- What's up guys?
This idea started at the office
when I was talking about Kanye.
I love him, and you hate Kanye, so we were like,
"We should do a cancel culture Middle Ground."
- Yeah, we thought it was really important
to bring other topics like pop culture to Middle Ground.
So let us know in the comments below
what you want us to talk about.
- As always, enjoy the episode.
- R Kelly, bye, I'm done with you, get outta here.
- But that's in your opinion,
I'm not saying I'm for R Kelly.
- I just think if you support him you're a dick, right?
- Yeah.
- And it's their right to be a dick.
(gentle drumming music)
- Hello, my name's Adib Kadir,
I have a computer science degree
and I'm a product manager in the tech industry.
- Hi, I'm Will Cort,
I'm a music student at USC.
- Hi, I'm Joy Villa.
I'm a singer-songwriter and I am anti cancel culture.
- Hi, I'm Lynzie Riebling,
I'm a consumer insights specialist
and I'm pro ish cancel culture.
More on this side,
but I'm looking forward to this conversation.
- Hi, I am Seth Fowler, law school graduate and teacher.
I am pro cancel culture.
- Hi, my name is Alanah,
I am a student, a history student
and I'm pro cancel culture.
- [Crew Member] Can I have my pro cancel culture
to the left and my anti cancel culture folks to the right?
I would buy an artist's work,
even if they committed a violent crime.
- Oh that's so hard.
- Humans are a series of impulses on a spectrum of time.
We are constantly changing, we're constantly evolving.
Have any of you honestly never not told a lie in your life?
- Of course, we've all lied.
- So are you a liar today?
- No, not today.
- So that moment that you told a lie,
you can't be blanketed as a liar the rest of your life.
I think the issue with cancel culture
is it's kind of like this,
like you have a cut on your arm,
let's just chop the whole arm off.
- When you bring up the amount of people
that work on some of these projects,
think of a Harvey Weinstein movie, right?
He did terrible things.
I wouldn't want to support Harvey Weinstein
but most of his victims are people that were in his movies.
By not supporting a Harvey Weinstein movie
you're also not supporting his victims.
So it's kind of like you're in a weird spot, right?
- But you can't bring down the kingpin
without bringing down the organization that he built.
- So he said something very interesting to me
about the whole cutting off the arm to fix a cut.
And I feel like the exact opposite
because when you talk about how like,
"Oh if you're canceling people,
blah blah blah and they have good inventions,"
it's like there's so many smart people
that aren't toxic and it's like when you cancel someone
that is toxic it's sending the message
to other toxic people,
"You cannot get away with this."
- Here's how I think of it,
I have the right to stop this
and if other people wanna do that also
and we bond together, the power's in our hands
and I feel like for me, I'm doing my part
by not choosing not to mess with that person anymore.
- Yeah, I was gonna ask you a question though.
Do you feel like you should be the one making the decision
or do you feel like YouTube or Spotify
should make the decision for you
and take down people who they feel like offended
a certain segment of the population?
- I think it's two separate things.
I think I should have the power to make that decision.
Of course, that's a very personal thing for me, but-
- So then their music should be continue
to be sold and available?
- I personally don't think so.
- Just don't listen to it.
Don't buy it you yourself.
Absolutely, every individual has the right to say,
"Hey, I don't like this."
And you can even tweet about it and say no
but then to start a boycott,
that's why I don't do boycotts.
- Yeah, people have different morals.
- I personally have the right, I withhold the right,
I think all of us do to not go and support these people
we don't believe in.
I would never tell you, "Wait, I'm gonna go see
X, Y, Z movie and you have to too."
If you say no, you have that right.
What cancel culture does is saying
I'm not gonna see this person
'cause I don't like this person
and nobody else should either and that's why I hate it.
- [Crew Member] Cancel culture is out of control.
- Okay.
- Oh wow.
- When it started, I think it was a good thing.
It's like the me too movement, a good thing.
But when you get the court of public opinion involved,
I tell you, it becomes so horrible.
I am an artist.
I've legitimately hit number one on billboard.
People think, oh I don't run my social media.
I absolutely do.
I read comments, I respond, even negative ones.
When people say, "I hope you die,
somebody should kill your family,
you should get raped so that you have a baby
illegitimately and you can,"
I mean it is online bullying.
- Cancel culture rationally
is overall a net positive I think.
But there are sets of cancel culture, like the toxic people
that issue the death threats.
And of course those need to be excised.
- Right.
- Cancel culture originated out of compassion,
the voice for the voiceless,
being able to vote with your wallet, make a stand.
Your little retweet, your little like
turning things viral that wouldn't get seen.
- This is something that strikes fear in my heart right now.
What's happening now is people are essentially choosing
for you whether you should be, it's like,
let's say you wanted to boycott Coca-Cola
or Nike or something.
Imagine if stores started taking Nike shoes out of the store
before you could even make the decision as a people
to buy it or not buy it.
And we need to have the right and the option at our level.
- But do companies not have that right too?
- Yeah, I don't think that they're trying
to make you not buy the product.
I think that they're saying as a company,
we do not agree with this
so we're not gonna sell your product here.
