We live in a world where any word or action can very quickly become public. It takes just one post, joke, remark, or photo for thousands of people to start talking about someone. Many have heard about the highly publicized case involving Johnny Depp and his former wife Amber Heard. Their conflict played out not only in court but across social media, turning a personal story into a global public spectacle.

What once might have gone unnoticed or been discussed quietly within a small circle can now be brought into the spotlight with ease. In response to its own reaction, society demands explanations and justice. What matters is no longer only what actually happened, but how it was seen and interpreted by others.

Gradually, this gave rise to a phenomenon known as cancel culture. It is most often described as a way for society to respond to unacceptable behavior, such as violence or abuse of power — especially in cases where formal institutions have long failed or functioned poorly.

But if we look more closely, a question arises: why do some actions trigger immediate moral condemnation while others are barely noticed? Why, in some cases, does collective outrage allow for no nuance, while in others it seems not to activate at all?

Cancel culture rarely misjudges what constitutes a problem.

Far more often, it misjudges whom — and when — to punish for it.

Why Cancel Culture Works in the First Place

How People Were “Canceled” in the Past

The idea of public condemnation did not emerge today. People were excluded from society long before the internet.

In Ancient Greece, there was a practice known as Ostracism. It was used especially frequently around 500–450 BCE. Citizens would gather and vote using clay shards called ostraka. On them, they wrote the name of a person they considered dangerous to the state. Whoever received the most votes was exiled from the city for ten years.

Importantly, no crime had to be committed for this to happen. Ostracism was more of a preventive measure — a way to remove someone “just in case”. The person did not lose their property, citizenship, or legal status, and was not formally considered a criminal. They were simply excluded from public life.

A similar mechanism also existed in religion. The Old Testament describes an ancient Jewish ritual performed on a special day — Yom Kippur (Hebrew: יום כיפור — “Day of Atonement” or “Judgment Day”). It was believed that over the course of a year the people accumulated many sins, and in order to “cleanse” themselves, they symbolically transferred all their sins onto a single animal — a goat. A special ritual was performed over it, after which it was led into the desert and released there, effectively condemning it to death.

This goat was called the “scapegoat”. It became the one held responsible for everything at once, even though it had done nothing. In this way, society rid itself of guilt and anxiety by directing them toward a single chosen “culprit”. This is where the expression we still use today comes from, when someone is made to take the blame for collective problems.

In medieval Europe, public condemnation often took an even more visible form — the pillory. These were installed in market squares so that everyone could see the condemned person. The individual was locked into the structure and left in full view of the crowd. The punishment was not only about the formal sentence itself, but about the reaction of onlookers. People could throw rotten vegetables, stones, and dirt, shout insults, and even resort to physical violence. In some cases, such punishments ended in death.

Pillories were widespread in Western Europe — in France and England — beginning in the 12th and 13th centuries, and were also used in the Russian Empire, including against penal labor convicts. It was a public spectacle in which the crowd itself played a central role.

Medieval Europe also had another form of exclusion — anathema, or excommunication from the Church. At that time, the Church was an integral part of everyday life, so such a punishment meant near-total exclusion from society. A person could not marry in the Church, could not be buried in a common cemetery, and in some cases even their children were denied baptism. This stripped not only the individual but also their family of a future within the community.

The key difference between all these examples and modern cancel culture is that in the past such punishments were official and regulated. They were backed by the state, the Church, or the community, and followed established rules.

Cancel Culture from a Psychological Perspective

When you look at how quickly and massively cancel culture takes over public space, it’s hard not to think of phenomena described in collective psychology. In such moments, a person reacts less as an individual and more as part of a group. Personal opinion dissolves into a shared emotional current, and the collective response turns into a single, powerful, and often harsh impulse.

Social media has made this process much faster and more intense. Their algorithms reward not calm reflection but engagement — and what spreads best is not doubt, but outrage. In this environment, moral positioning is increasingly expressed not through analysis, but through immediate action: a like, a repost, or an angry comment. This is where herd instinct kicks in — a mechanism that once helped humans survive by sticking together. When activated, a person unconsciously aligns with the behavior of the group, even if, alone, they would never have acted the same way.

