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The origins of “canceling” began with a disinvestment in certain celebrities in online forum spaces, said Adrian Daub, professor at Stanford University and author of The Cancel Culture Panic: How an American Obsession Went Global.
“I’ve invested a lot of attention, time, and money into this person, and now they’re canceled, meaning I’m no longer supplying that time, that money, that attention,” he said as he joined The New Abnormal to discuss cancel culture’s origins and impact. “And that is something that we tend to do to people who are traditionally owed all those things, namely celebrities.”
However, a cultural shift began as the term moved from celebrity to political spaces. “There’s a wholesale kind of reorientation of this term once it leaves those online only spaces,” said Daub.
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“It is wild how much of it now seems to revolve around universities, particularly elite universities,” said co-host Andy Levy. “And this is all kind of by design, isn’t it?”
Traditionally, Americans, did not pay attention to their university campuses, said Daub.
“The attention paid starts in the 1950s,” explained Daub. “Now, that’s not a huge surprise because that’s the moment when the U.S. government started heavily investing in universities.”
Listen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher.