I read an interesting piece the other day. It seems a TikTok cleaning influencer by the name of Kylie Perkins had a channel with a mid-level (200,000) number of followers. Her schtick is a tough-love no-excuses approach to decluttering and taking control of one’s living space, posting “motivational videos from her home in North Carolina aimed at young mothers like her who may feel behind on housework, urging them to essentially get their s**t together,” according to this article.
I don’t follow TikTok or any other social media, so I was completely unaware of Ms. Perkins or her tough-love videos, but her approach sounds interesting. Having overcome a slew of difficulties in her life – including drug-addicted parents, a period of adolescent homelessness, a child with special needs, suicidal thoughts and her recent diagnosis with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) – Ms. Perkins doesn’t allow any excuses why someone can’t get off the couch and do the dishes. Her scolding, yelling, no-excuse technique is apparently very successful among her followers.
Or most of them. Of course, in our victim-based society in which we are never responsible for the choices we make, a few people are bound to take exception to Perkins’ approach to life.
And that’s where the trouble began. One of her followers, for whatever reason, decided to do a deep dive into Ms. Perkins’ political views – something she keeps strictly out of her videos – and found the unforgivable: Perkins may have voted for Trump. Horrors! The only evidence for this conclusion was Perkins followed the president on social media and at one point reposted one of his videos. That’s all the ammunition this adversary needed to start trouble.
Suddenly, Ms. Perkins was being canceled left and right. (Well, left and left.) According to the New York Post, “Within hours, TikTok videos and comments started calling Perkins out. The message was clear: she voted the wrong way, she needed to be canceled immediately. Over a million viewers saw the original clip, which the amateur investigator labeled a public service announcement.
“The ‘motivational cleaning lady . . . is a Trump supporter,’ the vengeful ex-follower said. ‘Will not ever support someone who supports him.'”
“Other left-leaning TikTokers chimed in. ‘Why are we giving Kylie Perkins … somebody that voted for a felon, that doesn’t care about our rights as women, a platform?’ one demanded.”
Normally, when the left decides to cancel someone, it’s swift and brutal – and irrevocable. The cancel culture has spent years perfecting their techniques to stifle free speech, open up people to violence and retaliation, annihilate reputations and end careers. In this intensely politicized culture, people are canceled for the stupidest hair-trigger reasons, as happened to Ms. Perkins.
But the pendulum is swinging. People are no longer tolerating the ridiculousness of cancel culture. To say this attempt to cancel Kylie Perkins backfired is merely to hint at the scope of what happened next.
“Admittedly, I didn’t know who Kylie Perkins was before ya’ll tried to cancel her,” posted women’s sports activist Riley Gaines. “But now I do and I follow her.” Gaines’ video reached 3.6 million viewers. Within 72 hours, Perkins had gained over a million new followers. Two weeks later, she’s up to 2.3 million.
Keep in mind this influencer had nothing political on her social media. She deals with CLEANING, for Pete’s sake. But some twit with an ax to grind decided she was going to drag Perkins down for nothing more than a political assumption (no one even knows who Perkins voted for!).
But the attempt to silence her did the exact opposite: It catapulted her into much higher fame. In short, cancel culture is being canceled.
Why? Trump won in a landslide last November because Americans are tired of being bullied and brutalized by leftists for obscure or ridiculous reasons. His presidency is marking a new era of free speech in which people are no longer petrified of the left (which, for the record, drive the left NUTS since they thrive on fear).
Actress Justine Bateman – especially vulnerable in Hollywood’s rarified atmosphere – spoke for many when she said she was “decompressing from walking on eggshells for the past four years.” Of the cancel culture in general, she noted, “Only ‘permitted position’ behavior and speech was ‘allowed.’ Complete intolerance became almost a religion and one’s professional and social life was threatened almost constantly. Those that spoke otherwise were ruined as a warning to others.” Bateman added that she is “neither one extreme or the other, but am one of the millions of people who believe in common sense, and that everyone should be free to live their lives however they want, unless that freedom interferes with someone else’s freedom to live their own life.”
The cancel culture still exists, but since conservatives are less vulnerable, the left is turning on its own. The latest victim is Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who raised the ire of leftists the nation over who wanted him to fight against a Republican funding bill. “Schumer had argued that a government shutdown would only help Republicans, but the leftist wing of the party excoriated the decision and blamed the Democratic leader,” noted this article.
Now Schumer had to cancel or postpone several stops on a book tour over “security concerns” for this breach of faith.
“Chuck Schumer has written a new book against anti-Semitism. His book tour has now been rescheduled/postponed, due to security concerns. He’s hiding from his own base, allegedly for his own physical safety,” said Fox News contributor Guy Benson.
In other words, Schumer is experiencing precisely what cancel culture lives for: To destroy careers and annihilate reputations.
I’m no fan of Schumer, of course, but neither do I have a problem if he wants to go on a book tour to promote his latest oeuvre. That’s because, y’know, I support free speech. No one should have to worry about their “own physical safety” because of who they voted for.
