Is cancel culture finally coming to an end?

There was a time when being called out online could destroy a career overnight. One tweet, one old joke, one badly worded caption, and you were done. Sponsors pulled out, collaborators ran for the hills, and brand teams scrambled to draft statements that tried to please everyone and satisfied no one.

But lately, things feel different.

The Sydney Sweeney / American Eagle backlash is the perfect example. An inoffensive denim ad featuring one of Hollywood’s most mainstream stars was twisted into a full-blown conspiracy theory, with some accusing the campaign of promoting eugenics. The reason? A pun: "Great Genes."

It was absurd. But also, predictable. And the real story wasn’t the fake outrage - it was how American Eagle responded.

They stood by the campaign. In fact, they even issued a statement:

"Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans" is and always was about the jeans.
Her jeans. Her story.
We’ll continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence, their way.
Great jeans look good on everyone.

Not only did Sydney look unreal (which is arguably the job of a fashion model), but the public were, for once, louder than the critics. The backlash to the backlash was stronger. Commenters mocked the outrage. Journalists pushed back. Brands took note.

Because the tide is turning. And cancel culture, as we know it, is starting to fall apart.

Not dead, but weaker

Cancel culture isn’t over. People still get called out, rightly or wrongly. Brands still get boycotted. Celebrities still face pile-ons for what they say, wear, endorse, or follow. But what’s changed is how seriously it’s taken.

Even only two years ago, the instinct was panic. Brands feared reputational ruin if they didn’t immediately issue an apology or drop someone at the first sign of controversy. Public figures would disappear for a few months to let the storm pass, then reappear with a notes app apology or a tearful podcast appearance.

But that formula isn’t working anymore. It’s overused, overplayed, and, frankly, most people are bored of it. Even the language of cancellation has been watered down. Being "cancelled" now means anything from facing criminal allegations to someone disagreeing with your skincare ad. The term has lost weight, and so has the fear behind it.

Brands are finally learning to pause

In the past year, I've noticed a shift in how brands respond to crisis. Where panic used to dominate, now there's more strategy, more silence, and more sanity. I've had clients call me at the first whiff of drama and say: "Do we actually need to say anything?" Often, the answer is no.

American Eagle got it right. The backlash was loud but silly. There was no legal threat, no major influencer boycott, no consumer shift. It was noise - algorithmically inflated by rage, not substance. And they knew better than to give it more oxygen.

Brands are starting to realise that if you respond to everything, your voice means nothing. Constant apologies don't build trust, they erode it. Silence, used wisely, is now the smarter play. Not in the face of genuine harm or discrimination - but in the face of invented controversy? Let the moment pass.

If you’ve got the luxury of being outraged because Sydney Sweeney looks fantastic in a pair of jeans, then honestly, I’m a little envious. It means your life is blissfully free of bigger problems. And that’s sort of the point: the internet loves to whip up a storm over the smallest things, but in reality, the rest of us are just rolling our eyes and moving on with our day.

What I’ve noticed - and yes, this is just me speaking from my own experience - is that brands are starting to catch on. The more you feed the outrage machine, the more it runs. But when you don’t play along, it fizzles out. That’s exactly what happened with American Eagle and Sydney Sweeney. They stood their ground, people moved on, and the world kept spinning. And in my own little corner of the PR universe, I’ve seen more and more brands realising that the extremes just aren’t where most people live.

The irony of attention

The people who shout the loudest often do the most to keep a person or brand in the public eye. Outrage fuels engagement. Algorithms reward it. Coverage multiplies. And suddenly, someone you wanted to cancel is now on a bigger stage than ever.

I’ve seen it firsthand: controversial clients who’ve been publicly dragged, only to gain thousands of followers, bigger platform deals, and more mainstream media interest. The controversy becomes their currency. The attempted cancellation becomes their launchpad.

It’s also hilariously ironic that the people shouting the loudest on either end are often the ones keeping these controversies alive. The more you rage against someone, the more you keep them in the spotlight. It’s like giving them free publicity. So in a funny twist, cancel culture can actually work in favour of the person being “cancelled” if they know how to handle it.

What was supposed to be a reputational crisis becomes, with the right management, a growth moment.

That’s the dirty secret of modern outrage: it’s loud, but often profitable. If you can handle the heat (and you’re not facing actual legal or moral consequences), the attention can work in your favour.

Performative fury vs public indifference

The internet is brilliant at making small things look massive. But in the real world, most people are not deeply invested in whatever is trending at 11:42am on a Thursday.

The Sydney Sweeney controversy was a Twitter issue. A TikTok talking point. But ask the average shopper in an American Eagle store what they thought about the campaign, and you'd be met with a blank stare.

Because most people aren't outraged. They're busy. And more importantly, they're not on Twitter.

The performative nature of digital rage has become its own form of entertainment. People don’t just criticise a brand anymore - they stage digital theatre. Explainers, callouts, long threads with references to history, sociology, and brand theory -all in service of what is, at best, a shoe ad.

The middle is tired, but it’s growing

I look at both the left and the right online and regularly think: what on earth is this? You don’t have to squint too hard to see that both sides have their moments of clarity, and their moments of complete detachment from reality.

Some of the smartest points I hear come from either extreme. But so do some of the most insufferable. It depends on the day. And the algorithm.

At the moment, I don’t relate to either. Not culturally, not politically, not emotionally. It all feels theatrical, reactionary, and increasingly out of step with what people are actually dealing with.

I’ve worked with public figures who have been accused of being too liberal and too right-wing in the same 48 hours. Most of them aren’t either. They’re just imperfect people with a profile. But the online machine needs to label people quickly - because labels make outrage easier to monetise.

What’s encouraging is that more people are starting to step back. Not loudly, not in performative “I’m logging off” posts - just quietly disengaging. They don’t comment. They don’t post. They don’t pile on. They just think, “this is mad,” and carry on with their day. And honestly, that’s the healthiest trend I’ve seen in years.

What brands should actually fear

I always remind clients that cancellation isn’t the real threat - irrelevance is. You can survive a controversy. You can’t survive a disappearing audience.

The real danger is spending all your time apologising to people who were never buying from you in the first place. Because while you’re trying to win over the loudest critics, your actual customer base might be getting bored, confused, or alienated.

Consumers respond to consistency, not capitulation. If your brand stands for something, stand for it. If you believe in your campaign, keep it live. If you’ve done nothing wrong, don’t apologise.

And if you did get it wrong? Say so, fix it, and move on. But don’t offer yourself up to be flogged on a digital stage just because a few dozen accounts want to make an example out of you.

So, is cancel culture over?

Not quite. But it’s certainly changed. The fear is fading. The stakes are shifting. And the public are a little less interested in outrage-for-sport than they used to be.

It’s not a revolution. But it is a correction.

And maybe, just maybe, we’ll look back at this era of forced apologies, performative statements, and 72-hour Twitter pile-ons and think: thank god we grew out of that.