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I'm looking for reading recommendations about CANCELLATION!

🕑 Added 2025-01-06 18:57:37 +0000 UTC

Comments

Charles

Trauma In Metro by Theo Thimo

made_line

Homo Sacer, agamben

Tommmyyy

https://theculturewedeserve.substack.com/p/culture-digested-the-feminist-sneer

Michael McClelland

https://platypus1917.org/2018/11/02/metoo-and-the-millennial-sex-panic/

User

This isn't the deepest dive or anything, but It's an artist's own perspective on cancellation: https://noahbradley.com/cancelled/

J

Fuckingcancelled.com Clementine Morrigan has some great stuff on cancel culture

Sexy Insect

I was reading Moldbug and according to him cancellation is a communist phenomenon. He cites some books like Freda Utley (idk which book) and Eugène Lyons (The Red Decade)

Kevin Gallagher

Adam Phillips' Attention Seeking isn't about cancellation directly but it does speak to the social and internal role of shame and the performance of self. It's also a quick read.

Kevin Gallagher

I second this recommendation. "My thesis is that at many levels of human interaction there is the opportunity to conflate discomfort with threat, to mistake internal anxiety for exterior danger, and in turn to escalate rather than resolve."

Addison Vawters

After Accountability by Pinko

Meggy

so you've been publicly shamed by Jon Ronson

superposition

Episodes 6, 21, & 23 are all good

Nicholas Toll

strongly second this

Anh Pham

https://youtu.be/SLotGgneoys?si=U-Dt0rYHaEuqJDl- CJ the X

da spiffy pranksta

Contrapoints also has a number of other videos that mention canceled figures, such as Cringe, Envy, and J.K. Rowling

da spiffy pranksta

Canceling | Contrapoints https://youtu.be/OjMPJVmXxV8?si=bLvpp6X7MQI-hUQB

b_____n

Tyranny of Structurelessness is the one

Sparky

I thought Contrapoints's video on her own cancellation was nuanced and interesting

Anh Pham

https://youtu.be/LpTHzY-mYHM?si=U0lLEo9qhLvL3BjB Jimmy Carr

Anton Elmgren

Broey Deschanel - Cancelling: A culture of retribution

Random

Catherine Liu

&k

Holy shit great call!!!! Esp that Jo Freeman essay on the tyranny of structurelessness

Mead McInnes

Available through the internet archive btw https://ia601700.us.archive.org/23/items/conflict-is-not-abuse/Conflict%20Is%20Not%20Abuse.pdf

Mead McInnes

This is a book, but a really interesting read that ties in well to cancel culture ideology that I urge everyone to read: Conflict Is Not Abuse by Sarah Schulman. It explores the "culture of underreaction to abuse and overreaction to conflict", and how "experiencing the inevitable discomfort of human misunderstanding often overstate the harm that has been done to them."

Milly Schmidt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjMPJVmXxV8

Jeremy Malizola

@Mchesher311 so outside of it but have old connections with central florida emo scene and saw a lot of those people amplifying it. Was very insane to see it all unfold, and subsequently see people who maybe actively participated in gleeful cancellations in the past question the behavior a bit

Hans Cucumber

Oh also that black mirror episode where the drone bees are hacked to assasinate canceled twitter users “hated in the nation” I think this was also very early and might even predate the term cancel culture

Hans Cucumber

Basic suggestion but Jon Ronson had developed some interesting takes early on in the culture, ‘so you think you’ve been publically shamed’ also he’s written some essays on it more recently but I haven’t read them. Love him

Mchesher311

Friend/acquaintance of Mo. Also experienced a ridiculous Portland level cancelation. Seeing what Mo dealt with was absolutely dumb founding.

Standard Grey

Canceling Comedians While the World Burns: A Critique Of The Contemporary Left by Ben Burgis

Morgan Waltz

Very different pieces but: the conversation between Rhonda Lieberman, Bruce Hainley, and Sarah Leher Grawier in the Rhonda Lieberman Reader Rene Girard - “all desire is a desire for being” collection of essays A few of Ben Davis’ essays in “Art in the after-culture”

Brad Troemel

any particular episodes stand out?

