Yes, people who tweet racist, homophobic, and sexist content should be punished, of course.

Bigotry is disgusting and unacceptable.

But recently, seemingly harmless, even positive comments are twisted into fuel for twitter rage.

Twitter Is Not The Majority

Before we get into a recent example, I’d like to highlight a recent twitter study. The results of the Pew study found that “the top 10% of tweeters are responsible for 80% of the tweets created by all US adults.” Also, Twitter users are much younger than the average US adult and more likely to be democratic.

A take on Twitter does not represent the sentiment of the general US population. Sometimes, they align, but Twitter backlash often does not paint an accurate picture of how the average person feels.

As the Pew study shows, a small fraction of Twitter users is responsible for four out of every five tweets.

When thousands of people on Twitter, aka the ‘Mob,’ attack an individual or corporation, it can feel as if the whole country is calling for your head.

Instilling this fear is how the mob operates.

Groups of accounts actively coordinate against a target, an individual or a company, to “cancel” that target. Just look at the recent New York Times headline switch or the boycott of Equinox and SoulCycle. In this case, “cancel” means “cast out from society” or “make irrelevant.” Once canceled, anyone who associates with you is also canceled.

#MarioLopezCancelled

Let’s examine latest victim of cancel culture, Mario Lopez. Back in June, Lopez appeared on the Candace Owens talk show to discuss various topics:

Family values (5 F’s - family, food, fitness, faith, fun)

Personal accountability

Being first-generation Mexican American

Politics of Hollywood

Parenting with Social Media

#BelieveWomen

Transgenderism with three-year-olds

The Twitter mob took issue with the last two bullet points discussed on the podcast.

Here are a few quotes from Mario Lopez from his episode on The Candace Owens Show:



“A lot of weird trends come out of Hollywood and one of the weirder ones, for me, is this new trend where celebrities are coming out — and I know Charlize Theron did this a few weeks ago — is saying that their child is picking their gender. And this is strange to me, and they say, ‘Oh, I looked at my child and my child was swimming in a bathtub and looked up and said, “Mommy, I’m a boy’”



“I am trying to understand it myself, and please don’t lump me into that whole [group]. I’m kind of blown away too. Look, I’m never one to tell anyone how to parent their kids obviously and I think if you come from a place of love, you really can’t go wrong but at the same time, my God, if you’re 3 years old and you’re saying you’re feeling a certain way or you think you’re a boy or a girl or whatever the case may be, I just think it’s dangerous as a parent to make this determination then, well, OK, then you’re going to a boy or a girl, whatever the case may be … It’s sort of alarming and my gosh, I just think about the repercussions later on.”

“When you’re a kid … you don’t know anything about sexuality yet. You’re just a kid. I think parents need to allow their kids to be kids but at the same time, you gotta be the adult in the situation. Pause with that and — I think the formative years is when you start having those discussions and really start making these declarations.”