Well... to be completely technical, it is completely logical to everyone who participates in the canceling, even if it might seem illogical to you. It's also hard to say if you're in the majority or minority of some opinion.
Opinions flip all the time. The United States was giving weapons to Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden in the 80's. Everyone (in the US) thought Bin Laden was a good guy back then because he was fighting the soviets. But then 9/11 happened and all of the US hated him. Did that mean Bin Laden was 'canceled'?
The other thing is that the "presumption of innocence" is a legal routine that
we consider fair, but is not necessarily logical or reflective of the facts of what actually happened.
For instance, pretty much 98% of everyone will pretty much universally agree that Jeffrey Epstein did in fact have an island full of underage sex slaves, but our legal system (which presumes innocent until proven guilty) has often resulted in very outcomes where Epstein has been acquitted in court numerous times. Generally speaking, having enough money and power can often result in powerful people buying their way out of court (or ridiculously light sentences like a few months of "house arrest" in a luxury mansion), and this has been a fact of the United States justice system pretty much since forever.
The 'canceling' of everyone closely associated with Epstein is therefore a logical reflection of what people perceive as what the US justice system was incapable of doing -- and people attempting to apply what they consider their own personal form of justice.
An important reminder that a 'not guilty' verdict in court =/= 'innocent'.
The US justice system is notoriously imperfect. It isn't based on science or rationality or explicit logic. Rather, we have a jury system where it's basically 12 jurors who give their subjective opinions whether the accused is guilty or not guilty. The jurors are (as a rule of thumb) vulnerable to appeals of emotion, and
good lawyers learn to exploit that in order to obtain verdicts that suit their client's purposes. Also, if a majority of your jurors are racist (or biased against a particular race) it also means that the verdict will most likely also be racist (hence there were many cases in the early 20th century where black people accused of a crime were sentenced to it even though there was virtually no evidence and it was later proven that the entire story was fabricated).
I never saw it that way, but perhaps we should've. We're always the victim/good guys in our narratives. People having different opinions, and I mean that in an extreme manner. My bruise could be what makes you bleed, and what may be a minor ache to you could be a massive stab wound to me.
Of course, Epstein's Disneyland and racism within the early (and arguably, now still) jurors of the justice system is indefensible, and the Bin Laden shtick has no grey area; one's an extremist and the other's a morally corrupt opportunist with only corporate good in mind. But what I think the point that OP wanted to make was overreactions the internet usually has over inconsequential acts or even minor misconceptions between two parties, and by that, is in conjunction with how fucking easy it is to use the internet.
As stated above, this cancel culture thing only really dangles like a death threat over people with significant social standing on the internet. At worst, us peasants just get "ratio'd" over at Twitter for a bad take. But to stay on topic here, we've seen people get their jobs fired or be reported over universities for simply having a different opinion on a social subject. You can't even argue between classism and racism without the threat of being doxxed breathing down your neck. It's to the point where you WOULD want to actively avoid political topics just so you could keep from a social threat. Of course, you could always follow the usual NEVER POST ANY PERSONAL INFO OVER THE INTERNET rule but let's be honest: do you remember all your steps? Can you trace it all back to the first time you've ever started an Instagram account, or have an old alt somewhere you used to use as a main but now you've forgotten the password to? Those are live ammunition with your name on it, just laying there to be fired.
I think what OP was trying to highlight is the consequences of mob mentality PLUS the integration of the internet within modern society. Cancel culture didn't exist back then because at best, the common mob is a rally down at Wall Street that amounted to nothing but a massive clean-up operation at the sidewalk. Wall Street is still evil, only that they aren't hiding it anymore, and there's nothing you could do about it, but that's besides the point. Now, corporations and managements (things that we rely on to get a wage from) rely on these sites. Virtual traffic is as big as it's ever been. A social phenomenon/trend is the best advertising a brand would want that they couldn't buy. They want to become, in the literal sense, MEMES, so that they get spread far and wide as free advertising. This is why you get brand accounts trying to appeal to the masses with posts that range from somewhat haha to downright pandering cringe. They are, in a distilled explanation, chasing that internet bag. They NEED the internet, because if they hit the right frequency, they've essentially won advertising jackpot. and since they're chasing the internet bag of money, why not just port it all to the internet? the audience is on the internet already, right? so why not just make our systems and services work on the net? it's infinitely more profitable than its physical counterpart.
