(gentle music) - Ah, cancel culture.

(upbeat music) You know what I want to cancel?

That app that I keep getting charged for month to month, even though I literally only used it one time.

What up, world?

Myles Bess here, host of "Above the Noise," and someone with way too many streaming services.

Anyway, over the last few years, it feels like everybody and their mama is getting canceled.

You got Aaron Rodgers, Ellen DeGeneres, Aunt Jemima, folks tearing down all those monuments of old, racist dudes.

(word splats) Who or what is next?

But it's not just celebrities who get canceled.

Regular, everyday people get canceled, too, especially with teens.

But I mean, is that really the best way to teach someone a lesson?

School is supposed to be a time to make mistakes and learn from them, right?

If someone gets canceled, are they really able to learn and grow?

So today we're asking, "When does cancel culture go too far?"

(note squeaks) (note swooshes) Canceling, at least as we understand it today, became an internet buzzword around 2015 when the hashtag canceled appeared on Twitter.

In theory, canceling is about holding powerful people accountable for what they say and do.

So, you have someone who speaks out against someone who says something outta pocket, usually with a big platform, to raise awareness, so hopefully, that behavior doesn't continue.

And Gen Z is all about the social media activism.

They have no problem taking a stand or boycotting a brand or personality they consider toxic.

And to some, that's what cancel culture is all about.

And now, cancel culture itself is a big controversy.

I mean, what isn't these days?

There's this culture war between those who think it's a way to hold folks accountable when they hurt people, versus people who think it's just public shaming by the woke police.

But when it comes to students canceling students, it's not always about holding the powerful accountable for their actions.

It's often about dealing with personal conflicts in a very public way, that could have long-lasting impacts on everyone involved.

- That often consists of students often like, ganging up on one another.

And they'll often like, pull screenshots of each other's stories, talk about people at people constantly, and then they'll sometimes post like, their DMs they have of one another.

- That's Kaidence Pacheco, a senior at School of the Arts in Rochester, New York, who's a part of a program at school that does mediation and conflict resolution on campus.

- But it's never, like, they'll never confront each other in person to talk these things out, I can tell.

- [Myles] I mean, you call someone out on IG, that blows up and spreads fast and that can follow a person for a long time.

And if the incident was more than a small conflict and it involved more toxic behavior, like, you know, any form of discrimination or physical harm, that track record could come back to haunt you when you are applying to jobs or even schools.

And often, these issues involve someone revealing something private that happened and another person getting socially ostracized for it.

- Paper trails exist.

No matter how many posts you delete, there's always gonna be a screenshot or there's always gonna be another post that's with that.

So I think it can affect people in the future.

I think the main thing that it could really, really affect is mental health.

- Aviva Powers is a student at Oakland Tech who's seen a few different instances of cancel culture happening among classmates at her school.

And what she says, checks out.

Nobody likes feeling rejected or left out, and that can be super harmful for teens.

According to this study, social rejection from peers can lead to stuff like academic struggles and low self-esteem.

And on top of that, living in a world of cancel culture creates this fear of worrying about it happening at any given moment, for a post you made yesterday or years ago.

That all just sounds very stressful.

- Some people are watching themselves a little bit more, probably.

They're definitely trying to be a little bit more safe with probably what they say, but at the same time, it shouldn't be that they're just being careful because they don't want to be held accountable.

It should be because they want to genuinely try their best to not do something that can harm others.

- So.

We've talked a bunch about the damage canceling someone in school can do.

But, on the other hand, calling someone out online or publicly canceling someone, can be really satisfying for the person harmed.

I mean, I think it's important not to dismiss what someone has gone through, but is there a way to get people to change and take responsibility for hurting you, without putting them on blast on social media?

Well, that's where the work that Kaidence does comes in.

As a Restorative Justice Coordinator, this is kinda her jam.

She's trained to mediate conflict at school.

- Before things blow up, you need to make sure that a person is A, emotionally ready to talk about something like this, and B, things are moving at their own pace.

Because, I think the victim has the choice when they decide to call somebody out on something, because it's when they feel most comfortable.

And I feel the best way to make sure the victim is heard, is to avoid invalidating their feelings as much as possible.

- Now, mind you, Kaidence has gone through training and has a program available to her at her school.

But in reality, many schools don't have that luxury.

So what can the rest of y'all do, who don't have a program like this to help resolve conflicts and just deal with the fallout from something really toxic happening?

Kaidence says the key is just don't do it alone or on the internet.

- They can kind of like, take the time to kind of like, jot down these feelings that they may have, see where they started and obviously, if they're feeling angry towards somebody, anger sprouts from a certain feeling.

So they need to kind of like, take the time, reflect amongst themselves, because only you can be honest with yourself and see where this anger came from.

And then from there, try to figure out what you think is the best route to take personally and maybe try to talk it out with somebody.

- We also need to take a deeper look at the bigger systems that allow toxic behaviors to go unchecked.

Like, going online to call out behavior anonymously, saying something like, "Hey, people gotta stop catcalling people in the hallways."

Yeah, that can be useful to educate someone, but there's always the risk that people will just drop the names of folks doing that stuff in the comments.

Now, don't get me wrong.

It's still important to acknowledge when somebody hurts somebody else.

But shouldn't we also allow them to learn from their mistakes and grow so it doesn't keep happening?

That will require pausing and having some dialogue before putting someone on blast and letting the internet handle it.

The internet can be a part of the process in stopping toxicity, but it can't be the place with the final say.

- It is meant to be a tool, and only a tool, not a weapon.

Because if you are using it as a way to completely attack people, in some cases, yes, those people might have done bad things, but what it's supposed to do is it's supposed to spread information about how certain topics can be unacceptable.

It should not be a way where people can drive others to a really bad place in their life.

- But now, we wanna hear from you.

When, if ever, do you think it's okay to call someone out online?

Are there other tools or tactics you'd like to see for calling out wrongdoing?