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Cancel culture is fake.
Theres nothing nefarious about wanting to create distance between yourself and people you find troubling.
No one ever gets canceled, not in life, or in prison, or in death.
Go to jail, and your legend grows as fans call for your freedom and plot on your return.
Theres not much a celebrity can do to lose the entire audience.
Even serial killers keep admirers.
Picking principles and sticking them out requires a measure of tyranny.
The football league stifling players protests means less game-day camaraderie.
The sitcom mans conviction means retiring a beloved TV father figure.
The music mans decades of cases and accusations mean weaning yourself off of several classic bedroom jams.
Theres no reward for it.
You might get a drop of peace knowing youre no longer part of the problem.
You might enjoy a day of shine for a passionate social-media missive.
Eventually, the dust settles, people cool down, and staying angry scans as vindictive behavior.
The issues been addressed, you might hear.
What more do you want?
Its a good question.
Whats desired is insurance that bad gaffes and awful acts wont happen again.
Thats not always as simple as sorry.
But it was nearly impossible not to have known something was fishy.
Maybe you resolved to never give the guy your money and continued to enjoy the music in silent shame.
Maybe you didnt do any of that.
Could it happen again?
The music industry doesnt handle stories of abuse much better now than it did 15 or 25 years ago.
In June, XXXTentacions music broke a streaming record set by Taylor Swift.
Kodak has scored a half-dozen platinum singles in the last two years.
Tekashis Fefe went triple platinum.
R. Kellys Spotify stream count spiked in the aftermath ofSurviving.
Modern fan culture is tower defense.
Its as much a game of supporting a favorite artist as defending their honor.
Jumping ship when a celebrity says or does something troubling is seen as betrayal.
Staying onboard through rocky times is considered an act of loyalty.
Theres no reward for that, either, just the illusion of blamelessness.
Its the least we could do.
