The idea of ‘cancelling’ is public relations spin to shield people who did shitty things from accountability. A few years ago people were trying to hold people like Louis CK, Harvey Weinstein, and Kevin Spacey accountable for hurting people. Their fixers pitched it to the media as an irrational mob trying to cancel anyone who doesn’t agree with them. When people are like ‘They tried to cancel Baby Yoda!’ after there was a mild reaction to a plotpoint in the Mandalorian tv show, they’re falling prey to this manipulation of public opinion. A lot of minor celebrities claim to be ‘cancelled’ in order to appear counter-culture, but usually they’re inflating false information about themselves to make it appear like they’re a target of an irrational mob, or they’re trying to cover for true information about them. Think of the number of people who have claimed to have been cancelled in their Netflix specials, or the number of people who have been confirmed to have abused their partners and still get to come back for the next Marvel or DC movie. The reaction against ‘cancelling’ was so much greater than the reaction against abuse because people were convinced they could be cancelled at any moment for any reason, and it’s made online discourse immeasurably worse.