Cancel Culture: The Decline and Disconnect Within Society | Jasmine Iacullo | TEDxYouth@NBPS

Transcriber: Ilaria Marinozzi

Reviewer: Sadegh Vahdati Nia Ask anyone to describe my generation, more commonly known as Gen Z, and they will likely mention

TikTok, Instagram or Snapchat. Social media

is the center of our attention. We are always scrolling,

tapping and liking. But amidst the online networking chaos, the prevalent idea

of cancel culture arose. Cancel culture is defined as when

someone is pushed out of social or professional circles

in a modern type of ostracism. Now, cancel culture was originally

used as a way to call people out for being prejudiced or hateful

towards a certain group of people. However, we have gone from calling someone

out for a major wrongdoing and ostracizing them completely

just because we can. I like to call this a power play. You see, we have gone from holding

accountability to all of the “antis” and “phobics” online

to name-calling and borderline bullying, all for that little slice of power. We put the label canceled on anything

that bothers us in the slightest. So I guess the question is, how do we fix this? How do we bring our community

back together? How do we turn canceled into connected? Well, the answer seems simple enough. Just stop arguing over the Internet or maybe delete all of your social

media to avoid the situation. But to the world’s avail, the social media network isn’t actually

the root of the problem. Take Beauty and the Beast, for example. Now, we have all seen or heard of Beauty and the Beast at least

once or twice, right? Whether it’s the live action version

featuring Emma Watson, the critically acclaimed on stage musical, or simply the original animated

Disney movie. Well, it is evident that

the antagonist Gaston has convinced the angry mob that

the beast is, well, merely a beast. That he is evil inside and out. Also that he can marry Belle

or [inaudible] an hero. Now, I know you’re probably asking yourselves, “Why is she saying all this?” Let's imagine ourselves in this situation. Gaston represents cancel culture while

the angry mob represents society. Cancel culture seems to have the strong,

invisible power over society that leads us to ambush

and berate whatever it tells us is wrong. Therefore, the beast represents just

about anything and everything. We have completely seemed to lose

the idea of boundaries when it comes to cancelling

an idea or a product versus canceling an actual human being. We seem to have blurred

the line of distinction between what is online for entertainment, versus what we see online

that requires empathy. Dividing our society into fragments when really we should be

connecting and bonding. Fortunately, I took the time to come up

with a solution to this problem. Now, I am not able myself

to completely exile cancel culture as everyone is entitled

to freedom of speech. However, I formulated a simple enough

acronym that is easy to understand and applicable to your everyday lives. CBC, meaning Contemplate Before Correcting

is a way to stop and retract your thoughts before permanently posting something

that you may regret online. Let’s say you find yourself

in a situation, where you see a video of someone spewing hateful slurs

towards a certain community online. First, you should contemplate whether or not it is worth going out

of your way to correct it. If you do find that action is

necessary in the situation, decide how you would like to proceed. Would you rather message the person

or maybe report the video? There are millions of different

ways to go about it. Just remember that whatever you post

online is fairly difficult to take back. If you find yourself in a situation

where, for example, a video of someone dancing

makes you upset, you should simply scroll, because ostracizing someone simply for

expressing themselves is never worth it. Using these methods, I aim to educate

fellow youth and beyond about the decline within society. Society has disconnected with the

real world significantly over the past few years and has normalized

mentally and physically harmful trends. The most prominent one

being cancel culture, which affects careers and

futures long term. I want to bring awareness to the ways

that we can reconnect society and discontinue the normalization

of cancel culture. So, whenever you see something online

that you may not like, always remember to contemplate

before correcting. Thank you. (Applause)