Psychology has long shown that the same person behaves very differently alone than in a crowd. This is clearly demonstrated by well-known experiments:

In the experiment conducted by Solomon Asch, participants were given a simple task: choose the line that matched the length of a sample line. The correct answer was obvious. However, the other participants in the group (who were confederates) deliberately chose the wrong option. As a result, about 75% of participants agreed with the clearly incorrect answer at least once, simply to avoid going against the group. Without majority pressure, almost everyone answered correctly. The experiment showed that, for many people, being “like everyone else” matters more than being right.

In the experiments conducted by Stanley Milgram, participants were instructed to “punish” another person with electric shocks for mistakes on a task. The shocks were fake, but the participants did not know that. When a man in a white lab coat calmly insisted that the experiment must continue, 65% of participants proceeded to the maximum voltage level, believing they were causing serious harm. The essence of the experiment was simple: in the presence of authority, people are willing to do things they themselves consider wrong.

The Stanford prison experiment demonstrated the power of roles and environment. Ordinary students were randomly assigned to be “guards” or “prisoners”. Within just a few days, the “guards” began humiliating the “prisoners”, and the experiment, originally planned to last two weeks, had to be stopped after only six days due to cruelty and psychological breakdowns. None of the participants had shown violent tendencies beforehand — the situation itself, along with the imposed roles, created the behavior.

Some people dislike comparisons between humans and animals, since humanity is a fundamentally different species, endowed with consciousness. Yet in other contexts, these same people readily explain human behavior through “instincts”, especially when discussing sexual violence. So it is worth honestly examining how group behavior functions more broadly — including in animals.

When suddenly frightened, a herd of deer or antelope can literally trample their own young or weaker members. Sometimes ants lose their pheromone trail and begin moving in circles, following one another endlessly — they can continue this for hours or even days, until they die from exhaustion. It is also worth mentioning the mass sheep deaths in Turkey in 2005: in one village, around 1,500 sheep were grazing unattended. For unknown reasons, one sheep fell off a cliff. Hundreds followed, one after another. In the end, about 400 sheep died; the rest survived only because they fell onto the bodies of those that had jumped before them. These are classic examples of herd behavior without any assessment of consequences.

In a crowd, responsibility becomes diluted. It feels as though “everyone is doing it”, and therefore you are not personally accountable. That is why a person who would never raise a hand alone may, in a group, begin shouting, insulting, or even literally throwing stones at someone. Participation in collective condemnation becomes a way of signaling: “I belong”, “I’m on the right side”.

And most often, one crucial element is missing from this collective logic — critical thinking. The ability to look in one direction, and then in the other. A crowd has neither the time nor the patience to consider that a situation may be more complex than it appears at first glance. Instead, what is rewarded is speed of reaction and alignment with the dominant momentum. The ability to doubt and analyze becomes not a virtue, but a suspicious deviation. In such moments, people often act not out of deep conviction in their own righteousness, but out of a subconscious fear of being excluded from the group.

At times like this, cancel culture can begin to resemble a kind of social psychosis. The collective decision feels absolutely correct and self-evident. Yet it is often built not on facts, but on cognitive distortions — persistent errors in thinking that make us see the world not as it is, but as it is convenient to see it here and now, as happened in the case of Johnny Depp. At first, Depp was publicly condemned, and film studios cut ties with him. Later, when it emerged that Amber Heard had defamed him, public outrage shifted toward her instead. Emotions proved more powerful than facts, and the act of punishment became more important than understanding the situation itself.

A crowd does not seek truth — it seeks release, and finds it in the figure of a “culprit” onto whom collective anger can be directed. And the more people become involved in this process, the harder it is to stop and ask a simple but essential question: what if the reality is more complicated?

This does not mean that collective reaction is always wrong or unjust. Sometimes it truly helps draw attention to serious problems.

When Cancel Culture Actually Works

One of the most well-known examples is the story of Harvey Weinstein. He was one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood. The careers of actresses, directors, and screenwriters often depended on his decisions. Many women later said that he abused his power: coercing them into sexual acts, threatening to destroy their careers if they refused, and acting as though he would never face consequences. People in the industry knew about it, but almost no one spoke openly — the price was too high.

