Is cancel culture finally losing its grip?

For years the internet acted like a public tribunal, where anyone could be dragged into the dock based on a comment, a misunderstanding, or sometimes a complete fabrication. Cancel culture became so inflated that the word stopped meaning anything. But recently something has shifted. The noise still exists, but the power behind it has weakened. People are getting fed up with being told exactly what to think, who they are allowed to support, and which opinion is considered socially acceptable in any given week.

And before anyone starts imagining that this must place me on one political side or the other, it really does not. I sit firmly in the middle. My job means I spend my days speaking with people across every possible perspective, belief system and background. If anything, it has taught me that nuance matters more than certainty, and curiosity gets you further than righteousness.

What cancelled actually means

We need to be honest about how inconsistent the word cancelled has become. Someone receiving criticism online for a week is not cancelled. That is a reputationally difficult moment. Real cancellation is when someone’s behaviour is so severe that they cannot come back from it.

Chris Brown is the clearest example of how messy the concept has become. He committed something genuinely horrific. He was charged. There was no ambiguity. And yet he is still performing, still commercially successful, still adored by millions. The industry has allowed him to continue because people like his music.

Contrast that with people who have done something minor, or who have been falsely accused, or caught up in exaggerated narratives, and their careers have been obliterated. It proves cancel culture has never been a moral system. It is an emotional one. It rewards the people the public wants to forgive and punishes the ones the public finds easier to discard.

Brands have noticed the gap between outrage and reality

The clearest sign things are changing is how brands are responding. A few years ago, a handful of angry comments on X, could send a company into total panic. Campaigns pulled. Overnight statements drafted. Myself contacted because ten strangers were annoyed.

Then came American Eagle. Their Sydney Sweeney campaign was accused of everything from being tone deaf to deliberate propaganda. The outrage was loud and persistent. But the brand understood something most people do not. Campaigns exist to make money. They saw the results. Sales went up. Engagement went up. They knew exactly what they had created and exactly why it worked. And the amount of press generated would have cost millions if they had hired a PR team to try and replicate it. Sometimes the oldest saying in marketing is still the most accurate. All press is good press.

The more brands realise that online noise rarely reflects real world behaviour, the less power ‘cancel culture’ has.

The Caroline Flack documentary and the human cost we keep ignoring

The Caroline Flack documentary is one of the hardest things I have watched in a long time. Everyone should see it, especially the people who proudly participate in public dogpiling under the illusion that they are enforcing justice.

It is devastating because it shows the human cost behind these online storms. People who shout be kind are often the first to bully someone off a cliff. People who demand consequences for others rarely examine their own behaviour. If you genuinely believe that every mistake you have ever made would be deserving of job loss, exile and endless abuse, then fine. But nobody can honestly say that.

Seeing Caroline’s texts saying I have lost my job was gut wrenching. When you see what actually happened behind the scenes, it becomes even more horrific. She became a target for outrage. Not because people knew the full story, but because the optics fit the mood of the moment.

And this is what pains me from a professional perspective. I have logged into client accounts and seen comments that made me gasp. Death threats. Home addresses posted. Vile slurs. And these are often some of the kindest, gentlest people I have ever spoken to. Meanwhile, I have encountered people who are rude, arrogant, deeply unpleasant, yet they remain completely untouched because their public face is polished.

This is the part of cancel culture nobody wants to acknowledge. It punishes the people who cannot fight back, not the ones who deserve it.

The hypocrisy has become impossible to ignore

What I find most exhausting is the hypocrisy. There is a particular flavour of moral performance online where people loudly shout be yourself, celebrate individuality, embrace authenticity, until the moment someone’s authenticity does not mirror theirs. The moment you deviate, even slightly, it becomes unacceptable.

I see this constantly. Clients, friends, acquaintances saying thank god, I can actually be myself with you, I can speak normally. Because offline, without an audience watching, people can finally relax. They can make a harmless joke. They can express an opinion without fear. They can exist as actual human beings instead of censoring themselves to survive the algorithm.

It is proof that a lot of the moral outrage online is not real belief. It is survival. People behave one way for public approval and another way privately because they know who they truly are.

How the media frames opinions as facts

Because of my job, I speak to the press quite a lot, and something I find genuinely interesting is how certain outlets phrase their questions. When it is a more left leaning publication, the question often arrives preloaded with the journalist’s own opinion, presented as if it is the universally accepted stance. The presumption is that I will agree, because disagreeing would place me in the wrong category of person. Even when I broadly understand or even share the sentiment, it is striking how little room there is for nuance. You are effectively handed a viewpoint and expected to nod along. If you were to offer a different perspective, even politely, the atmosphere would shift. The idea that more than one reasonable view could exist is not always treated as an option.

The world we grew up in was not like this

When I was growing up, one of the most repeated pieces of advice was never discuss politics or religion at social gatherings. Not because the topics were forbidden, but because they were complex and easily misunderstood. And now that is all we do. Constant debate. Constant conflict. Constant judgement.

But back then, disagreement was normal. You could sit in a room with someone who had completely different values and still respect them. Nobody considered that strange. It was part of being a functioning human in a social world.

I cannot think of a single moment in my childhood where someone holding a different opinion meant I could not be around them. The very idea would have sounded absurd.

Algorithms have pushed people into extremes

Social media has convinced people that their worldview is universal because it feeds them the same perspective repeatedly. The more you see the same beliefs, the more extreme they seem, and the more threatening anything different feels. It is low level, but it is absolutely a form of brainwashing. People forget nuance, forget perspective, forget that real life is usually far quieter, gentler and more balanced than anything you see online.

And this environment is what allowed cancel culture to grow. Not morality. Not accountability. Just repetition and emotional momentum.

The conclusion

Cancel culture is not dead, but it is undeniably weaker. People are fed up. Brands are ignoring the noise. The gap between online outrage and real world behaviour is widening every day.

And thank god. I work with people across every perspective, belief system, political leaning and personality type, and the most interesting conversations I have ever had are with people who see the world differently to me. I would lose my mind if I lived in a world where everyone agreed with me. It would be unbearably dull.

We are slowly returning to a world where disagreement is allowed, nuance is respected, authenticity is real rather than performative, and people are trusted to think for themselves again.

And for the first time in a long time, that actually feels hopeful.