35 years ago we didn’t have the cultural precedent/zeitgeist of getting cancelled for some stupid shit you wrote on a message board in 1991 so we were less guarded with our opinions.
35 years ago we didn’t have the cultural precedent/zeitgeist of getting cancelled for some stupid shit you wrote on a message board in 1991 so we were less guarded with our opinions.
Do we actually have a culture of cancelling people for the things they wrote when they were 12?
No, and we don't really have a culture of cancelling things for people they say now, either, when it comes down to it because if that were true, Trump would not be president given his long history of [waves hands], a large number of Republican politicians would also be out of work, etc.
So what is it that drives such phrases into common parlance as a description of the apparently-fictitious culture of rote cancellation, might one suppose?
I might suggest that "projection" is a primary motivator, although I work to avoid projecting on my own time.
(Edit: To disambiguate without vagueness: When some fucking party or other is talking about "cancel culture," they usually seem, to me, to be projecting about their own fucking party's fucking ugly policies and tactics.
And in a sane and pure world, I'd like to wish that they'd be recognized as being fucking scumbags for behaving in this way.
But it is my observation that we do not always live in a sane and pure world.)