The situation changed when several women decided to share their stories publicly. Other survivors, journalists, and members of the public supported them. The pressure became so intense that it was no longer possible to ignore what had happened. Investigations and trials followed, and Weinstein ultimately received a real prison sentence. In this case, cancel culture did not replace justice — it forced the justice system to finally do its job.

A similar situation unfolded around P. Diddy, one of the most influential figures in the American music industry. He was a rapper, producer, and businessman whose network shaped the careers of dozens of artists. His private parties were seen as part of the elite world of show business, attracting musicians, models, and celebrities.

Over time, allegations began to surface that violence, coercion, humiliation, and abuse of power had taken place at these events. People from within his circle described an atmosphere of permissiveness combined with strict control and fear of consequences for refusing to participate or speaking out. For a long time, these accounts were dismissed as rumors — his influence was simply too great.

When the accusations became public and supporting evidence emerged, the situation shifted. Public pressure forced the industry and law enforcement to respond. In the end, P. Diddy was arrested and also ended up in prison. As in Weinstein’s case, cancel culture served as the initial catalyst that triggered formal investigations.

In cases like these, cancel culture works because it is directed not at a random mistake or an ill-phrased comment, but at systemic violence and abuse of power. It gives a voice to those who were previously unheard and breaks the cycle of silence that allowed the powerful to act with impunity for years.

It is important to clarify the difference between the cases described above and those that will be discussed later in this article. In the cases of Weinstein and P. Diddy, the issue involved actions that caused real physical harm to others and remained unpunished for a long time. But the same mechanism begins to fail when it is applied indiscriminately to entirely different situations — when systemic violence and old statements for which a person has already taken responsibility are met with the same level of severity. In those moments, the line between protecting society and carrying out a public execution begins to blur.

When Cancel Culture Begins to Cause Harm

In some situations, cancel culture targets people whose actions are disproportionate to the punishment that follows. More precisely, society does not always take context and time into account.

One of the most telling examples is Kevin Hart. In 2018, he was invited to host the Academy Awards ceremony. Almost immediately afterward, his old tweets — more than ten years old — began circulating widely on social media. In them, Hart had made homophobic jokes that are rightly considered unacceptable today.

What is important, however, is that those statements had been made long before the controversy. Hart had already apologized for them in the past and repeatedly said that he no longer thought or joked that way. Nevertheless, the collective reaction was unequivocal: if you once said it, that alone is enough. Under public pressure, Hart stepped down from hosting. He was not accused of crimes or violence — he was punished for past words, without regard for who he had become since then.

A similar situation happened to James Gunn, the director of Guardians of the Galaxy. In 2018, old tweets containing extremely inappropriate and shocking jokes resurfaced online. These posts had been written many years earlier, during a period Gunn himself later described as the most shameful stage of his life. He had deleted them before the scandal and openly acknowledged that his behavior at the time was wrong. Despite this, The Walt Disney Company immediately fired him, without publicly examining the situation or assessing the changes he had undergone. The decision was made quickly, under the pressure of public reaction. Only later, after support from actors and colleagues, was Gunn rehired — effectively acknowledging that the initial decision had been rushed.

Both stories highlight a broader problem within cancel culture: it struggles with boundaries of responsibility. In this logic, society stops asking essential questions — what exactly was done, who suffered real harm, whether there was an attempt to make amends, and what consequences are proportionate to the situation.

It is at this point that harm begins. A system without distinctions or nuance inevitably becomes dangerous. Today it affects public figures; tomorrow, ordinary people. And then cancellation ceases to be a way of protecting society and increasingly turns into a mechanism sustained by fear of being next.

The point of the Hart and Gunn stories is about when cancel culture chose to target their statements, and here it’s important to state the obvious. Discrimination, homophobia, or violence are not “just words” undeserving of criticism. Society has rightly become stricter toward statements that demean people based on sexual orientation, gender, race, or age, and even more so toward any form of child exploitation or abuse. These are real issues—they cannot be trivialized—and the public can confidently mark where the line of acceptability lies. Does that mean that everything changes once someone crosses that line?