Cancel culture is out of control in the United States. When I was a child, I looked up to George Washington because of his heroic deeds. If George Washington were alive today, we wouldn’t even know who he was because he would have been canceled for speaking out against the British. I’m afraid of living in a country where a man like George Washington couldn’t be successful today. I’m also afraid of this dream I keep having where my house is full of spiders that have human fingers.
History is disappearing before our eyes. I used to spend hours laughing at the antics of Pepe Le Pew, a European animal. These days, thanks to cancel culture, he can’t even star in a movie. I’m sorry, snowflakes, does my favorite cartoon upset you? I bet you’re nowhere near as upset as I am by my spider dream where I’m in the basement, then the door slowly creaks open and a wave of spiders with human fingers fill the room like a shadow. Is Pepe Le Pew scarier than that? I don’t think so.
Cancel Culture is devious because it tricks people into thinking it isn’t a real problem. I told my wife how the new episodes of Roseanne don’t even have Roseanne in them because she got canceled, and my wife acted like it was nothing. “Isn’t she a millionaire who was already on TV for ten seasons? It sounds like she’s doing fine.” She didn’t get it, just like how she didn’t get it when I tried to explain how the fingers work in my spider dream. They’re stronger than human fingers, by a lot, and they’re connected to the end of the spiders’ legs, not the torso like you might expect. She acted like that wasn’t even a problem.
Before cancel culture, I had a great job and no problems at work. Now, though, I still have the same job and also more vacation time because my seniority benefits kicked in, but also it’s gotten harder. Things I used to do without even thinking don’t work anymore, so now I have to think about them, which sucks. I tried to explain this to my co-workers, but they pretended not to understand and changed the subject, just like they did when I tried to explain the new twist in my spider dream where all the spiders have my mother’s face and they ask me why I didn’t do anything to help my little brother when he fell out of a tree. Anyway, now he’s an English teacher, and I’m the guy who comes up with names for new fireworks.
The worst part about cancel culture is nobody understands what it is. I tried to tell my doctor about it, and he said the term sounds too broad and overarching to be describing any real phenomenon. If it describes anything, he said, it’s a reactionary backlash towards holding harmful actions and speech accountable. He also mentioned there’s a lot more going on in my spider dream than just my fear of spiders and that I should maybe be seeing a therapist instead. I told him I didn’t come to him for head games; I came to him for scientific pills that would make me dream about driving a motorcycle on the beach instead of spiders. Anyway, I left him a bad review on Yelp so no one would go see this guy who tried to cancel my medical request.
By the time you read this, I may already have been canceled. If that is the case, please do not cry for me because I have been told I do not have the “emotional tools” to accept negative emotions from others. I ask only that you fight for me and other free-speech warriors who are having a hard time getting booked in slots on panel shows already taken by other free-speech warriors. I also ask that you do not tell me about your spider dream if you have one because I think they are terrifying.