The Psychology Behind Cancel Culture

Photo by Jon Tyson, Unsplash

Principal Vernon of the Breakfast Club was right when he said, “Mess with the bull, son, you'll get the horn." 35 years later, his words apply perfectly to the cancel-culture of today.

Cancel culture, or call-out culture is the public backlash celebrities, brands, and influencers face after contradicting consumers’ beliefs. Cancel culture exists because social identities exist. We follow brands and celebrities, in part, as a form of self-expression. And at an extreme, we also "cancel" them as a form of self-expression.

To fully understand cancel culture, we must understand how the psychology of social identity shapes our behavior.

The Psychology of Identity Expression

Our sense of identity is rooted in our core values and beliefs, no surprises here. Social identity theory suggests our sense of identity is shaped by the social groups we belong to. If you do yoga every day, you identify with a group of yogis, for instance. When companies create a brand identity, it is a neuromarketing tactic designed to speak to your own social identity.

In the digital world, social identities are at our fingertips. Social media has made it easier for people to represent their social identity via skin color-specific emojis, flags of countries they've traveled to, zodiac signs, and much more.

We express ourselves by following those who embody our identity. This is our identity expression. If you are a person who loves the outdoors, going to the gym, and eating healthy, you are more likely to follow those who enjoy the same things. If you are proud of your city, you tend to support those who resonate with your sense of identity. Similarly, if you believe Beyoncé represents feminism and you identify with her fight for women's empowerment, there's a chance you'd like and approve of her queen status.

When we follow someone who shares our values, we are expressing our identity by aligning ourselves with them. In the social media realm, this means publicly liking and resharing their content. By doing this, we're stating to the world, “This is me, I'm the kind of person who likes Beyoncé and values female empowerment."

Everything and everyone you share, post about, or like can be a way of signaling your social identity.

How Cognitive Dissonance Influences Consumer Behavior

This is all well and good when the celebrities and brands you align yourself with also share your values. But what happens when they suddenly don't? What happens, for example, when this celebrity we love now does something which violates our values?

Imagine if Beyoncé came out and said women should not have the right to vote. It would create an internal dissonance. On the one hand, we love Beyoncé, but on the other hand, we value equal voting rights. Her hypothetical statements would make these two elements incompatible.

Cognitive dissonance theory stipulates that we have an innate human drive for consistency. We can't go about our merry business with this incompatibility in mind. Instead, we MUST resolve this dissonance. 

And we can go about this in one of two ways: 

• By sticking with the celebrity and changing your values

• By sticking with our values and changing our allegiance with the individual.

Guess which option we typically choose? The latter. This decision is what drives cancel culture. Values are notoriously difficult to change. Unless you're obsessively attached to the individual, chances are you'll ditch them for your values. 

Moreover, changing your affiliation allows for the all-important additional incentive of identity expression. We don't just dismiss them in private. Instead, by urging their 'cancellation,' we declare the dismissal to the world. "Hey world, these are my values. I feel so strongly about them that not only do I not like this person anymore, but I admonish everyone else not to like them either." 

Now, let's think of Kanye for a second. In 2018, he said slavery was a choice. Twitterverse and many pundits took Kanye for a fool, which brought the birth of #CancelKanye—the public and his fans' defense mechanism to protect their own social identities.

Our social media following goes beyond friends, celebrities, and influencers. We follow brands too. Companies use social identities to connect with us with their brand, what marketers call brand identity. This leads to consumers using the brand as a form of identity expression (looking at you, Supreme customers). With identity expression comes the exposure to cancel culture. 

Victoria's Secret is a perfect example of a struggling brand identity. To entice consumers to the "sexy" persona, they created the angel identity. Last year, CMO Ed Razek insisted Victoria's Secret should not feature transgender models for the Victoria's Secret Fashion show. He felt the act would not align with their (brand) identity expression. The problem, or rather the dissonance is, their sister company PINK has publicly supported the LGBTQ+ community on social media.

Naturally, a public backlash followed and the parent company L Brands found itself in a pickle. As a result, a few angels rescinded their participation in the annual Victoria Secret Fashion Show and VS eventually canceled the show in 2019. Interestingly, Victoria Secret just hired its first transgender model, perhaps, in hopes of avoiding the wrath of cancel culture. The timing seems a little too convenient to conclude otherwise.

Our innate drive towards consistency and away from dissonance makes it difficult to live in the gray area. It is fueling cancel culture but it is also pushing brands who sell us on an identity to be more consistent. 

Just ask SoulCycle and Equinox. The brands sell a social identity; it just so happens to be executed via a gym. Stephen Ross, owner of Equinox and SoulCycle, planned to host a $250k-per-seat fundraiser for President Donald Trump in fall 2019. The result was quintessential cancel culture. Customers canceled memberships to both brands and declared their decision on social media. Ironically, Equinox's customers held true to the company's slogan "commit to something" even if it means leaving.

Social identities are reliable drivers of behavior, especially when dissonance is at play. Cognitive dissonance forces our brains to choose one of two ways outlined earlier: stick to the brand/celebrity and change your values OR cancel the brand/celebrity and stick to your values. 

Whichever way you go, one thing is clear. Don't mess with cancel culture; you'll get the horns. 

Sincerely Yours,
The Breakfast Club 

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What’s Next?

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References

Elite Readers: The Tragic Secret Behind Victoria’s Secret You Didn’t Know

Inside Hook: Youthsplaining: Everything You Need to Know About Cancel Culture, Logan Mahan 

RTE: Why Beyonce matters, Kirsty Fairclough 

The Atlantic: The Hypocrisy of Soul Cycle, James Hamblin

The Telegraph: Kanye West reaffirms his support for Donald Trump, Telegraph Reporters

ThoughtCo: Social Identity Theory, Cynthia Vinney, Ph.D

VeryWell Mind: What is cognitive dissonance, Kendra Cherry

Yahoo! Lifestyle: Victoria’s Secret faces backlash for tweeting in support of LGBTQ community: ‘What hypocrisy' Kerry Justisch