Tag: cancel culture

Of ‘Cancel Culture’ & My Novel


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

In the latest version of this novel, cancel culture and its implications have grown pretty big. It’s a useful way to make the story both interesting and timely. But, and this is a big but — I have to be very careful how approach this subject.

It’s not like I can just throw “cancel culture” into the mix without realizing that there is a sizable portion of the audience who will agree that my hero SHOULD have been “canceled” for what I describe him doing and there’s no possible thing he could do to achieve the crux of any great story — redemption.

The only thing I can do is really think hard about how to approach the situation and to take it very seriously. In fact, I would go so far as to say in all honesty I shouldn’t even touch the subject of cancel culture given how fraught it is with people taking extreme positions one way or another.

But, for various reasons, I see addressing cancel culture head on as existential to the story and, as such, I’m going to touch that particular hot oven knowing full well what might happen to me.

The only consolation I might get from any of this is the “canceling” happens so late in the story that hopefully by that point I will have prepared the reader for it and also made them like my Hero enough not to throw the book across the room.

Of course, I’m old enough to know that should I sell this novel (which is highly unlikely) that it would be the cancel culture aspect of the story that everyone would talk about.

So, in a sense, I can’t win. But at least I know what I’m getting myself into by touching on the subject in the first place.

‘Cancel Culture’ & The #Novel I’m #Writing About The #Trump Era


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, I’m just about at the mid-point of the novel I’m working on and my hero is about to be “canceled” for his poor behavior with women while drunk. This is a tricky situation because given the intended audience for this novel, I have to thread the needle of talking about cancel culture without making the reason my hero is being “canceled” so bad that the audience stops wanting to hang out with him.

I think I’ve come to some sort of compromise. I think I’ve figured out how to do that. And I am only at the first draft so even if I haven’t done it as well as I want to, I still have a second draft to make it better.

One thing I’ve come to realize is how hard writing a novel is. It is a lot of fun, too, but I have such high standards for myself that there’s a reason why it’s taken me three years to get to this point. But I’m finally here. I’m finally feeling like the structure of the novel can support my vision for it in its entirety.

The state of the novel right now.

‘Canceling’ Breakfast At Tiffany’s — A Reassessment


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve come to the conclusion that, after the murders in Atlanta, that for Breakfast At Tiffany’s to be shown on TV, the Mikey Rooney character should be edited out altogether.

The character does nothing for the plot and it makes the movie significantly better to eliminate that particular weird subplot. It’s not like Song of The South where the problematic elements of the movie are existential — simply clipping the offensive scenes from the movie would be enough.

There’s no need for future generations to know that subplot even existed.

The movie really is The Perfect Movie and by editing it instead of “canceling” it altogether is a way to keep it culturally significant.

Should Breakfast At Tiffany’s Be ‘Canceled?’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Short answer: No
Long Answer: It’s complicated. Let me explain.

Ok, so the whole reason why the fucking FOX News bullshit echo chamber keeps stroking one to the idea of “cancel culture” is because they have no agenda and no policy ideas. They’re fucking fascist cocksuckers who would rather destroy America than risk the browning of America or accepting women with sexual agency.

So, really, the whole idea of “cancel culture” is done in a bad faith manner. The whole thing is fucking bullshit.

And, yet, there are aspects of so-called “cancel culture” that exists enough to give MAGA Qanon fucktards something to hang their hat on. Fucking cocksuckers.

Anyway, as for Breakfast At Tiffany’s, other than the Mickey Rooney’s tragically racist character in the movie, the movie is The Perfect Movie. But the Rooney character is, self-evidently, a racist stereotype.

It seems to me the solution is to simply edit the character out of the movie. And if that’s not possible, then liberal-progressives need to slow their roll before they do anything too conspicuous to the movie. A movie like Breakfast At Tiffany’s that would be so easily use as cudgel against our zombie liberal democracy to finally kill it.

So, either this issue blows up and helps the fucking fascist racist MAGA Republicans get out the vote so they can strangle our democracy and establish a “managed democracy” like they have in Russia or it doesn’t.

‘Cancel Culture’ & Breakfast At Tiffany’s


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

How exactly does the conservative bugbear of “cancel culture” work if the easy pickings of Mikey Rooney’s portrayal of Holly Golightly’s Asian neighbor in Breakfast At Tiffany’s hasn’t caught its attention yet?

The depiction is so fucking racist that it makes what is otherwise The Perfect Movie in to a solid B+ movie. It comes out of nowhere and doesn’t really do much to serve the plot. In fact, I would go so far as to say we should either cut out that part of the movie altogether or film the movie again shot for shot with a new cast and simply change the plot as necessary to avoid that character’s existance.

The only thing I can think of as to why the movie hasn’t been “canceled” in some way yet is it’s not on any of the major streamers and, as such, it hasn’t come up as an issue.

Thinking Seriously About A Second American Civil War


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Where to begin with this one. We have to accept that the United States’ political system is DL rotten to its core and a sizable chunk of the center-Right is chomping at the bit to start murdering people like me.

Barring something I honestly can’t predict, if there is going to be a civil war, it’s probably going to start in the winter of 2024-2025. Long term political trends are loaded in MAGA’s favor in a pretty massive fashion. So, if they can just not bungle the strangling of America’s liberal democracy then they’re set to turn the United States into an American version of Putin’s Russia for the rest of my life.

Just the Electoral College alone is enough to end America’s experiment in self-governance over the course of the next few election cycles. There will come a point when the gap between the popular vote and the Electoral vote grows so fucking enormous that we either start murdering each other in cold blood or we simply give up and slide into an autocracy where I end up in a weaponized ICE camp.

