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Cancel culture has been both a blessing and a scourge that has taken social media by storm, destroying the careers of several of our favs, while also ruining the careers of several of our enemies. But now that Lindsay Ellis has decided to stop making YouTube videos, we’re questioning the entire movement; has cancel culture gone too far?

For those who haven’t followed the story, Lindsay Ellis found herself in hot water after making a tweet saying that the movie Raya the Last Dragon had ripped off the television show Avatar: the Last Airbender. After criticism from fans, and counter criticism from other fans, Lindsay found herself in the middle of a contentious debate over the nature of animation and its influences. Then, several months later, Lindsay decided to stop making YouTube videos anymore. 

This is a terrifying implication for how far cancel culture has gone! If people can just force Lindsay Ellis to stop wanting to make videos, what can’t they do? Does Lindsay Ellis not deserve to want to continue doing her job? If the mob can come for Lindsay, which other critics with over a million YouTube subscribers can it force into deciding they don’t like making videos anymore? 

And what about the eight full-time employees that Lindsay employed, with health insurance, that now are surprised to find they are out of work? How are they supposed to look their children in the eyes and explain that they are out of a job because the social media mob forced Lindsay out of wanting to keep making videos?

At the end of the day, this is a labor issue that we’re going to need to solve as a culture. If people can just decide that you’re a racist and call your boss to get you fired from your job, that’s one thing. But if people can criticize your tweet for being racist and then, several months later, you decide you don’t want to keep making content for your patreon with 9,000 subscribers anymore? Well that’s far worse. And the fact that Lindsay’s patreon has grown by 2,000 subscribers since she announced her departure is clearly more of her angry haters trying to get salt into her wound. 

In a lot of ways, this whole situation reminds us of what happened to trans writer Isabel Fall. How exactly? Uh, actually, maybe we’ll let Lindsay explain that one.