Best of Bobby's 2021 Columns: Social Media Takeover, Uncancelables, Cancel Culture's Vulnerability
OutKick readers,
Before we move to 2022, here's a look back at some of my columns from 2021.
We'll have many more columns coming up, starting next week. If there are any topics you feel I'm missing, just send them my way.
Talk soon:
We Have Allowed Strangers To Control Our Happiness
62% of Americans avoid posting their honest views online because they are “afraid.” Because of Twitter and Facebook, we now try and fit in with the people we’d never want to in public. Unfortunately, many users don’t see any other option.
Social media is an infomercial that is not intriguing but threatening. Americans are afraid of other social media users. When someone in the real world turns on you, the event can change the minds of a few members of your immediate social circle. However, one quote-tweet or comment on social media can pit a user against hundreds or even thousands of hostile actors within seconds. Those who can’t brush that off then feel demoralized. Social media wars have ruined teenagers, adults, and celebrities. Twitter thereby rewards bullies, followers, and cowards — the three worst types of people in our society.
Meet The Uncancelables
Nothing has happened to any of them. Every hit piece, quote tweet, and queen-slaying has been ineffective.
That’s because the entire cancel culture movement relies on the cowardice of corporate leaders. Woke radicals make up less than 10% of the electorate and have no appreciable connection with the working class. So they, therefore, lack the reach to successfully influence corporate bosses without their cooperation.
Cancel culture is a product of compliance — that’s its only weapon. Now that targets have pulled back the curtain, we can see that the great and powerful Wizard of Woke is hardly great and powerful.
The Media, Not Kyle Rittenhouse, is the Threat
To understand the media’s role in the Kyle Rittenhouse case, you must go back to the beginning, before Rittenhouse picked up the AR-15 that he had stored at his friend’s house in Kenosha. If you recall, riots had broken out and Kenosha buildings burned after the media purposely inflamed the narrative regarding a criminal named Jacob Blake in order to normalize lawlessness.
The media lied about the case repeatedly to convince the public that Rittenhouse didn’t deserve to live a normal life again. That way, if the jury didn’t ruin his life, the media would.
Netflix's Defense of Dave Chappelle Proves the Vulnerability of the Cancel Culture Movement
Aggressive left-wing blue checks, the faces of the movement, add victims to the mantle by influencing the bosses of a potential target and warning them about the negative publicity that would ensue, should they continue to employ the usually but not limited to “racist” person. As long as decision-makers respond to angry journalists and TV hosts, the outrage mob on social media keeps gaining ground.
But what if corporations across the country stopped listening? What if leading companies just ignored hateful tweets for 36 hours? What would happen? The answer is encouraging. When executives don’t respond, they reduce unreasonable calls to action down to a nub.
The Maria Taylor Saga is Emblematic of the Leftist Vision of America
The Left plans to control white executives through their black employees, using fear and manufactured guilt.
An influential segment of the Left has successfully weaponized social media and the press to such an extent that corporate executives answer to them before the boards to which they report.
Why the Left is Afraid to discuss the COVID-19 Vaccine
How does this end in a way that does not permanently separate us based on vaccine statuses and stances?
Americans Race to Proactively Shield Themselves from Cancel Culture:
So why do individuals and executives channel the most cowardly forms of themselves so often? Because they think they are next. Those who are most ashamed of their pasts are degenerates of this mindset. If you buy completely into ruining a stranger’s life, you almost always have a past you fear will destroy yours. Misery comes from self-pity, while hate comes from regret. And anyone who participates in cancel culture is overtly hateful. For that reason, they will do whatever they can to safeguard themselves, no matter how undesirable it makes them.
If you buy completely into ruining a stranger’s life, you almost always have a past you fear will destroy yours.
Why This Small Group Known as the 'Woke' are So Powerful
The woke make up only 8% of the electorate. So why is this group so influential?
The woke takeover is merely the story of how society surrendered itself to a shallow group of radicals who have exceeded their own expectations.
Warning to the Woke: The Sad State of Keith Olbermann is How it Ends
Progressive tweeters with large followings are motivated by the approval they get from retweets, likes, and follows on social media. And a recent Pew study found that 10% of Twitter users make up 92% of the platform’s engagement. So who is this 10%? Ideologically, they amass a political leaning of D+43. In other words, it’s a class of radicals, most of whom likely prefer modern segregation to freedom.
The audience that progressives aim to please has created an atmosphere that demands daily evidence of systemic racism, transphobia, “Trump Fascism,” and anti-vax misinformation. Think of the drain this must take on the movement’s public faces. They are trying to constantly appease the unappeasable.
Why America is So Addicted to the Gabby Petito-Brian Laundrie Story
It’s true that that part of the reason many have concerned themselves with the Gabby Petito story is that she’s pretty. The general public has a weakness for attractive women. Petito’s notable smile is appealing. She was also small in stature and weighed 100 pounds — she looked particularly vulnerable. We can’t imagine someone beating and killing her.
The Gabby Petito tragedy is a real-life, Hollywood-like murder drama that has enthralled America. Pretty girl, cowardly villain, botched job by cops, devious parents, dream life, a van.
See you in 2022.