Brand failures are annoying but ultimately self-leveling.

This one is especially annoying because the brand is trying to create a campaign and a community. Bari Weiss is specifically running an anti-snowflake and anti-canceller brand. This morning she wrote a perfect example of the cancelling impulse. Some obscure Twitter dude expressed an obnoxious opinion, and now she wants the anti-cancellers to get together and cancel him.

Sorry, Bari. When you state a clear and straightforward brand, you can’t have it both ways. Your PURPOSE, the purpose we pay you for, is encouraging people to IGNORE obnoxious opinions, not mobbing up against obnoxious opinions. You could have simply ignored this particular Twitter dude. He wasn’t attacking you, so you had no obligation to respond to him. Ignoring is easier than mobbing, and ignoring doesn’t help to PUBLICIZE the obnoxious opinion.

When the product is free, none of this matters. The content is just sitting there, and you can read it or not. There’s no TWO-WAY OBLIGATION. But when I’m PAYING for a specific PURPOSE, I won’t continue paying for the opposite.

Next day: Withdrew my support just in time. This morning Bari published a piece by Jonah Goldberg, pure Bush family neocon. This pattern is tiresome. Maybe I’m finally learning to spot the Pied Pipers BEFORE they lead the mice into the trap. I’ve been slow and stupid in this department for many years.