[Ads-l] Cancel culture, cancel (2018)

[dave at WILTON.NET]

The earliest citation for "cancel culture" that I have found is this one:

"XXX Tentacion Still Had Room to Grow." Los Angeles Sentinel, 21 June 2018, A7.

"Something that has become seemingly unavoidable in recent times is 'cancel culture.' To put it simply, 'cancel culture' is when people who have done or said something either recently or in the past get 'canceled' meaning people will not support said person in whatever future projects they have approaching. In a way it's a common-man's blacklisting.

And there is this slightly earlier use of verb "to cancel" in this sense from a transcript of the Fox News show "Your World."

Baia, Dion; Partsinevelos, Kristina; Timpf, Kat; Corke, Kevin; Payne, Charles; et al. "President Trump's Pardons; Unemployment Rate Drops; Trade War?; North Korea Summit Back On." Your World with Neil Cavuto, CQ Roll Call, 1 Jun 2018:

"BAIA: Yes. I'm surprised they acted so quickly in canceling the show [i.e., 'Roseanne'], instead of like with 'House of Cards,' they kind of wrote Kevin out [sic] Spacey.
"TIMPF: They canceled Kevin Spacey."

I'm sure these can be antedated. The verb, in particular, is difficult to search for.

--Dave Wilton

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org