As of now, let me diverge a little bit from the subject and focus on the court in which cancel culture is fought on: social media.
Now, social media isn't just a part of the individual; they ARE the individual now. Your presence on the internet isn't an addition but a representation, at least to many. With social media being easy as ever to manage, a majority of people do not understand that there are others who like to hold some life beyond the interweb and just enjoy some slices of real life outside of the screen. However, being that social media are now having more expansive tools to express oneself, it's become this homogenous opinion of the masses that anything you are can be translated to the internet. However, the problem lies within the inability of social media to express nuance. Social media is designed as a catch-all tool for people to express who they are; they aren't swiss army knives that have designated tools that have specific purposes of expressing a certain side to a person; why catch the market of a niche when the profit's on the most RELATABLE OF MASSES. In short, they give tools that could simplify the market's most shared interests and personality and anything beyond that is just extra fat.
But what if that extra fat is what defines a certain person? What if they're someone that stands away from the usual crowd and just can't find a way to express himself with the tools given to them?
Most people don't care. They don't understand that there are some people whose personalities just don't mesh with the giant tools social media gives them to express themselves. That don't mean those "some people" won't try, just that the results vary. But, as I've said, most people DON'T CARE. I'm not saying most people are vain mongoloids that don't understand not everything can be translated well over to a tweet, I'm just saying that over-usage of convenience can blind others from wondering that said convenience may not be the same to the other guy. Social media has become SO EASY to use that anything beyond the realm of its expertise isn't considered as "exploration into personal psyches" but idiosyncracies, and those with said idiosyncrasies are what most people would label as "weirdos". Your personality can't be translated over a general app popularly used by the masses? You're not a guy with a differing character, you're just weird, because you can't cope with the tidal wave of simplifications.
But now, with the ever-rising usage of social media and with said corpos using it as advertising Powerball, the concept of niches in a personality is dead. Plus, with the ever rampant popularity competitions these social medias promote with systems such as Followers, Likes, Points, and Engagement Algorithms, the coffin is lowered into the Mariana's Trench, wrapped in steel chains and left for dead. Everyone's personality isn't a complex web of life experiences and teachings and perceptions, it's tags on a book: are you quirky, shy, loves books, enjoys movies, loves cartoons, hate cats? They've become labels, essentially, cut out from the general tools given by said social media. In fact, it's now encouraged that you have an easily labelled personality/character. Convenience is what sells now. On par with the rising surge of social media's presence and the said marketing from corpos and the popularity contest, what the internet's essentially done is that they've somehow replaced reality with their system, and now differing from the norm isn't seen as just a divergence from the mass, but as unmarketable shit that is actively discouraged. It's even apparent in this very dear site. 10k words with heavy themes that requires deep reading? No. Easily understandable LitRPG that's more plot-focused in 2k or less words? Yes. Why read about thing that can't be easily labelled when you can read the thing that literally has numbers displayed to present as progression? this isn't a jab at litRPGs, but as evidence on how convenience is king in the current world.
in short words, convenience in social media has become so convenient that it's now being integrated into our social life in the real world due to the rampant marketing and integration from corporations, further fuelling the public's dependence over said social media. coupled with the popularity competition encouraged by social media, social life has effectively become a test on how well you can translate over to a twitter profile. if you aren't compatible with the provided tools given by said social media, too bad, you're an outcast now, as social media isn't media anymore, but life.
Now, with all that explained, I will now explain that mob mentality.
