The Dispatch, which is the school newspaper, has recently described conservatives as hypocrites. In its segment “conservatives’ never-ending culture war”, the Dispatch explains that “Republicans claim to be starkly against cancel culture” except for the cases in which the celebrities “(go) against their conservative values”, with the segment specifically referencing the controversy around Lil Nas X’s music video, Montero(Call me by Your Name). While this beautiful piece of reporting tries to make an ingenious point, it sadly falls flat. Sure, Republicans have their views on certain subjects, but disagreeing with those subjects and controversy coming out about them doesn’t constitute “cancel culture”. 

Cancel culture is when someone is canceled and is unable to create, share, or say what they want. Lil Nas X was not canceled, if anything he was promoted. The controversy surrounding his music video has made him well known among many and he hasn’t been silenced in any way. Yes, conservatives didn’t like his video and its sexually provocative displays, along with Lil Nas X giving Satan a very “lovely” lap dance, but that is completely fine. People are allowed to make sexually provocative videos and people are allowed to show those videos disdain.

The problem comes when the Dispatch cleverly calls the conservative “attack” on the Montero music video “conservative cancelling”. Has Lil Nas X suddenly been banned from Twitter? Has he been fired from his job? Have labels dropped him like he was a flaming pile of feces? The answer is a resounding NO! As I said above, he has been promoted! Many people know his name and about his struggle with coming out as gay. Good for him, I wish him success! I’m not the biggest fan of Montero, but that Old Town Road remix was pretty good!

Now to get back on track, as I stated above, cancel culture is when someone is unable to create, share, or say what they want. I take particular offense to the dispatch when they describe Lil Nas X’s situation as “cancel culture”, it’s quite ridiculous and manipulative when you can look up so many examples of conservatives getting cancelled that don’t have them becoming extremely famous.

One example is Gina Carano(who got kicked off of the Mandalorian) for posting her republican views. Another more recent but less known cancelling is a black man named Jason Whitlock, who got temporarily banned from Twitter for posting how one of the founding members of BLM buys a 1.4 million dollar home in a predominantly white neighborhood. Yet another conservative cancelled is Steven Crowder, who has been suspended from Youtube several times. One of the biggest cancellations though, is the social media app Parlor. This was an app that was dropped from google, apple, and Amazon simultaneously and was a social media app that mostly conservatives used.

Dispatch, while I understand that many of y’all working on the newspaper are liberal, try and make some more sense. Looking at Lil Nas X you can see he has almost 13 Million subscribers on Youtube and 138 Million views on Montero alone. Don’t proclaim how he was cancelled, how he is suffering. People disagree with many things and it’s quite obvious that some conservatives didn’t like his video. That doesn’t mean he was cancelled, he wasn’t fired, he wasn’t blocked, he was celebrated! Don’t say something that is so obviously false as him being canceled!

I know I just discussed what the Dispatch describes as “cancel culture”, but I have one other gripe with this article. The article takes a shot at Tucker Carlson for covering the recall and stoppage of production of some Dr. Seuss books for racist imagery while a stimulus bill was in congress. Of course this brings into question why are you making fun of Tucker Carlson’s way of reporting and what he reports on? Aren’t you trying to cancel him for the way he is reporting? Of course these are satirical, rhetorical questions, just because you find a problem with something doesn’t mean you’re cancelling it, but it does show how the Dispatch is a little hypocritical, since they were trying to “cancel” Tucker.

The final gripe I have with this article is how it portrays conservatives as not liking gays. The article says that “conservatives need to change the the way they talk to and about LGBTQ+”. You might not have realized it, but times have changed. Very few people hate gay people, and you can’t just go around stereotyping conservatives as homophobic. Isn’t the left all against stereotyping and holding people down because of society’s expectations? You can’t use the few religious fanatics who hate the gays to stereotype all conservatives.

This piece has been hypocritical and quite baseless. It has made claims about conservatives that don’t hold up under an ounce of scrutiny. The dispatch can make its political pieces all it wants, but I hope they will keep them tethered to reality. It’s quite false to claim that Lil Nas X has been “cancelled”. It’s quite false that conservatives have problems with the LGBTQ+ community just because they’re LGBTQ+. Finally, it is quite false to describe cancel culture as disagreeing or critiquing something. All ideas should be free to be heard, that includes the ideas criticizing other ideas. Cancel culture is real and affects real people, don’t choose an example that clearly isn’t cancel culture to make your baseless claims about.

Thank you for reading my critique,

Logan Lewis