This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 1460.
How to talk about cancel culture with a native speaker.
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Have you heard about the term cancel culture?
Do you know what it means?
Today, Lindsay and Jessica will give you examples of celebrities, athletes and companies that are being canceled.
Find out how to have an intriguing conversation about this topic with a native speaker.
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Hey, Jessica, how you doing?
I'm doing great.
Yeah, I'm excited for what we're talking about today.
This is a contentious issue.
I know.
We've gotten into some really interesting topics in the last couple of weeks.
Guys, we are in the middle of a series on what, Jessica?
How would you characterize this series?
So we are trying to explain internet memes and the vocabulary we use natives use on social media right now, all the time.
And this is vocabulary that is so new.
You know relatively in our language that as a non-native speaker, you're never going to like see this in a textbook or on a vocabulary list somewhere.
Absolutely not, guys.
You want to go back and listen to the first two episodes in this series, 1453.
We talked about the term...
Karen, right?
Someone being called a Karen.
And then we also talked in 1445 about internet trolling.
So go back and get those and then come back to this episode.
And guys, I mean we're telling you this stuff is so new that, like that Karen meme we talked about last time
I mean, both Lindsay and I, like we learned about that recently.
You know what I mean?
Like three weeks ago.
Yeah.
So this is, it's not just news to, you know, you guys, like this is even news for natives as well.
So today, Lindsay, what phrase are, what idea are we talking about today?
Yeah.
So we're talking about a term that was also new to me this year, right?
This term of cancel culture, right?
Generally the idea when someone does something that is not really acceptable, especially these days, right in a very aware society, as we're trying to evolve as a society specifically about social justice.
Yeah.
All aspects of social justice.
When someone, a person or a company makes a comment or does an action that goes against that and it's politically incorrect, they get canceled.
So what does that mean, Jessica?
Yeah, so if they get canceled, it would mean like people will troll them again.
Listen to the first episode of this series, guys.
People will troll them online.
They will like stop following them on social media.
But I think a lot of the cancel culture is just like –
The public making lots of comments and calling these people out on their actions they don't agree with right.
I mean, I think it's for brands.
People stop buying their product.
Yes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, yeah.
So that would be like – because companies can also be canceled.
And I think that's most of the examples that you and I would have today.
Because the canceling certain celebrities, we don't follow celebrities.
Like I don't pay attention to what individual celebrities are doing.
But I know that like these days, gosh –
Like people are digging up photos and quotes that public figures made 20 years ago and then bringing them back and saying look, how horrible this person is.
Right.
Yeah.
Like, even the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau.
Oh, the...
Yeah.
Do you remember that?
Was it a was it a blackface thing that happened?
Okay.
Yeah.
Just explain to our listeners what that is.
Do you want to go ahead and take a crack at it?
I know.
Not really, but I will.
Black faces with, like a white person, puts makeup on their face to be an African-American person or a black person.
Right.
In any kind of, for example, Halloween usually is when it tends to happen or costume parties or things like that.
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
Which, of course, guys, no, you cannot do this.
Yeah.
Okay, so let's get into the company the canceling companies though, because I feel like there's more to talk about here.
Can you think of an example of a company that has been canceled?
Yeah, so I think the recent one that came to my attention was Goya.
So Goya makes, you know, beans and canned goods like that.
Yeah, they made a pro-Trump comment.
And, you know, guys, again, we know all of our listeners have different political views.
Right.
We're just telling you what happened.
We know we can also be kind of opinionated on the show and we don't want to completely hide our opinions.
But we also want you guys to feel like you can listen to the show.
But we're just telling you what happened in this case and how our culture reacted to it.
Right.
How a lot of people reacted.
So they made a pro-Trump comment.
And basically, people started tweeting out about stopping buying Goya.
Right.
People kind of considered Goya being hateful, similar to the way they see Trump.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, there are a number of companies.
In the past couple years, especially again as our awareness grows like we talked about on the last episode guys as our awareness grows about people who have been marginalized in the past
There are more actions and words today that are considered politically incorrect than ever before.
And I think for good reason, right?
Because we're trying to just be better as a society.