It's easier than ever to gather a crowd over the web when exposure is as easy as one viral hashtag. You don't even need to make one good hashtag; like throwing shit at a wall, spam hashtag until one lands and goes absolutely everywhere, but that's just one half of the picture. One can easily manipulate the internet if one knows what makes it turn. And as explained on how social media became life, what better way to manipulate the masses than to use their humanity as a hostage? Couple that notion with the trend popularity competitions on the internet and you've got yourself a concoction that's as vile as its aftermath: the ability to deem someone as inhumane. essentially, the way to get people riled up on the internet is to use a subject and distill it in a way that it relates to one's moral principles and humanity. TL;DR: if you don't agree with this, you're a bad person. add that with said popularity competition and the innate will in all of us to "be the good guy", you've got yourself an easy mob entirely fueled by their desire to stay humane; as a good guy, if you will. to take ownership for the CONCEPT of being HUMAN, is ultimate power. religion as used it to great extents in the past, and damn if it doesn't work here.
and therein lies the problem. social media has essentially distilled the masses into labels. nuance is dead. everything is laid front, bare and centre through the lens of the internet. what those lens can't see doesn't exist. what those lens see is absolute. it doesn't matter if they're looking at it from one singular perspective among many others. my view is correct, and everyone else that sees what I don't see is incorrect, and as discussed from the last paragraph, inhumane.
and now you get cancel culture.
the utter convenience of social media causing its organic integration into becoming a dependence of life, the rising reliance of corporations and businesses of social media as a reaction out of chasing profits, the dismissiveness towards those that don't fit the frames provided by said social medias, the death of nuance in personalities, and the manipulation of the masses through the eligibility of one's humanity from simple labels used to describe a personality.
and now to construct the final picture.
you have a mob that will tear you down to shreds from the bare notion that you're inhumane simply because you don't adopt their labels. you have the death of nuanced personalities and backgrounds and upbringings; all utterly ignored. if one doesn't adopt said labels, they get dogged on the internet. they might get lucky if they hide their tracks well, but those that don't, they get their addresses and workplaces found out. corporations and businesses that depend on social media have to conform to the crowd; they are the customer after all. and now the one that doesn't adopt the label gets fired from their job out of sheer pressure from the big masses. it doesn't even matter if your business doesn't;t use social media for exposure. one viral post full of slander is enough to motivate your local community to shun you, as social media has essentially integrated part of life. it doesn't matter if it's full of lies: peer pressure is what calls the shot now.
and that's without getting into extra territory such as American ideals being used as compasses in eastern situations where they have no business being in, the rising narrative of clear cut black and whites, political climates, etc. that all STILL play giant parts within this massive web of a social phenomenon.
and now for the big question: what's wrong with that? in the end, those labels still define your personality, right? in frank words, it's not hard to say that you don't support racism, right?
and that's where the death of nuance comes.
who's to define these labels? there's no nuance to these discussions anymore. the discussion is boiled down to who can make the best sounding jingo/metaphor that seems irrefutable despite holding many inaccuracies and lies. the difference between a popular racist who claims to be otherwise and a non-racist guy with unpopular opinions is that the former can swap his rhetoric to be righteous and great just by simply claiming himself to be, and any discussion that would've been made is moot as the former can just as easily use the internet to their advantage to socially cripple the latter in the name of humanity.
of course, there are ACTUAL bad people out there with harmful views and opinions, but who's to say their judgement is always correct. who's to say ANYONE's judgement is correct? and when everyone's using humanity as a front for their cause, then what's so sacred about humanity in the first place anyway when it can be applied to labels so easily?
this, I believe, is the issue of cancel culture. the simplification of humanity to simple labels and the favour of popularity over actual merits to a discussion, and since the former is significantly more quantifiable than the latter, nuance is swiftly killed in the backfire. it does kill deserving enemies, yes, but this is scorched earth tactic.
i prefer to keep the innocents out of the way and do things the old way. the justice system may be flawed, but it's not a digital lynch mob. at least there's curation, instead of a group driven on pure peer pressure to be the "good guys". if you still believe in your cause, then I hope you get as much mercy as you see fit to give your enemy.
or maybe I'm wrong and I spent these four hours typing pure bullshit idk
