Cancelling “Cancel Culture”: An Exploration of the Capitalist Justice System Popularized in the Wake of the #MeToo Movement

This paper will examine the failures of cancel culture as an effective system of capitalist punishment. Through exploration and analysis of Harper’s Magazine’s “Letter on Justice and Open Debate” and the cancellations of comedians Louis CK and Aziz Ansari, I will illustrate how cancel culture serves as an ineffective means of economic punishment. Specifically, I will examine cases of cancellation that have occurred due to accusations uncovered by the #MeToo Movement. I will analyze cancel culture’s inherent relationship to capitalism and communicative capitalism, and draw on the ego pleasures and jouissance that different aspects of cancellations may bring.