Canceled

Depending on the generation and period in time, if you were speaking of an entertainer or show you might point out how they or it was "canceled." Long before the age of the internet and social media, this would simply mean there would be no more episodes of that show. Now, well into the age of social media, it essentially attempts the same thing.

On it's functional level, someone or some group of individuals agreed for whatever reason, an aspect of media is to be prevented from continuing. A show's ratings are low and the investment in continuing more episodes no longer seems economically viable. An entertainer has gone against the grain of the zeitgeist- a similar fate is directed at the platform they utilize.

In a so-called 'free market' and meritocratic system, this phenomina would seemingly occur on it's own as a function of eyeballs and demand. It would stand to reason the surviving media would appear to be of higher value either as entertainment or informational. It's for this reason, I think people subconsciously understood the under pinning's of cancel culture before social media, and (in the ancient case of mobs with pitch forks) even before electronic media.

Most of what I just outlined isn't particularly ground breaking. However, when a system is in place to create the illusion of the aforementioned so-called 'free market' and meritocratic system, and the instruments to remove individuals or platforms is anything-but natural- well now we're onto a realm of shaping of public conciousness. The eye-opening lessons from Crystalizing Public Opinion & Manufacturing Consent start to echo their way into a new way of understanding 'cancel culture.'

_Codd