Natalie Wynn’s critique of cancel culture (as someone in the midst of being canceled) – Hot Air

Since I just wrote about a trans person behaving like a nut, I thought Id close out this Friday by sharing a video from a trans person who, in my opinion, is just the opposite. Natalie Wynn makes long, thoughtful videos about contemporary social issues. Back in 2018 I wrote about a video she made about Jordan Peterson. Even though I ultimately disagreed with the argument she made in that video I thought her presentation of the issues was pretty balanced and fair-minded. As you may have noticed, those are qualities that seem to be in short supply these days.

Recently, Wynn released a new video about cancel culture which is not only reasonable and thoughtful but which I happen to agree with completely. Wynn critcizes both the left and right in this clip but the core of her argument is a response to a specific (and popular) progressive idea, i.e. theres no such thing as cancel culture, just accountability for people in power.

Wynn argues that cancel culture is actually a distinct phenomenon, though not necessarily a new one. The distinction she arrives at is fairly simple: Cancel culture isnt aimed at disagreement with ideas or changing minds, its aimed at isolating and punishing people whove been judged the enemy. As Wynn says early on in the clip, We do have a teensy bit of a reign-of-terror situation on our hands.

Wynn focuses on two distinct cancellations in the clip: James Charles and herself. Even if you dont know who James Charles is or dont care, the points she makes by looking at his case seem universal. In short, cancellation operates using a series of tropes or tactics:

If all of this sounds familiar it may be because youve seen progressive activists use these same tactics against conservatives. If someone says something the left doesnt like or can construe uncharitably, they are judged to be racist/sexist/homophobic persons and their sins (both real and imagined) are brought up forever, regardless of how they respond. To be clear, I dont know if Wynn would agree on that point but its something Ive seen dozens if not hundreds of times.

Most of this clip is really about Wynns own experience of being canceled over having a controversial figure read a single line of dialogue in her previous video. She has a lot of first hand experience being cancelled and points out its not so easy to shrug off the experience if youre a relatively minor YouTube figure and not JK Rowling or Dave Chappelle.

Anyway, you may not agree with all of this or care about all of it but its a relief to see someone coming from a very different perspective who nevertheless concludes that cancel culture is a) real and b) a plague, especially on people who arent rich and famous. Note that there is a lot of NSFW language in this clip, especially when Wynn is reading the tweets from people trying to cancel her:

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Natalie Wynn's critique of cancel culture (as someone in the midst of being canceled) - Hot Air