Cancel Culture
Etymology
The "cancel" sense — to reject a person outright — is often traced to a line in the 1991 film New Jack City and was echoed in later hip-hop and Black Twitter usage through the 2010s. The full phrase "cancel culture" spread around 2018–2019, largely as a criticism of the practice. Its origins are genuinely disputed, and the phrase is used approvingly and pejoratively by different camps.
noun phrase · /KAN-sel KUHL-cher/
The practice of collectively withdrawing support from a public figure and pressuring others to do the same after they say or do something deemed offensive.
What it names
A real modern mechanism of social accountability enforced by crowds rather than institutions — though the term is contested, praised by some as consequences and decried by others as mob punishment.
Example
Whether you call it cancel culture or accountability often depends on whether you agreed with the target.
Related idea
Deplatforming is the concrete act of removing someone’s access to a stage or account; cancel culture is the broader social climate said to drive such removals.