You're Canceled.
PR major or not, we’re all familiar with cancel culture. It’s nearly impossible to be a conscious user of the internet and not be at least relatively aware of which celebrity or influencer has been canceled. It seems that on a monthly routine the internet has found another person allegedly undeserving of their positive reputation. The internet is powerful, and for those of you who do plan to go into PR, it’s something that is necessary to get familiar with. Like all crisis mitigation, you need to understand it prior to when it happens.
What is cancel culture?
It’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like. The internet has created a new type of crisis for PR pros to become acquainted with. Time Magazine defines ‘cancel culture’ as the idea of condemning someone, or something, due to problematic behavior that is indiscriminate and offensive.
You’ve most likely seen canceling in action, think back to 2016 when the recording of Taylor Swift’s conversation with Kanye West was leaked by Kim Kardashian. This conversation got Swift on record stating that West could rap about her in his song “Famous” even though upon the song’s release Swift stated publicly that she hadn’t given him permission to use her name, or speak about her in the way he had in the song.
Once Kim K Tweeted that recording with three snake emojis as the caption, it caught on immediately. The hashtags #TaylorSwiftIsASnake and #TaylorSwiftIsCanceled began trending on Twitter following this.
Does canceling work?
Simply, it does and it doesn’t.
It just depends on the situation. In some cases, those who are canceled are still able to make it out of that situation. For instance, in Taylor Swift’s case, it didn’t permanently stunt her career. Though Swift has openly talked about how it sent her into a dark place and people are very aware of what happened, it didn’t necessarily have any permanent repercussions.
However, take Roseanne Barr’s experience with cancel culture. Her sitcom on ABC Roseanne had just rebooted. After years of not being on television, she was again. However, in the midst of all of this Barr sent out a racist Tweet. The Tweet, which was directed at Valerie Jarrett, read, “muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj.”
It didn’t take long for Twitter to respectively react to this Tweet. Of course, she was trending. Of course, the reaction was mostly negative. However, Barr’s cancelation went beyond Twitter. By the end of that day, Barr’s recently rebooted show Roseanne, ABC’s highest-rated show at the time, was canceled as well.
Why should PR pros care about this?
As the internet becomes more of a lifeline and less of a convenience, it is important as PR pros we understand the consequences that are potentially associated with our relationship with social media. The internet is not just a place to communicate about a crisis, it’s where a crisis can emerge.
Additionally, it’s not just the PR pros who are in the entertainment industry who are subjected to this type of crisis. Politicians, businesses, and anyone, or anything, that presents itself to the public eye is at risk for this. It’s important to be prepared for something like this because, at the end of the day, PR pros are meant to deal with the aftermath. Sometimes there is nothing that the PR practitioner can do to prevent the crisis. This is especially true in the case of managing individuals who share their own posts on the internet.
In an age where everything has a social media presence, it’s important to not only manage the reputations that exist on these social media platforms but to also be willing and able to mitigate a crisis that can emerge out of it.
So, what’s the best way to deal with a cancelation?
Good question.
To be fair, like any crisis you need to evaluate your crisis. It’s not as simple as the same format each time to get your client out of a unique situation. However, the best method seems to be to reach the public and apologize as soon as possible. Of course, the level of the crisis will determine the publics’ reaction to your apology.
Your apology should be honest and empathetic. Additionally, your apology is not complete without some type of change being acted on following the cancelation.
Crisis mitigation is something we learn in our classes, but we won’t get it to the extent of cancel culture. It’s important to be ready to jump into action if you ever find yourself working on mitigating a situation like this.
Understanding cancel culture isn’t just helpful, it’s a necessity. It’s something that should ultimately be not the fire you extinguish, but the fire you avoid to begin with. An understanding of cancel culture can put you ahead of your colleagues, give you an edge when it comes to social media management, and give you the experience you didn’t know you needed.
About Allison:
Allison Canter is a junior studying advertising and public relations with a minor in political science. This is her first semester on the GrandPR staff. Along with being in GrandPR, Allison is also the VP of Public Relations for Grand Valley’s chapter of PRSSA. When she gets some downtime, you can find Allison creating Spotify playlists, trying to think of a funny Tweet, or on her sixth LaCroix of the day.