Cancel culture is now, unfortunately, a phenomenon ingrained into the background of life, politics, branding, social media, small social circles, and the workplace. In this series we look at people, businesses, and movements that have been cancelled. Our last installment told us about the origins of Cancel Culture. We also saw how PePe Le Pew and the band Mumford and Sons have been affected by the movement. Cancel culture, which former President Donald Trump called “the very definition of totalitarianism,” describes the phenomenon of frequent public pile-ons criticizing a person, business, movement, or idea. Here we will look at MyPillow and even Dr.Seuss.
MyPillow CEO Cancelled
MyPillow CEO, Mike Lindell was cancelled after openly supporting the theory that former President Trump was a victim of election fraud resulting in him losing the election. Lindell’s Twitter account was “permanently suspended due to repeated violations of our Civil Integrity Policy,” a Twitter spokesperson told NPR. It was not immediately clear which posts from Lindell led to his removal from the social media platform. In an “interview” with NewsMax, Lindell was brought on to talk about Twitter banning his account which led to him being spoken over by interviewers. He was not allowed to speak more than a minute before he was being interrupted. Finally one of the interviewers, rather than listening to what Mike Lindell had to say, got up and walked off set in a moment many people are calling a “live cancellation.” Cancelling has had an effect on Lindell’s brand, MyPillow; retailers like Bed Bath & Beyond and Kohl’s have stopped selling MyPillow altogether. “They’ve attacked my company,” Lindell said. “They’ve attacked companies that I’ve worked with. … They’re trying to cancel me out. I just got off the phone with Bed Bath & Beyond … They’re dropping MyPillow.” Lindell was targeted by the Cancellation mob because he openly stood with Trump resulting in a loss of sales for MyPillow. Cancelling does not seem to have the same effect on everyone, in the next case being cancelled caused a surge of sales.
Dr. Seuss cancelled
In 1936 Theodor Geisel was on a ship from Europe to New York when he started writing rhymes on the ship’s stationery during a storm. The rhymes morphed into “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street,” a book about a boy who witnesses outrageous and crazy things. The book started Geisel’s career as Dr. Seuss; he went on to publish more than 60 books that have sold some 700 million copies globally, making him one of the world’s most popular children’s authors. Over the past few years, people have called for Dr. Seuss’s cancellation more and more for the racial undertones that were drawn in his books. Dr. Seuss books are a staple in children’s literature but Learning for Justice, a left-wing educators group, has been trying to cancel the children’s author. The group under the Southern Poverty Law Center promotes racial and social justice being taught to students as young as five-years-old. All of the books being recalled by Seuss’s team are “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street,” “If I Ran the Zoo,” “McElligot’s Pool,” “On Beyond Zebra!,” “Scrambled Eggs Super!,” and “The Cat’s Quizzer.” The announcement that the six books would no longer be printed seemed to drive a surge of support for Seuss and his classics. Dozens of his books shot to the top of Amazon’s print best-seller list right after the announcement to stop publishing. Why do you think being cancelled has had a different effect on Dr. Seuss than others such as MyPillow CEO, Mike Lindell?
Cancelling originally started as a movement in 2017 to take platforms away from people who didn’t deserve them. Cancel Culture goes against one of the first layers of our country’s foundation, the first amendment. Why should we have to be worried about being “cancelled” by society over things that should be categorized as free speech such as who you support in politics? “We live in the age of cancel culture, but this isn’t something that started this week. It is something that they have been doing to us and others for years,” Eric Trump told The Associated Press. A movement that was designed to make society a more positive place and hold people of higher status accountable has left us walking on eggshells on social media, in the workplace, and within our own groups of “friends.” Our next installment will look at some of the craziest reasons people have been cancelled as well as a letter a lot of high profile people have openly signed which a lot of people on the left are calling problematic.
Written by: Erinn Malloy
