I came up with a good analogy the other day for "cancel culture" as a renewal more than a destructive tendency, and it's an analogy baked into the name so partl

I came up with a good analogy the other day for "cancel culture" as a renewal more than a destructive tendency, and it's an analogy baked into the name so partly intended despite easily forgot. We already have a "cancel culture": every season we cancel a few TV shows so new ones get a shot. In more than a century of radio and TV show cancellations we haven't yet run out of "fun", have we? We keep finding new sources. This other sort of sociopolitical "cancel culture" seems nearly as effective (or not) as radio/TV cancellation: shows still show up in rerun in syndication sometimes, it doesn't stop (and isn't really intended to stop) people with tapes/DVDs at home from enjoying rewatches. Even early shows in TV show history were sometimes re-edited for syndication to remove jokes intended for a live audience that didn't always land or that needed a context that syndication could not provide. (Today sometimes shows going to syndication need re-editing because the show doesn't have the rights to original broadcast music.) While there are of course extreme proponents of "cancel culture", a lot of it does boil down to certain forms of "audience" dissatisfaction and a request to maybe air a new "pilot", see if a new series is waiting in the wings ready to wow the audiences. That's not to take the "fun out of life", but to find new sources of fun in life.