But as more things become politically incorrect, then more companies are going to be called out on their policies, policies.
And again, like it could just be one person from a company that tweets something and then the whole company will have to be held accountable for that.
So it's tricky.
Are there any more examples that you know of, Jessica, in terms of companies?
Sure.
I mean, I can remember back in the 1990s, before we even had this phrase cancel culture, when Nike's labor practices became headline news right,
Like you know, having sweatshops in third world countries and just not treating their employees on just a basic human rights level.
And when that stuff came out in the news, then I know a lot of people boycotted Nike.
And again, I don't know how long that lasted.
I think, you know, it was sort of a flash in the pan.
Nobody talks about this anymore so much.
But even in the 90s I remember my mom jumping on that bandwagon and she's like not a person that would do that.
And she was like, we're not going to buy Nike anymore.
And again, that just lasted for like a month.
So yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's true.
The flash in the pan, by the way, for our listeners is a nice bonus vocabulary word today, right?
That's a great phrase.
You know, our news cycles have gotten so much faster with social media and with internet news as opposed to just a newspaper.
Right.
A flash in the pan is just something that, you know, is a quick flash.
It happens quickly.
It's a kind of a trend or something that passes, moves on.
We forget about it, but it's intense at the moment.
Right.
That's popular.
Yeah.
Yeah, totally.
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Have you ever canceled any companies, Lindsay?
Oh, that's a good question.
Well, I have to be honest, like when I went shopping last week, I saw the Goya.
I saw the can there and I did not buy it.
I thought about this controversy and I chose not to buy Goya beans.
So I guess you could say I've canceled them.
And I have heard some really negative things about Hobby Lobby as well.
Yeah.
Oh, my gosh.
What was the issue there that happened?
So they refused to pay for female workers to have birth control methods.
They just took control of what kind of insurance options their female employees would have, and they disallowed them to use their employee insurance to have birth control because –.
Hobby Lobby, this isn't like a hidden thing.
They are proudly a religious owned company.
And so they said it was against their religious beliefs that, you know, contraception.
Yeah.
So they wouldn't allow their workers to take advantage of that technology sort of healthcare.
They're female workers right, and there's.
There's actually a lot of crazy stuff that the owners of Hobby Lobby have done like.
I listened to a podcast about it, about them a couple weeks ago.
The owner bought Not like antiquities, like these old religious relics, but illegally on the black market.
And oh, my gosh, just so so much crazy stuff that has happened with the owners of that company.
But it was mostly the health care for their female employees.
So I know that a lot of people sort of canceled that company from their shopping habits.
Right.
Right, right.
Another one that I know is Chick-fil-A.
So I know that Chick-fil-A is also a deeply conservative ownership.
And I know they've spoken out a lot against LGBT from what I've heard.
So that's another one that people have tended to sometimes boycott, depending on people's views, that kind of thing.
Right.
And again, guys, I mean, talk about like purchasing power and buyer power and just – wow.
We have – this information goes to millions of people so immediately.
And then this idea of like can we have any impact by just – not buying from this company?
Because there's going to be just as many people probably, who do agree with them and will buy from them or choose them.
So it's hard to say if it does have an effect, but I think it does.
I think it does.
I think it does, because you also hear about athletes or anyone who ends up being sponsored, their sponsors immediately pulling out when they make some kind of a cancel worthy comment.
Right, you hear that.
So it's.
You know the person is, if they're a yeah, like I said an athlete or something, they're no longer supported, because it's not okay for those sponsors then to be supporting that player.
In that case.
That's true.
But then we have the opposite side, where a player does stand up for their personal beliefs and then they get more sponsors.
You know like happened with Colin Kaepernick, who wasn't even – like he doesn't even play football anymore.
Yeah.
And like he's still you see him in ads and stuff because he was the first.
He was the first NFL African-American person to take a knee and really like stand up for the Black Lives Matter.
So then he ended up getting more more sponsors after that.
Yeah, that's true.
But I mean, I think it's important.
Like his platform is so important because, just because in my mind, the group that he's targeting, the people that are watching football, I kind of feel like a lot of them.
There needs to be some awareness built in those circles in some ways.
And I think it's good that, you know, he's in front of it and the impact that he's making.
