cancel culture as “if people don’t like what you say, they try to make sure they can cancel you, which means try to ruin your life, ruin everything.”

He also said: “Here’s the thing, here’s one thing I feel: I feel like everybody’s entitled to their opinion. You can think something all you want to, it doesn’t mean it’s true, right?”

Also in July, there was another apparent cancellation of a horse, over the views of the man who rode him. Markers honoring Traveller, the beloved horse of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, were removed from their longtime places of honor at Washington & Lee University, a student newspaper reported.

August

Actress Jennifer Aniston hasn’t been canceled — but she thought she might be for her remarks about cancel culture in The Wall Street Journal, in which she said she was done with cancel culture and suggested that people ought to get second chances, except in the most egregious cases.

“I probably just got canceled by saying that, I just don’t understand what it means. … Is there no redemption? I don’t know. I don’t put everybody in the Harvey Weinstein basket,” Aniston said.

September

Is the shunning of Russell Brand cancel culture or a non-carceral punishment for crimes? That was the subject of fierce debate after The Times of London published an investigation into allegations against the British comedian and actor. The investigation, The Wall Street Journal reported, included “four different women’s stories of rape and sexual assault by Brand over the course of seven years.”

But Brand has said that the relationships in question were consensual, and he has high-profile supporters, including Tucker Carlson, who say Brand is being persecuted for his political views.

Related

• ‘Is there no redemption?’ Jennifer Aniston gets candid about cancel culture

• Has cancel culture really come for a horse?

October

When The Washington Post published an article detailing the “violent history” of the fall favorite known as pumpkin spice, social media was quick to announce that pumpkin spice had been canceled.

The reason? According to Post’s article, “the main spices in pumpkin spice are fraught with colonizer histories.” Thankfully, the furor had died down within weeks, and so nutmeg, “which has the most compressed terrible history,” did not seem to be adversely affected at Christmas.

November

The subject of cancel culture took a much more serious turn in November as protests over the Israel-Hamas war ramped up. Al Jazeera published multiple articles saying that people were being canceled for speaking out in support of Palestine, and The Guardian in the U.K. reported, “Palestinian American activists say television networks also have censored or canceled interviews. Public radio in the U.S. and the BBC pulled advertising for a widely praised new book about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after a campaign of ‘listener complaints.’”

And so-called “doxxing trucks” that publicized the names of students supporting Hamas so that companies wouldn’t hire them in the future prompted debates over whether such actions were ethical, or simply another form of cancellation.

December

Candace Cameron Bure has been the subject of cancel culture multiple times, and she spoke about her experience this month on a podcast, saying, “Cancel culture is very real.”

The actress, who came to fame playing D.J. Tanner on “Full House,” evoked the ire of some people after saying in 2022 that her new network, Great American Family, would highlight “traditional marriage.” And earlier this year, she weathered accusations that she tried to have a transgender actor kicked off the cast of “Fuller House,” which she denied.

She said she found solace and strength from reading the Bible, Fox News reported, and realized, “You have to be ready for some of those fiery darts to be thrown at you in a bigger public platform.”

Related

• Cancel culture keeps coming for Candace Cameron Bure. But she’s still putting faith and family first