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Louis C.K. was trending on Twitter because his Madison Square Garden concert was sold out, which some on the left are interpreting to mean that cancel culture is not real, or that it does not hurt people's careers. (link: https://archive.is/ryKrI )
What does it mean to be sufficiently canceled? I think Louis C.K. qualifies as having been sufficiently cancelled. If you look at his Wikipedia page, his sexual misconduct scandal, in 2017, killed off his TV and movie career. His filmography abruptly ends in 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_C.K._filmography
Sure he's still able to sell out, but this reflects individual preferences for his comedy, not the approval of the media establishment, in which he is still damaged goods. Comedians are sorta like contractors in the sense that they have to hustle, not depend on a platform or the backing of a major media establishment. I think this is is what gives comedians an advantage over actors in regard to cancellation, because stand-up comedy can be inexpensively distributed at scale, such as digitally online, without needing the backing of an entire studio or publishing house.
Claims that "cancel culture doesn't exist because this particular, highly , highly talented and famous person escaped our wrath" are, imo, just obfuscation.
Akin to saying "homophobia doesn't exist cause this one rich gay Hollywood Jew in the 60s got away with it"; it changes absolutely nothing about the claim being made about society.
This is a common line of argument with JK Rowling and the bad faith is most evident there: trying and failing is not the same as not trying or being globally ineffective. They absolutely would have cancelled her if they could; she's simply a once-in-a-generation celebrity.
You think Louis CK is highly highly talented? Go check out his first comeback special after he got cancelled. It fucking sucks. The middle of the set joke sequence starts with a Pascals wager joke about how it would suck to be wrong about god existing, then to "jesus wasnt christian he was jewish how would he feel about the cross?' and then finishing up with 72 virgins. After that it's "I hate being the only person in a small restaurant/store" and then jokes about how words like Retard used to be more socially acceptable. These would all be hack bits in like 2008, but in 2020? You can find most of it on youtube if you want to confirm how bad it is: https://youtube.com/watch?v=q_TZWxihabc
Lots of people clearly like his comedy, see: his show selling out. There's no such thing as a comedian who's universally popular. The only fair way to measure how funny someone is is to look at some combined metric of a) the number of people that like them, and b) the amplitude(passion?) of how much people who like them like them. Being able to sell out a large venue is an objective measure they score decently on both metrics.
He's no doubt the biggest and most successful comedian of the past decade (top 3 at least), I just take issue with the suggestion that only highly highly talented and famous people can evade the wrath of cancellation. In my estimation moderately talented people can fare just fine.
I guess it depends on your definition of highly talented then? I'd call just about anyone who can get thousands of people to show up live just for them highly talented. I'd call someone moderately talented if they peaked when they placed top 3 in their high school talent show.
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