Futurism logo

The Orville: When Cancel Culture Has Gone Too Far

Is reality heading towards science fiction?

By Scarwled WritingPublished 3 years ago 6 min read
2
Screenshot from the Orville, Majority Rule

We are all aware of and maybe even joined in on cancel culture. Everyday people post about consumer items, businesses, their hobbies, and their own personal thoughts and feelings on the internet. We are bombarded with social ideas and mannerisms that blatantly say whether they are good or bad. No one needs to really think about anything anymore because social media and other media sources pretty much does that for you. Do you want to know how to bake a cake? Google it. Do you want to know what style of clothing you should wear? Again, Google it. It's all right there for you. You don't have to think at all. As of 2021, what happens if someone posts or even created a product that does not express the exact social ideas and mannerisms that the internet has labeled for us as acceptable? We the people go out and get rid of it with any means possible. We might write nasty comments to whoever the perpetrator is. We might call the perpetrator's place of business to get them fired. Basically we cancel them. It doesn't even matter when the unacceptable behavior happened. It could of happened 50 years ago and they still get canceled. This is all normal to us now. As a collective whole, we don't want to see anything that may be deemed bad. We want to make all bad things disappear. This all sounds great. Who wouldn't want to get rid of all the horrible people and companies out there? At the same time is there such a thing as going too far with cancel culture? The science fiction series the Orville's seventh episode Majority Rule depicts a 21st century Earth like society where cancel culture and social justice completely dominates their way of life. You thought losing your job and being socially ostracized from society was bad. What if you lived in a world where the punishment for being canceled was a full on lobotomy.

Warning: Spoilers Ahead!

Episode Summary

In the episode Majority Rule, the Orville crew visits the planet Sargus 4 to investigate the missing anthropologists who came to observe and study the planet. Sargus 4 resembles a 21st century Earth complete with Earth looking humans. One peculiar detail of the Sargus 4 society is that everyone is wearing a voting badge. These badges give citizens the option to give you an up vote or a down vote depending on an individual's actions in the community. Or for no reason at all as you see when the character LaMarr receives an up vote from a random barista who finds him attractive. The same barista then kicks a woman out of her coffee shop for having over 500,000 down votes as the coffee shop does not serve people with that many down votes. Which indicates that this society runs on a social currency where your votes dictate how other people will treat you.

Sargus 4's Voting Badge

Unfortunately the character LaMarr also finds out getting thousands of down votes is even easier than getting his one up vote. When he provocatively dances on a local statue while Sargus citizens record and post his dance on their social media platform called the Master Feed. What was meant to be playful teasing towards his coworker and friend is seen as a great disrespect towards an important historical figure of the planet. As the video goes viral, LaMarr's down votes also rise, surpassing 500,000 down votes within seconds of being in the coffee shop. In a panic, the barista kicks the crew out where LaMarr is then arrested by the local police. He is informed that because he went over 1million down votes, his actions are now seen as a “crime against the state”. LaMarr is then forced to participate in the planet's trial where the citizens must vote whether he is innocent or guilty of his crime by voting him up or down. If he receives 10 million down votes by the end of the trial he will have to undergo a "social correction". As the rest of the crew tries to figure out what happened to their missing anthropologists. They find that the anthropologists were also arrested for committing a “crime against the state” by simply not giving up their seat on the bus to a woman. Someone took a photo of their actions and posted it on the Master Feed where they too received over a million down votes. Even though it is clear to the crew that the anthropologists did not notice the woman and weren't intentionally being rude. To their shock they find out that the punishment called "social correction" is actually a full on lobotomy. Which became the fate of the one surviving anthropologist.

The anthropologist undergoing social correction

The Orville crew with the help of the barista woman attempts to save LaMarr's life by doctoring a bunch of photos and videos and posting them onto the Master Feed. Even though everything posted onto the Master Feed pertaining to LaMarr is fake, the people of Sargus 4 believe it as the truth since it is on the Master Feed. Which is what saves his life last minute.

From Scifi to Reality

So how does this have to do with how we use cancel culture in the real world? We don't wear badges and lobotomize the people we cancel. As time has progressed cancel culture has been come more and more prevalent in our society. From historical monuments that we are ashamed of to Sally from down the street's tasteless social media comments from when she was 15 years old. Literally no one is safe from the judgement of outraged people. Of course on the surface when you hear that x company has conducted themselves in a racist way. You think, “Wow that's horrible! I won't support them anymore” and that's a normal reaction. The question right now is how far will you go to stop actions and words that you see as out of line? For now we ruin people's public character and even their careers. The Orville episode Majority Rule depicts a world where everything is judged on someone's social media presence. Remember the barista girl initially likes LaMarr and gives him an up vote only to find out that he's been judged as one of the most deplorable people in her society from one incident that was posted on social media. In that same episode the character Kitan is confronted by angry man whose offended by her hat. He threatens to post a picture of her on the Master Feed and ruin her rating if she does not take off her hat. To make matters worse, the punishment for being “canceled” in that world is a life altering surgery. One could argue that it's worse than a death sentence. Will we as a society go that far? Will it become normal practice for us as a society to sentence some guy from social media to a lobotomy because he forgot to tip his waiter? We as a society have already gotten to the point where we believe whatever social media and TV tells us. It's pretty obvious when there are sites that are named Factcheck and people actually use it like their fact bible. People no longer have to do the heavy lifting to figure out if something is true or false, right or wrong. We let technology do that kind of thinking for us. Just like in Majority Rule when everyone believed the doctored pictures and videos just because it was readily available to the Sargus people on their Master Feed. This did save LaMarr's life, but at the same time it means those people truly do not think for themselves. The scariest thing is that a lot of people in real life are already there. Will we let this piece of science fiction become reality? China has already started implementing a social credit system in their country. Who else will follow suit?

science fiction
2

About the Creator

Scarwled Writing

My writing sandbox where I write about different subjects that spark my interest.

Gumroad

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.