When record labels stop playing their music or whatever,
I feel like it's justified,
specifically for victims because when it gets out
that that person did something like that
their music skyrockets and for the victim
seeing that they're getting so much support for that.
- Yeah, messed up, right?
- And then once
the cases are over, - Especially when
they're dead. - Then sure,
you could play their music more if they are innocent.
But it's also like the justice system isn't always right.
- Honestly, I've said this before,
I think the pendulum has swung the other direction
and like yes, maybe it's getting a little string
but I also think sometimes that's necessary for change.
For so long we let everyone get away with everything.
And there was only one voice
as part of the conversation
and it was like, - The good old boys' club.
- Right, and it was mostly white men back in the day
versus now we have a platform where everyone
can share their opinion and you're like,
"Hey, that makes me uncomfortable."
And I think some people are going to have to be made
examples of in order to set precedent
in what's acceptable for us,
our generation and the society today.
- [Crew Member] The public should hold celebrities
accountable when the justice system fails.
- Hey friend.
- Hey.
- I'll come over here.
- R Kelly is the first name that comes to mind.
- Same.
- Because he has sex tapes that show his face
and people are still like, "He didn't do it.
We love R Kelly, he would never."
And most of the time when it's a celebrity
being convicted, they can always buy their way out.
- That's exactly who came to mind for me too.
Immediately I was just like, ugh.
First of all, how many times, oh hey, join the crew.
- Yeah, what's up?
- How many times in the United States justice system
have we seen guilty people get off innocent
and then you find off years later that that happened?
If the justice system doesn't come through,
we as a people shouldn't just take that
and be like, "Okay, well I guess he's innocent."
No, he did that and let's take away his platform
and we will take that power away from him.
- The justice system is so, it's just so imperfect.
It's unbelievable.
And I think that situations like Jesse Smollett,
I think that the justice system in those situations
have failed.
If we don't support the justice system a little bit
then it's kind of anarchy.
But at the same time I think
that it's an individual decision
as the individual has the right
to not support them or to do whatever
they want to do, you know?
- Yeah, I don't think we should show up
at his house and beat him up.
- Yeah, no, just nothing extreme.
Nothing extreme. - Yeah right.
- If the justice system fails, what's important
and what's happening now is that we do look
at replacing whether it's the district attorney
or whatever the system is that's causing it to fail.
People should go and address this
so the next millions of people that go
through that system go through a just system.
- I think we all completely agree with that.
The justice system needs to be fixed.
But I do think the reason cancel culture started
and when it originally derived
was because to be 100% real, that takes so long.
For our entire government and justice system
to evolve into your idealistic view of it
is not happening next year.
I think we're making change, I think it's happening
but it think our generation
that spawned cancel culture was like, "We don't have time."
- We have the same problems with cancel culture
as we do with the justice system.
There's a lot of people that got the death penalty, right?
We're giving people their careers
the death penalty by public, you know,
and kicking 'em out forever and saying,
"We never want you back."
Right?
- Are we?
Because I've canceled the NFL since Colin Kaepernick
and they're still
kicking strong, right? - But what if we're wrong?
But what if we're wrong?
- If it was accountable culture, I'd be on that side.
Cancel, when I cancel you, you don't exist, deleted,
Bye, get outta here, no more money.
We're done with them, canceled.
- We're just as imperfect as the justice system.
- But R Kelly, bye, I'm done with you.
Get outta here.
- But that's your opinion.
I'm not saying I'm for R Kelly,
but I still don't want all his music erased,
like all of a sudden it's like he's guilty
before a court of law.
Even people I don't support, I still want them
to go to the justice system because fairness matters.
We've already been through this throughout history.
- I just think if you support him, you're a dick, right?
And then it's their right to be a dick.
- But it's their right to be a dick.
- And it's our right to hate them.
- And it's our right not to buy from him.
- That's right, that's first amendment, right.
- Cancel culture, it runs, I would say co dependently
with activism.
And as activism has changed, we're able to operate quicker
and mobilize quicker in this digital space.
It's almost, in some senses, it's like digital activism,
but I like compassionate cancel culture.
If you look at the history of somebody
and you look at how somebody responds when confronted
and you make your decision based
off of whether they've seen any type of error
and applied any type of value judgment,
then I think it's totally your right
whether or not to support them.
'Cause we have too many options.
- Compassion, I like the compassion
- And I love that you said it's your right.
- I just think what's most important about anything
is that if you're going to stop listening to someone,
stop supporting someone,
do your research and make the moral decision
for yourself of whether you wanna support them or not.
And that's all you can do as an individual.
It's an individual decision.
- We all kind of have the same opinion on a level.
For the most part, we think that people
deserve consequences, but I feel like they get
to more of an extreme.
(all applauding)
- That was awesome.
- Good talk, good talk.
- Good talking to you, man.
- I learned so much from you guys.
This is great.
- Thank you guys so much for watching this episode.
A lot of times, Middle Ground is very tense
but we love bringing people together
to have healthy dialogue nonetheless.
- Yeah and also we're very active on social media
so make sure to follow us on Instagram at Jubilee Media.
- We're also thinking of completely revamping Middle Ground,
so you got any cool ideas of what we can do next
or anything like that,
leave a comment, DM us, as always,
we'll see you guys next time.
(gentle pop music)