Schadenfreude
Recently I heard the story of Carson King. Carson was a college student in Iowa who held up a sign on ESPN’s “College GameDay” with his Venmo requesting money for more Busch Light and received a million dollars. He donated the million to a CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL. Several corporations decided to match the million and Anheuser-Busch even claimed they would put up a million dollars. A local newspaper then dug into tweets from when Carson was 16 and found some that were racist. There’s no defense of racism at any age but Anheuser-Busch then stated they wanted “no further association” with the now 24 year old King. There was a lot of backlash towards the beer company and the Des Moines Register, the paper that exposed the tweets and cited they wanted to do so in order for people to know whose “cause they were donating to”- that being a children’s hospital. Later on, inflammatory social media posts from the reporter behind the King story were found and truth be told, there’s no way the company that makes BUDWEISER doesn’t have someone racist working for them.
But we are in a place social and consciously where we have a need to expose the past, the embarrassing, the rumors, the gossip, the bad ideas, thoughts, of those around us. Some call it “cancel culture”, but many would argue that cancel culture doesn’t exist. I’ve seen tweets and interviews where people have made this statement, which then begs some questions-
If cancel culture doesn’t exist, then what is the reasoning behind tagging someone’s job/school/family members when a party offends us? Is it not to seek justice or consequence? Are we wasting our time being upset and speaking out when we find ourselves offended or seeing something that could be perceived as offensive? Do we just want to post into the void and hope someone gives us a hit of dopamine with a like or retweet? We beg for response but then divulge into righteousness when we are granted it. I’ve been guilty of it too. Jumping on particular bandwagons of what celebrity said something or what politician voted in some particular favor. We’ve seen it become key to some people’s entire existence. The world around them is bleak, but online they are a hero. When we don’t get the outrage we want, we push our words to the extreme. “Deviant”, “evil”, “manipulative”, “pest”, “predator”, “addict”, “shitty”, “fuck that guy/girl”, “sociopath”, “narcissist”, “well I heard…” all bound in what is the narrative we need to push to get our fix. That’s not to say these types of people don’t exist. We probably encounter them every day. But when we put it on virtual strangers for the sake of the story we need to get off, we forget the damage it could be doing. We’ve seen it recently with a barrage of celebrities but when they try and return to some modicum of work or a life, we use that as a way to invalidate what their experience or growth may have been. We have set the precedent that those who try and work in a particular field following their fall from grace didn’t actually experience repercussions simply because they’re trying again. But we forget that if the news story wasn’t “Louis CK is on tour again” or “Halsey sends an apology tweet”, it would be “Louis CK seen working at Trader Joe’s” or “Halsey came outside”. As much as we want to market the idea of only bad people doing bad things, we have to remember that all of us have offenses in our lifetime that we’re not proud of, big or small. We can blindly type how awful someone is when we know we’ll never have to look them in the eyes to see remorse, regret, or truth. The reality of it is Louis CK can tour and perform without it negating his negative actions of the past OR that there were repercussions and ramifications from such.
I have a personal example of this. After going through a bad break-up where I admittedly was at fault for a lot of actions and reactions, I fell into a deep depression. I was suicidal, started going to therapy, a psychiatrist, church, and various Anon groups. I tried to stay off of social media, didn’t go out much, didn’t drink, didn’t masturbate, didn’t talk to anybody. The one time I log back into Twitter, I get a DM from a guy I had maybe briefly spoken to three times in my life and he said, “every time I looked into your eyes, I saw a sociopath looking back at me.” I was genuinely hurt and after telling him off I blocked him. But I was riddled with the thought of what he said, even looking up the definition and listening to various podcasts about sociopaths because I was so concerned with what he thought- which is the exact opposite of what a sociopath would do. I felt guilt and shame about a lame diagnosis from a white rapper who I can’t even recall looking into his eyes during a conversation because of my social anxiety! But I was treated to the reminder that people shape the narrative of who they want you to be, not who you are. If someone grows and gets better then we fear their growth surpassing us. So the problem with letting go of someone else’s bag of shit is we’re left with our own.
For a lot of people, every story moves in black and white with only heroes and villains. We proclaim, “don’t let the bastards get you down” when we have bastardized our own version of who we like and dislike and why we feel that way. So if our path and attempts at “canceling” people we deem unfit for society, industry, or community isn’t actually for the sake of cancelation, redemption, or in hopes that they learned from the experience then we’re doing it for schadenfreude. Schadenfreude is a German term meaning to experience joy or pleasure from the failings, troubles, or humiliation of others. We’ve seen self-aggrandizing sentiments at the idea of taking someone to task. If you want to take down the “bad guy” but don’t have a reason as to what you hope to gain or for them to do or for whatever justice you’re seeking from the situation then it’s just a masturbatory act of LOOK WHAT I DID AND TO WHOM I DID IT TO. This tends to happen when someone is cast in a limelight or trying to do some good for a cause like the aforementioned Carson King. Bringing caution to someone’s past shouldn’t nullify the good they try to bring to the present. There are real monsters, predators, racists, and bad people in the world but with the blinders of social media, we put focus on looking right as opposed to being right. There tends to be an immense pleasure in defeating our perceived villains, even if their current or outward perspective isn’t villainous. It’s in large part because we’re able to wipe our hands with the action once it’s done. We get our likes, pats on the back, and then move on. But what do we want? If it’s not for them to get better then the hope is for them to get worse. We don’t put kids in time-out for them to stay in time-out, we do it so they’ll come out and learn not to repeat the offending actions. We must continue to allow growth in others, even celebrities and strangers, as we’d hope to be given the same clemency in the circumstances. If our purpose of taking someone down is just schadenfreude, then we can’t say cancel culture doesn’t exist, it’s just become a world of loathsome people trying to find someone with a more loathsome past. In the end, that’s gaslighting the masses into saying the actions we’re doing aren’t real and well, from what I’ve heard if you’re a gaslighter, you’re canceled.
Martin Mandela Morrow is a writer in Los Angeles, CA. He can be followed on Twitter and Instagram at @martinMmorrow.