Ana

https://thecritic.co.uk/cancellation-of-a-brazilian-artist/

Adnaan Narot

What’s Our Problem by Tim Urban

superposition

Seconding the Fucking Cancelled podcast

Philip Walton

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6269163/amp/University-lecturer-32-suspended-likening-abortion-NECROPHILIA.html

Philip Walton

Justin Murphy wrote a great ‘open letter’ after being suspended from University of Southampton back in 2018, can’t find it, this, however is hilarious: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6278739/amp/Southampton-University-lecturer-boasted-online-stealing-self-checkouts-taking-ECSTASY.html

carter tanton

Emmalea Russo

lola kramer

The Witch Trials of JK Rowling presents is an excellent case study… https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-witch-trials-of-j-k-rowling/id1671691064

lola kramer

Yascha Mounk’s “The Identity Trap”… And this piece on Nancy Spector’s departure from the Guggenheim did a great job of looking at the role of ‘the scapegoat’… https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/11/guggenheim-racism-controversy-curator-nancy-spector/671529/

Taylah

Culture of Complaint by Robert Hughes more or less predicted our current situation in 1993, and goes into the systemic and policy reasons to why he believes it happened.

Clark

@clementinemorrigan @fuckingcancelled THE BEST!

maddy varner

More recently, the Blake Lively/Justin Baldoni litigation back-and-forth offers an interesting window into how the public’s desire to police morality can be weaponized for personal gain: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/21/business/media/blake-lively-justin-baldoni-it-ends-with-us.html?smid=url-share

Nate Rennick

Sarah Schulman, Conflict is not Abuse

Joey Perr

Freud’s Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego

Michael McClelland

Obviously no discussion of cancellation can be complete without mention of its prehistory in the Combahee River Collective, the Sojourner Truth Organisation, "consciousness raising" in second wave feminism, Jo Freeman's essays on "trashing" and "structurelessness", imported Maoist conceptions of "speaking bitterness", "criticism self-criticism", and cultural revolution.

maddy varner

The former teen blogger behind “Your Fave is Problematic” did a personal essay looking back at their experience which I think is worth a read: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/25/style/your-fave-is-problematic-tumblr.html?unlocked_article_code=1.nE4.KGg2.UbEtKZn0ieEL&smid=url-share

Andri Schatz

OG Mark Fisher‘s Exiting the Vampire Castle: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/exiting-vampire-castle/

Susanō Surface

https://www.autostraddle.com/kin-aesthetics-excommunicate-me-from-the-church-of-social-justice-386640/ “Excommunicate Me From the Church of Social Justice” by Frances S. Lee

michael mcgrath

Contrapoints’ video recounting her own cancellation certainly comes to mind.

Michael McClelland

https://platypus1917.org/2020/11/01/the-cancel-wars-the-legacy-of-the-cultural-turn-in-the-age-of-trump/

Michael McClelland

https://platypus1917.org/2021/10/01/on-the-marxist-use-of-psychoanalysis-to-understand-fascism/

Robert Jett

So You've Been Publically Shamed by John Ronson and season one of The Morning Show on Apple TV

Caroline Del Giudice

Echoing the Jon Robson recommendation!

Nicholas Troughton

The Cancelling of the American Mind is a solid chunk of boomer analysis on cancelling.

Wil

I have it. Just a bunch of empty corporate “inclusivity” speak.

Jonathan Sessa

So You've Been Publicly Shamed by John Ronson is great and was really early in discussing internet cancellations, I don't even know if that was a term that was used when the book was written

&k

Zizek is always great at connecting it to the superego: https://www.compactmag.com/article/wokeness-is-here-to-stay/

Jeremy Malizola

Not a book/movie/etc but in terms of the subject, one of the craziest/confusing “cancellation” events ive seen recently was this portland musician named Mo Troper whos ex cancelled over analysis of song lyrics? Or something? It was messy and really put into perspective a closing of a chapter in terms of “cancel culture”. I recommend trying to do a twitter dive but heres an article: https://www.stereogum.com/2256645/mo-troper-abuse-allegation-denial-statement/news/