Be thankful for those who are willing to be offensive enough to get canceled

Being offensive has become a synonym for truth-telling, while taking offense has been broadly used as a tool to gain social standing or to lower the standing of ideological opponents by getting them "canceled."

Now more than ever, cancellations have become targeted attacks meant to ruin the career of a person deemed to be too offensive. In reality, it is likely the person is being too truthful. These offensive parties have fought speech limitations and a liberal media machine that seeks to label any opposing political view or ideological movement as offensive and carry on to the next target.

Thankfully, these cancellations are having the opposite effect lately.

Take the perpetually canceled BlazeTV host Alex Stein. He's been described as right-wing, far-right, alt-right, and everything in between. The Independent called him a "troll" and advised it readers to "pretend as though he does not exist."

But when Stein called Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) a "big booty Latina" or made a sarcastic Dr. Fauci rap, he broke the reins of cancel culture so uniquely and unapologetically that his popularity skyrocketed him to his own show.

Readers of the New York Times could read an article about Barstool Sports owner Dave Portnoy, determine him to be an offensive bigot, and move on. However, hit pieces and spats with pizza parlor owners have only increased his reach tenfold.

Similarly, Portnoy spoke for nearly all of America when he confronted a Washington Post writer who used a pizza festival as an opportunity to drag him through the mud. The writer accused him of bringing unwanted attention to businesses due to him being a misogynist.

That video was viewed more than 50 million times on X alone, and Portnoy was praised for exposing bias in media.

Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe was swiftly canceled after an Asian comedian posted the first 30 seconds of Hinchcliffe's stand-up routine with zero context. Hinchcliffe took the stage and made racial jokes about Asians while calling audience members "race traitors."

What was missing was that Hinchcliffe's opening remarks were a precise juxtaposition about the same comedian who joked before him about how mean people are to Asians. Without this context, surely Hinchcliffe's own Asian friends would be offended, but they weren't.

The cancellation had the opposite effect. The comic now runs one of the most successful live podcasts in the country, operates out of Joe Rogan's Comedy Mothership, and tours internationally.

Be thankful for offensive people who are willing to be canceled. Without them, speech can go unchallenged, and when that happens it is often up to the most powerful arbiters in media to choose who is knighted and who is excommunicated. Most of the time they're wrong.

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