Banishing acts

There are now companies offering cancel-culture insurance. They'll even conduct 'pre-scandal reputation audits' to catch a problem before someone else does. Is this a logical next step, or a sign of the victory of obfuscation? Do such policies simply validate a broken system? How did we get here?

- Gowri S

In a revealing, if gimmicky, move, the UK-based insurance agency Samphire Risk has begun offering cancel-culture insurance.

The policy is called Preempt and includes 24x7 crisis communication management, prescandal "reputation audits" and emergency damage control against "weaponized discourse", in association with the UK-based crisis communications group Borkowski PR.

What does it mean for us to have reached a point where the potential for backlash is viewed as something that can be commodified and underwritten? What does this say about the evolution of image management, and crisis communication?

The term "cancel culture", traceable to the early 2000s, has gained momentum amid a growing culture of political correctness (and the backlash against it), and of course amid the #MeToo movement.

"In that time, online outrage has become a force that can reshape reputations overnight," says Evan Nierman, founder and head of the US-based crisis PR firm Red Banyan and author of The Cancel Culture Curse (2023).

"What started as a moral reckoning has turned into a fast-moving public tribunal, where accusations carry more weight than facts and reputational damage can occur long before the truth is known."

Public figures ranging from talk-show host Stephen Colbert and authors Neil Gaiman and JK Rowling to comedians Aziz Ansari and Dave Chappelle have had public appearances cancelled, have disappeared for a time and eventually made comebacks. Each name on that list still incites emotions ranging from rage to sympathy.