Opinion: The internet’s approach to accountability is ineffective

Victim of internet hate in the stocks having tomatoes and tweets thrown at them. Art by Dasha Allyn.

Barbara Walters is dead, so everyone is eating chicken now. Celebrity interviews have completely transformed over the past couple of years, going from structured inquiries to silly challenges or casual conversations. Celebrities promote their newest projects on internet shows like “Chicken Shop Date,” “Hot Ones” or “Call Her Daddy” to engage in relatable banter with limited pushback on potential controversies. Interviews used to be a place to get hard-hitting information, but now they primarily serve as another avenue for pure self-promotion. It seems one of the most traditional forms of public accountability is obsolete, and yet, public shaming runs rampant. Suddenly, everyone is more accountable than ever before. But if everyone is “accountable,” that really just means that no one is. 

At first glance, the culture of callouts appears progressive. It’s a tool of the people. It’s an opportunity for the rich and powerful to finally be beholden to the masses. Unfortunately, this progressivism is a facade, masking the reality that it primarily serves to perpetuate a punitive notion of justice. It’s a war of attrition on the notion of accountability, masquerading as a quest on its behalf. 

This culture of constant surveillance and critique hit its stride in the 2010s, thanks in part to the infamous tumblr blog “your fave is problematic.” The blog chronicles the various reasons different celebrities are problematic, from genuine hate crimes to joking about saving a laptop rather than a cat from a fire, all discussed with the same neutral tone, and by extension, the same implied level of severity. Through this lens, the specific offense becomes irrelevant, which often flattens the harm of acts of hate or violence by equating major offenses to minor ones. Nuance is rendered inconsequential, compared to the nebulous but evocative “problematic” label. 

One great example of this phenomenon is infamous popstar Ariana Grande. She is not a pitiful martyr or the real concern of this piece. However, as someone in the public eye for a long time, she exemplifies many of the issues with the current state of accountability culture. Grande’s controversies range from her history of cultural appropriation, to her alleged homewrecker status, to her own health and complicity in perpetuating unrealistic beauty standards, to the undeniably iconic donut incident, where she licked a donut she had not purchased and proclaimed, “I hate America.” Each of these instances greatly varies in severity, in cultural impact and consequence. Many of them intersect with more complex social forces, far bigger than Grande, and as such, need to be approached with nuance. Nevertheless, they are often listed as they were above, just pieces of evidence, all in service of the same case: Grande is problematic. 

The blog “your fave is problematic” also positions itself as the definitive source on one’s controversial history. Posts chronicle celebrities’ every move, leading their audience to become hyper-attuned to people’s previous mistakes. Mistakes of yesterday become cannon fodder for today’s battles, making it impossible for anyone to distance their current self from their past tweets. 

Unfortunately for PR teams, the methods for proving adequate growth to one’s audience are limited. While the notes app apology has become a staple of celeb and influencer culture, they are often interpreted as low-effort or insincere. Grande’s apology for her devious donut licking exemplifies this challenge. She pledged her patriotism and tried to frame her comment as an ill-stated but well-intentioned critique of child obesity. Whether or not she was really sorry and whether or not anyone really forgave her is completely inconsequential. The moment lives on as a meme and as a masterclass in obfuscating responsibility. Many other public figures have also apologized for less trivial matters on social media and their attempts generally meet the same response.

In personal relationships, someone can make amends with a thoughtful apology and an honest conversation. Public figures don’t have this option. They don’t just have to apologize to people they hurt directly; they have to apologize to all those in their orbit who felt harmed by the idea that their parasocial best friend was a person with flaws. 

When everyone is constantly on trial at the court of public opinion and apologies are ineffective, past mistakes aren’t something to be learned from. They’re something to be haunted by. This attitude limits opportunities for growth because people aren’t allowed the possibility of change. If people are defined by previous missteps, it breeds feelings of defensiveness. When people aren’t allowed to move on from their mistakes, the only way to situate themselves within moral righteousness is to create a new system of morality wherein their actions are acceptable. The barrage of criticism from all sides also makes it nearly impossible to distinguish between good-faith criticism and internet-poisoned gobbledygook, guaranteeing that the only hope for peace is to drown it all out. 

Further dissuading people from growth is the potential to profit from their problematic actions by reclaiming their canceled status and becoming right-wing grifters. For instance, beauty influencer Meredith Foster made a shift towards right-wing and Christian content after receiving pushback about her treatment of other creators and antiabortion and homophobic statements. Foster’s use of this strategy is not unique; many public figures of varying degrees of prominence and controversy have made the same choice. This path can be far more lucrative than trying to amend for past wrongdoings, and thus, there is little incentive to amend. There is little incentive to grow. 

This isn’t intended as a conservative diatribe against “cancel culture,” nor is it an attempt to disregard the importance of holding public figures accountable. There is no disputing the fact that the actions of celebrities can have larger ramifications, and thus greater weight, than the mistakes of ordinary citizens. However, as the culture of surveillance promoted by social media turns more everyday people into victims of public ire, dismantling punitive justice becomes more important. 

Ideologies which emphasize retribution for wrongdoing eliminate the possibility of growth. In this view of the world, the only triumph of good is through the punishment of evil. People are far more complicated. People can make mistakes. Celebrities can be thoughtless and cruel. They can hurt those around them. They can disappoint those who rely on them and look up to them. So can ordinary citizens.

Everyone has within them a capacity to cause pain, even violence. And yet, to a certain degree, people still deserve a chance to make amends. No one deserves forgiveness or absolution. But most people deserve a chance to try. A chance to grow. A better world will not be achieved through perfect people. It will be achieved through problematic faves. It will be achieved by messy people, recognizing their mistakes, and working to be better going forward.