No one should, for that matter
By Jessica Berget, Opinions Editor
It seems like old celebrity posts are being resurfaced everyday—tweets that are deemed sexist, racist, homophobic, or just plain problematic. Listen, we’ve all said some offensive things before. We’ve all said and done some ridiculously stupid things. Everyone cringes at the person they used to be and the things they used to say, and all it takes is time to learn that what we said was wrong. What doesn’t help is digging up these old posts and expecting people to apologize for them.
For instance, American artist Doja Cat recently came under scrutiny for a tweet from 2015 where she referred to artists Tyler the Creator and Earl Sweatshirt with a homophobic slur. Despite her viral music video “Mooo!” reaching 15 million views after being out for only a month, many people are already “cancelling” Cat because of this tweet.
However, she makes a good point. Should she really be shamed for saying a word that many people used when they were younger? I’m not saying calling someone a highly offensive term in a derogatory sense is acceptable but shaming someone for tweeting it three years ago should not be acceptable either.
Many other celebrities have been put under fire after old posts have been dug up, including James Gunn, Sarah Silverman, Dan Harmon, and some sports stars. All of them have since apologized, but their careers may never be the same. There is such a rush to “cancel” celebrities or make them apologize for mean or off-colour posts they’ve made. People lose their direction, get into a hivemind mentality, and become bullies.
Everyone is at a different learning pace for what is or isn’t okay to say. Middle school, high school, even college are vital learning periods in everyone’s life. In this learning period you’re going to say a lot of baloney you don’t mean or understand. Furthermore, teenagers are the most disrespectful species on this planet, so most of them don’t really give a damn what’s problematic or not.
Looking at old posts regarding what is “offensive” now doesn’t make sense. I feel like there are many things that were okay to say in 2015 or whenever you were in high school that are now condemned.
I used to say awful things in middle school and high school—does that make me an awful person? Should I be publicly shamed for the things I said while I was in a pivotal growing period in my life? Of course not. Kids today are practically raised on social media so of course they’re going to post abhorrent things, but that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily homophobic, racist, sexist, or otherwise prejudiced. It’s just that those are things that were thought to be okay to say at the time, and one day they’ll learn from their mistakes. It doesn’t make it okay, but it also doesn’t reflect who people are.
