“I Would Never Cancel Cancel Culture”: Journalist Shruti Advani Who Was Cancelled for Her Writing

Farzana Baduel, CEO of Curzon PR is in conversation with Shruti Advani, a journalist whose recent article in the Financial Times about luxury lockdown in Kensington went viral. Not in a good way. Shruti received over 4000 messages in one week from across the globe including death threats, racism and sexism.

Despite being cancelled herself, Shruti holds an opposing view than most of her peers in the media when she says she would never cancel cancel culture. It is not cancel culture, but its social media amplification that is the problem, she says.

Listen to the thought-provoking conversation for a different viewpoint on the topic.

Episode highlights:

4.36: How her article lost context when released outside the paywall.
8.06: How she became a symbol for everything that was going wrong in people’s lives.
12.03: The kind of threats she received, online as well as in person.
21.08: How the people most vulnerable to COVID just showed kindness.
24.19 How the article was published at the wrong time.
30.30 The history of cancel culture and why it is an important part of a vibrant democracy.
31.36: Why the social media amplification of cancel culture is problematic.
33.50 Example from India on being comfortable with one’s history while having an environment that represents everyone who inhabits it.
38.07 Her one general rule in life when it comes to cancel culture.

Youtube Video
https://youtu.be/rPMmbNePL5M

Selected links from the episode:

• Article ‘The awkward lessons of my luxury lockdown in Kensington’ by Shruti Advani in Financial Times
• The article as pickup up by The Daily Mail
• Tensions rise over race and heritage in the UK as more statues are attacked
• Anniversary of Grenfell Tower fire that killed 72 people
• Mahatma Gandhi's salt march, which began his famous civil disobedience movement wherein he defied laws of the British colonial government.
• 2015 Dadri mob lynching in India that killed a man over the suspicion of storing beef in his fridge