Ibadan Journal of the Social Sciences
Volume 21, No. 1, 2023
DOI: 10.36108/ijss/3202.12.0160
Toxicity of Cancel Culture and Performance of Radicalism among Young People in Nigeria
Dauda Busari
Department of Sociology, University of Ibadan, Nigeria
Abstract
Drawing on Alfred Schutz’s Social Action Theory, which problematizes the notion of Relevance Systematic Functioning for guided orientation and impactful interpretation influencing the process of becoming a participant in an emerging lifestyle and a new culture by young people, this study investigates ‘cancel culture’—a form of social media activism—and its collective consciousness among Nigerian youth. The study targets young citizens who own and regularly operate Twitter accounts. While the study is guided by an exploratory research design, mixed-method procedures were employed. The qualitative technique adopted 6 Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) as a precursor to the quantitative approach, which randomly interviewed 302 individuals selected in two purposively selected states of Lagos, Rivers, and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. The findings indicated that youth identify and affiliate with the cancel culture phenomenon, relating the practice to their lifestyle and identity. It also establishes that cancel culture reflects youth boredom and natural, spontaneous human reactions to the need for justice, which has created an atmosphere of mob justice.
Keywords: Call-out culture, Twitter, young people, radicalism, Nigeria