There is pretty much just one way an actual “second American civil war” happens in the United States — something happens during the 2024 election cycle whereby the forces that Trump unleashed in 2020 are taken to the next level. It’s not just the U.S. Capitol that faces an insurrection, it’s entire states that implode into waring governments on a pretty significant level.

The thing that blows my mind is how so many Southern “Lost Cause” fucking motherfucker cocksuckers stroke one out to the idea of a second civil war then come to this Website looking to suck their own cock. Guys, if you weren’t such fucking idiots you would let politics do all the hard work for you. No one gets hurt and you get your white Christian entho state.

But no, you are so angry over “cancel culture” that you want to murder people like me to….prove a point? Idiots.

Anyway, America’s political system is running on fumes. We’re in neutral. The first step towards are worst case scenario is Republicans win back Congress in 2022. (Which they will.)

Like I keep saying — we’re fucked. We’re totally, completely fucked.

Get out of the country if you can. Now.

Cancel Culture & The Coming American Autocracy


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

We are so fucked.

As I predicted, we’re in political neutral right now. Or, to be more specific, the center-Left is relaxed after the turmoil of the Trump Era, while the center-Right is tapping its fingers, waiting for an autocrat to be elected to stop scary brown people from taking over.

At the center of this is so-called “cancel culture.”

This is the debate over being “politically correct” taken to the next level. This is the hook that about 12 would-be deranged autocrats are going to hang their hat on when they come screaming for our liberal democracy.

I really struggle with cancel culture. The conservatives I know are so passionate about how they feel as though just by being conservative they can have their lives ruined. While I still have yet to find any instances of this, or at least a literal instance of it (usually, people who are canceled are either racists, bigots or misogynist who hide behind the term “cancel culture.”)

But that’s not even the point. The point is the vast majority of your average conservative THINKS this is the case. And a lot of liberal-progressives don’t exactly help their case any by being way, way, way, too sensitive about anyone who doesn’t follow the media narrative in their views.

Regardless. I’d rather have cancel culture than a fascist state. Fuck MAGA.

Of ‘Cancel Culture’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Just like poor people don’t understand marginal tax rates so they frightened of the “socialism” of the progressive tax rate, so, too, do a lot of people who will never, ever be “canceled” fear that horrific fate.

Before I continue, let me be clear — it would very, very easy for me to be “canceled” should the opportunity arise. My views — and my actions — often don’t fit the media narrative and, well, lulz. But, in general, the absolute abstract fear that many average people have about being “canceled” gets on my nerves so badly I’m willing to tempte fate.

The issue about “cancel culture” is how rare it actually works. So, so very many monstrous people who definitely deserve to be “canceled” (especially on the Right) go about their business as if nothing happened. In fact, the bigger the grift, the bigger the monstrous behavior, the more popular they become (see, also, Donald Trump.)

But the fear of being “canceled” is REALLY POWERFUL in that most critical of electoral subgroups — the conservative-who-isn’t-MAGA. I’ve tried to be as empathetic as possible to these fears and I think what’s going on is something like this: it’s a wedge issue that is actually more a fear about the general accelerated social changes in America than it is an actual fear of being “canceled.”

Conservatives-who-aren’t-MAGA are really freaked out by some of the rhetoric coming from “AOC+3” that is being articulated just as they’re barely processing gay marriage, #MeToo and the growing acceptance of critical race theory. It’s just that of all those abstract fears “cancel culture” is the one that (I guess?) has a grain of truth to it….but not for the average conservative in their practical everyday life.

Or, put another way, if you live within the Fox News bullshit echochamber and accept their cultural short hand and touchstones, then, yes, you probably have a litany of “average people” who have been canceled ranging from “angry Google engineer” to Bari Weiss. There’s a certain amount of confirmation basis going on — you want to believe these people’s careers tanked because they were “canceled,” so that’s what happened.

And, yet, I find the passion that conservatives-who-aren’t-MAGA have over their fear of being “canceled,” well, kind of weird. We have (at least until January 20th) a raging madman monster as president who definitely hasn’t been canceled and probably will come back in 2024 stronger than ever. (I still doubt he’s ever leaving office for any reason.)

Regardless, the abstract notion of being “canceled” (essentially) for simply being conservative in a progressive society is I guess what the real fear is. But the whole thing seems a bit contrived for the specific purpose of “owning libs” on Twitter and wallowing in the hate of MAGA. Or, to put it another way, I would rather risk being canceled than hand the keys to the nation over to an insane moron like Donald Trump for another four years.

YouTube Has A Real ‘Red Pill’ Video Problem

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelton Bumgarner
@bumgarls

One of the biggest threats to the Republic outside of fucking MAGA is its ideological nasty little brother the “Red Pill” video that I keep getting bombarded with on YouTube. I guess some of the research I’m doing for the novel I’m developing makes YouTube think I’m a would-be incel-altRight-MAGA friendly or something. Fuck that.

I hate all that bullshit and I hate that I keep seeing these videos by Scott Adams acolytes that vaguely and barely hide their racism and misogyny in the guise of telling me the “truth” about the things the evil main stream media is trying to hide from me because of the influence of SJWs and “woke” “cancel culture.”

Ugh.

I have some very, very strong political views. A lot of my political views probably would not fair well in the eyes of “woke” blue check liberals on Twitter. But my hatred for MAGA is so absolute that I’m willing to endure the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune from the Left simply for the sake of having someone to help me destroy MAGA as a political and social movement.

It’s somewhat amusing how passionate these Red Pill videos are about how Kathleen Kennedy is the George Soros of Hollywood out to crush Baby Yoda or whatever other fuckwit theory.

I’m not a huge fan of Ms. Kennedy, but, come on guys. Your misogyny is showing.