Within the last decade social media has taken over, and with that comes opinions, thoughts, and feelings being shared. Has that made us too weak? Over the last few years, something you may have heard or seen online is something called ‘Cancel Culture.’ Cancel culture is when a group of people come together and cancel a person, place, or thing. And sometimes it's over something as little as a haircut or a shirt. Something else you may have noticed is that the older generations will call the newer generation snowflakes. Most people will say they've become annoyed with how sensitive the world has become.

If you ever find yourself talking to someone, sometimes you just get the feeling that you need to watch what you say or a theoretical hell-storm will rain upon you. And that’ll be when the canceled culture can practically ruin your life. Oftentimes those people are referred to as a ‘snowflake.’  According to Louise Jackson in her article ‘Why is society so sensitive now?’ For the website Ideapod, she explains the meaning of the term snowflake and the people that fit in that category: ”(The term) “Snowflake” is by no means a new term. This idea of an easily offended, overly sensitive person who believes the world revolves around them and their feelings is a derogatory label often attached to younger generations.”  This quote proves people, specifically the younger generation (but not uncommon in older or present generations), have become too soft and let their feelings take over and their thoughts are the only things correct in their eyes. In retrospect, a snowflake is a selfish human being who will ruin other's lives, or cause problems to ensure that their idea of how things should be happens. 

Something that is typically connected to snowflakes is the world of canceled culture. Cancel culture is another term used by the younger generation in the form of social media. People will group up (even if they don't know the backstory) and gang up on one person or group and “cancel” them. They will essentially spread the word on social media and ensure that their professional, educational, and monetary connections are aware of what they're being canceled for and typically it would ruin connections, ruining that person's life for normally something very, very small, or something that's not even real at all, there's a chance it could be made up. According to multiple authors and researchers in the article Americans and ‘cancel culture’: Where some see calls for accountability, others see censorship, punishment the website Pew Research center.org:  “Some 17% of Americans who say that calling out others on social media holds people accountable say it can be a teaching moment that helps people learn from their mistakes and do better in the future. Among those who say calling out others unjustly punishes them, a similar share (18%) say it’s because people are not taking the context of a person’s post or the intentions behind it into account before confronting that person.” This quote shows it can really depend on what the situation is, but mostly shows that people make assumptions before really understanding what happened which can ruin someone's life. 

To fix problems like this, all we would need to do is really think about what we post, do, and say online. We can also try to really think about if it's worth it to destroy someone's life over social media, especially if you don't know the full story and go along with it just because someone else is, they could be lying, not providing specific details, or hiding something that has to do with the situation at hand. Think before you act.