"Cancelling" Cancel Culture
In the modern world, cancel culture is used as an outlet to uncover the secrets of famous people, especially micro-celebrities. Micro-celebrities are usually influencers or content creators using social media to expand their businesses or entertain an audience, making them the perfect targets for a false accusation. Though cancel culture originally had good intentions, it has come to no longer make any positive impact, going as far as hurting the reputations and lives of those affected.
Micro-celebrities reach out widely across the world with their content and tend to impact a specific demographic. For example, someone who exclusively makes jokes about being a millennial would impact millennials more than other generations. Due to their wide-spread demographic, micro-celebrities have been treated similarly to larger celebrities by fans – but, this includes the negatives. Large celebrities often have issues with super-fans and stalkers. On the other hand, they have issues with people who hate them. This is the same for micro-celebrities.
Micro-celebrities receive hate from those who dislike them or disagree with their content. While this is usually harmless, it can escalate depending on the person. If someone hates the micro-celebrity enough, they might resort to spreading rumors about them. Even the rumors themselves can escalate into something much more dramatic and possibly harmful.
There have been many recent instances of micro-celebrities being accused of disgusting acts. In some cases, evidence was provided and proven, but the real cases were followed by false accusations intended to destroy the reputation of the micro-celebrity. These accusations have been amplified by cancel culture. Someone being accused would be quickly shunned, especially by those who disliked them in the first place. This is the problem with the power that cancel culture is fed.

Due to all the false accusations and information being spread, it has turned into a real problem. The best the micro-celebrities can do is either ignore the rumors and move along or politely deny them. This is the best they can do without being further accused.
The fact that the micro-celebrities are strong-willed does not excuse the actions of those who spread the lies. Doing so causes serious conflict and even has the capability to ruin someone's career. Again, cancel culture only amplifies the effects of the lies. So far, it has barely proven helpful in doing what it was supposedly meant to do.
Cancel culture exists to flush out famous people who have extremely harmful views or have committed harmful actions. However, it has been abused and used as a way to quickly spread false information intended to hurt the career of the accused or make them look bad. Therefore, cancel culture has almost zero positive impact on society as a whole. There are other, smaller factors proving this, such as when a large number of people rally against someone for something they said years ago, making the statement entirely irrelevant. Or people rallying against someone with little to no reason, for something small, like the way they look.
At this point, cancel culture has transformed into a tool for borderline cyberbullying, instead of a helpful outlet. Being involved in cancel culture means either worrying that your career will come to a full stop or taking the time out of your day to come up with lies for specific people with no other reason than disliking them.
Opinion by Aria Glover