My Brief Touch With Cancel Culture

The Tools of Cancel Culture: From Whispers to Threats

Cancel Culture employs a range of tactics, both implicit and explicit, to suppress discussion and free expression. These range from overt bullying and harassment to more insidious reputation spoiling and bureaucratic strategies. The widely reported silencing, doxing, or censoring of people for practicing something legal but deemed inappropriate, to the slow whispering of colleagues and peers who mysteriously disinvite you from things. The aim is to shut down and damage some primary targets, and to intimidate everyone else into silence and submission. I think it stems from an urge to purify things and keep them free from corruption. In many ways, it is an understandable urge. But it’s shortsighted and damaging, because the lens used to clean with is subjective and fueled by resentment and entitlement.

A Celebration Marred

In October 2023, my collection of horror stories was published with Poe Girl Publishing. To celebrate and promote this, I arranged readings at local literary events and bookshops. One was based in Birmingham, where I’d been invited several times before. These events have always been well-attended and well-received. I’ve had fun discussing and sharing my work with others. The shop owners are very supportive of my efforts. In the run-up to this particular event, the shop received a peculiar email. I’ll share it here:

Hello, as you have taken part in LGBTQ+ events in the past, I think it is essential to know that you have booked an extremely vocal transphobe called Robert Francis to give a talk at your shop. His colleagues and pupils at his University are well aware of this, and have had several complaints about his 'anti-woke' stances, which have included not giving trigger warnings to vulnerable students as well as 'jokingly' misgendering them. His X account has recently been sanitised somewhat. However, there are still references to ‘how multiculturalism has failed’ / all trans people being ‘groomers’ / the "great replacement" theory, if you look at the likes and replies.

I was pretty shocked. Pretty upset. Pretty angry too. Luckily for me, the owners knew me and my work well and stood by me. They said they wanted to proceed with the event and that they’d keep a close eye on things as best they could. I agreed and said if we back down, these pathetic bullies win. So, I wasn’t cancelled, but I had taken a walk with cancel culture, and I want to tell you about how it impacts people.

I don’t feel the need to answer these charges of transphobia and racism. To the best of my knowledge, my employer has not received complaints about me, or if they've disposed of them with the contempt they deserve. My track record speaks for itself. My creative and scholarly work is available for public viewing.

My initial response was a rush of adrenaline and stress hormones. My body kicked in, triggering the fight-or-flight response, characterized by shaking, pacing, and a rapid heartbeat. My mind raced between questions and worries. I was concerned for my safety and my job. I wondered who it was who’d decided to take such a perverse interest in my ‘likes’ and ‘replies’. What else were they tracking? Who else were they contacting to bring about this strange comeuppance? Would I need to worry about having to physically and intellectually defend myself? All these questions and more ran through my head for several weeks. I looked at students and colleagues with suspicion. I was prepared to stand up for myself if necessary; I still am. However, I must admit that over the next few weeks, I often thought about what I was sharing, liking, and replying to on X. I was less authentic.

The Psychological Toll

This has a disquieting and estranging effect on one’s well-being and psychology. It is the same tactic narcissistic, gaslighting abusers use on their victims – we know it’s not us, but it somehow might be. In this state, one loses track of what might have been said or overheard, as well as what one intended to say. Did John look at me funny when I mentioned such and such? Did James laugh in the lecture, and what did that laugh mean? All this suspicion. All this paranoia. All this anxiety that masked antifa types might turn up at any moment. And then, in the reflection, one sees something uncanny – a figure who looks and sounds like yourself but is not fully grounded. It is an ego crisis—a crisis of self. God knows how people who’ve been hounded out of their jobs and bullied in the streets must feel, if a simple email made me go through this. I don’t usually care what people think of me, but I was physiologically and psychologically impacted here.

I hope whoever sent this email is reading this; I also hope others who have done similar things are. I want you all to know that, despite your likely good intentions (I have faith in your goodness, regardless of this), bullies often behave this way. It’s a deeply unhealthy thing. Has it made you better? Has it made anything better? How might you do things differently in the future for the better?

My brush with cancel culture highlights two key aspects that are part of this censorious current. One part is a lack of courage, and a queasiness about specific language and thought, from the mechanisms of culture. Two, a boldness in moral conviction to arrogantly say this is fine and this is not fine. This unquestioning moral confidence and attention towards that which disgusts normalises the sanitising of culture or conversation – a decidedly fascist impulse. It is also a naïve goal, presupposing that humanity might behave itself if we could just cast off the shackles of ‘dirty’ ideas.