Oh, for sure.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, I'm not saying he did it for the sponsors.
I'm just saying, like, there could be a positive aspect to taking a stand as a public figure, right?
Like, yeah, he does need to be in front of people.
I think guys, if you listened to our last episode, what like that Karen idea is?
I think a lot of Karens watch NFL with their husbands.
Yeah.
That's kind of what I was thinking.
Yeah.
And you just mentioned something.
I don't know if we cover this on our series on Black Lives Matter, but we should do another episode on this term.
Take a knee.
Oh, yeah.
You know, you threw that out there, but I'm not sure if our listeners are aware.
Just real quick, Jessica, what does that mean?
Just real quick.
And we'll do another episode another day on take a knee when you say that.
What does that mean?
Yeah.
So this became a form of silent protest among people who wanted to stand up for the Black Lives Matter movement.
So for professional athletes, started with the NFL, with Colin Kaepernick, I think is how you say his name during the national anthem.
All of the athletes line up, right, for the national anthem.
They put their hands over their heart.
But to call attention to his cause, he took a knee, which means he knelt down on one knee.
And of course, this is especially noticeable because everyone else is standing up and he's the only one to be on one knee.
Yeah, and it's controversial in our country because some people think I don't think this, but some people think that it's being unpatriotic.
That if you're not standing for the national anthem, you are saying that you are un-American or unpatriotic or you don't support the troops, or that kind of thing.
So that's kind of where the rub is, right, in our culture around this.
Yeah.
And it gets people very angry when they're at home watching football and they see this.
But I think it's a great thing.
Oh, it's fantastic.
Yeah.
And the NBA has really been impressive with allowing their players to um to express their opinions, and the NFL not so much.
But it's different.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's interesting.
And we could go another day.
Maybe we would have to have some guests on to understand why.
I think it has partly to do with the way that the athletes are paid.
Um, NBA players, I think, are paid no matter what or something.
I have to get more details on that, but they have more of a platform.
They're allowed to do that more just because of the way things are set up in the NBA versus the NFL.
Yeah, interesting.
I would like yeah okay, we need to do some more research on this, because I have my suspicions as far as like, the breakdown of the races of ownership of these teams as well.
I don't know.
That's just a suspicion, but we'll come back to that another time.
Yeah.
And I mean, the WNBA has been very outspoken as well.
Yeah.
Which is really cool.
Really cool.
Women's NBA, guys.
Totally.
Yeah.
Yeah.
People from other countries probably don't know the WNBA.
So I'm glad you explained that.
So this is good.
I mean.
So this is the basic concept, guys.
When someone, whether it's an athlete, whether it's a brand, a corporate brand or a singer, make some kind of a comment, that is just not in tune with where we're at as a culture right now, trying to raise awareness.
It's just considered politically incorrect and offensive.
They get canceled, right?
People stop following them, stop buying their products, and they end up struggling.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Yeah, I would love to do a follow up episode with like results.
Like if these companies profits went down or not.
Guys, we definitely do want to do a follow up episode to answer your question.
So come back to the blog, guys, allearsenglish.com.
Lindsay will tell you the number of this episode.
Just a moment.
But guys, we want to do a Q&A episode.
So I have two things to ask you guys.
Come back to the blog post for this episode.
And one, tell us if this cancel culture happens where you live.
Have companies been quote unquote canceled or celebrities, public figures, been canceled because of their beliefs or certain actions they've done?
And then also ask us a question guys, if there's anything we've mentioned and talked about in these episodes, ask us about it.
If you need some explanation and we can do a follow up.
Yeah, this is really good stuff.
Super modern English, guys.
Again, good stuff to strike up a conversation with any native speaker that you might know and get their opinion on all this right.
This is a starting point for a great conversation.
For sure.
Yes.
Yeah.
So this is episode 1460.
So go to our blog allearsenglishcom, type in the search bar 1460 and you'll find out where to leave that comment, guys.
Okay?
Awesome.
Very cool.
All right.
Excellent, Jessica.
Great topic today.
And I'll see you very soon.
Okay.
Sounds good.
Bye, Lizzie.
Take care.
Bye.
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