Celebs, musicians, clothing brand a**holes… they are not going to save the world. Stop holding them up as if they are worthy of that pressure. Spotlight on our actual leaders, it’s they who must not let us down.
Cape Town, South Africa (28 September 2020) – Kim Nicola Stephens is fast becoming our favourite author during South Africa’s COVID-19 lockdown… because we need laughter more now than anything!
She has given us the top 10 middle-class quarantine categories, a hilarious depiction of how confusing level 4 actually is, the beauty truths of the burbs during the lockdown, the runners versus smokers debacle and she weighed in (hilariously) about how everyone in South Africa has suddenly become an expert on nearly everything.
South Africans have a way of getting through the toughest times, usually with a side dish of humour, and her writing is on point. Kim recently wrote an opinion piece on “Cancel Culture” and pointed out how baying for blood with celebs, musicians, clothing brand a**holes makes no sense.
“Cancel culture refers to the popular practice of withdrawing support for (cancelling) public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive. Cancel culture is generally discussed as being performed on social media in the form of group shaming.”
Kim has permitted us to post her latest piece to Good Things Guy, and we hope you enjoy the brilliant humour (and her totally necessary thoughts).
Cancel Culture – what is it and why should it be cancelled?!
Anyone following the Ellen Degeneres story? In short, our “Be Kind” hero was found to be lacking in leadership skills, and some staff outed her for an unhappy work environment. Then it escalated to racism, and paedophilia and eating children. I’m not even joking. She shut down the comments on her (92m followers) Insta account and stopped posting.
This woman who had so many of us belly laughing at everything from the grotesque putrefaction of US governance under Trump, to a daft dancing game called Poke-A-Face (participants in paper bag masks trying to poke each others’ faces on stage with the Lady Gaga Poker Face playing). She publicly and proudly normalised lesbian marriage, gives millions to charity and, frankly, never promised you or me anything other than a good talk show that would make you laugh, make you think, and end up wanting Stephen Boss as a best mate.
Then Ellen, known to be a comedian and excellent satirist, aired an online apology coinciding with her new show season. She was dragged for being flippant (she is a fucking comedian, what are you on?) and continues to receive death threats.
You don’t like her? Stop following! Don’t watch her show! She is not the government; she is not sitting on your taxes, and you can choose to dislike and move on!
So locally we have seen a few kinda-sorta similar things.
That total miscreant Tooth oke who tore into women’s bodies a week or two back. He was, rightly, lambasted. He gave a shallow, weak-as-boarding-school-tea apology, and some of the best in the social media underworld exposed his cocktail-sausage personality for exactly what it is.
Fade out, right? No!
Now there is a 7000 follower strong Facebook group calling for Justice Against (Tooth oke, I won’t say his name he deserves no further fame).
What?!? He is an irrelevant turd, and there you all are baying for blood. Stop that sh*t!
And the Kakness. Used to be Kiffness**… wish he would wash his hair. His stuff has been borderline for a while, but sometimes funny. Annoying and often times cringe-worthy.
Death threats? Too far.
Sometimes its good to view social media the way we used to view books. Do I relate to the content and feel its worth investing in? Buy! Is it not for me, not worth reviewing, not worth sharing… unfollow. Bye!
Celebs, musicians, clothing brand a**holes… they are not going to save the world. Stop holding them up as if they are worthy of that pressure.
Spotlight on our actual leaders, it’s they who must not let us down.
**This is an opinion piece by Kim Nicola Stephens and we are honoured to carry her work. She is humorous, outspoken and clever in her satirical commentary. The Good Things Guy team also love David Scott (The Kiffness) and support everything he does as well as his outspokenness, parodies, satire and memes.
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