With the brave support of the bookshop, which had plenty to lose if this went badly, I settled with fight over flight – a working-class upbringing in the Black Country builds broad shoulders. A few days after the email, I calmed down. After a few weeks, I was almost over it. I got on with life and work. I was, however, still a little paranoid that thugs (there’s plenty of evidence that this might happen) would turn up and I’d be physically threatened or attacked. I invited three of my biggest, baldest, most Brexit-y looking friends to come along to the event, and I must admit, I laughed at my thought process here. I laughed at the irony that if this situation did ‘bring the ruckus’, the four of us would look precisely what a transphobic, multiculturalism-hating cliché would look like. Then, when I stopped laughing at myself, I sighed. I thought, what a pathetic world we’ve allowed to come about. I thought about people who’d had far worse to bear than me.

Even When You Win, You Lose

The day of the event came. I read from my book. People turned up and were entertained enough to buy copies. There were no menacing idiots in ski masks. It was lovely. I haven’t heard anything since. There’s been no further complaints or issues, as far as I’m aware. Certainly nothing serious enough for me to be led to the office of my superiors. However, you can still not shake the idea. Are they collating bits of evidence for a later date? Did that other poetry magazine reject me because they’d also had an email, or did they “know” about my “extreme views”? Did I miss out on that commission because of the nasty haunting of gossip like this? Is there a larger wave of censorious harassment heading my way? This is what the culture relies on. Regardless of whether or not the cancellation works - it’s worked before and it’ll work again, and so you better stay in your lane. Furthermore, even if it doesn’t work, it works somewhat, and for many, that’s enough. Even as I type this, I wonder if it's worth inviting possible trouble, and that shaky fight-or-flight feeling comes back. This is what these almost cancellations do – the current relies on those hints, whispers, and other people’s stories; even when you win, you still lose.

This touches everyone and all areas. My experience was a slightly heightened version of what we’re all stuck with: the new world requirement to be somewhat careful with our words and thoughts; to be a politically correct public facing persona; to be on the lookout for snitches and/or folks we might snitch on; to be sodden by our fight or flight responses. This state of collective anxiety, loss of selfhood, and paranoia is precisely the account we read of time and time again in the harrowing dictatorships of Mao, Stalin, et al. Now, consider the likes of Dr. Stock and Dr. Kiszely for their incorrect thinking. Consider the secondary school teacher from Batley who used the wrong type of teaching materials. Consider Salman Rushdie. And remember, this could be coming at you from any location at any time for anything you might have even half-smiled at. That’s what we’ve allowed to take root.

Reclaiming the Creative Space

This strangles the creative impulse. Writers understand that funding streams, publishing houses, literary agencies, and institutions are often inundated with staff and processes driven by ideological biases. With that in mind, they’re aware of what will and won’t get published, as well as what will and won’t garner them notice, for better or worse. This suffocates the imagination and distorts the creative responses to the cultural milieu. We and the scene need to take a leaf out of Oscar Wilde’s observations: books are not moral or immoral; they are either well-written or poorly written. This should be the only principle in what gets produced.

Those who participate in cancel culture are misguided, foolish, and /or spineless. That’s why they do what they do – they have no proper argument. I’d recommend joining groups like the Freedom in the Arts, the Free Speech Union, and Academics for Academic Freedom, which are already paving the way out of this nonsense and can also show you that you’re not alone. I’ve been shocked by how readily writers have accepted the status quo, and appalled by how silent they’ve been when fellow writers have been removed from events or had deals dropped. That needs to change, and it needs to be robust and fast.

A truly free creative culture means everyone has the opportunity to express themselves in whatever form they feel best suits that expression, unhindered by the institutions that enable creativity. We still have a way to go to reestablish this, but I remain positive. We’ve had some significant legal and social wins over the last few years that've helped pull people and institutions out of their stupor. There will always be outliers and renegades. All good writers have a bit of Iggy Pop in them.

All it takes is a few writers with guts to break through, and the spell starts to dissipate.

Dr R. M. Francis

Writer | Senior Lecturer at the University of Wolverhampton

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