Barack Obama warns ‘woke’ young people against social media outrage and ‘cancel culture’
- Former US president criticises trend where making change has become about being ‘as judgmental as possible’ about others
- Calling people out online is easy but is ‘not activism’, Obama says, drawing bipartisan praise as comments go viral
Former US President Barack Obama offered some advice earlier this week to young people hoping to change society: taking part in “cancel culture” is not the way to do it.
“This idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re always politically woke and all that stuff, you should get over that quickly,” the 58-year-old said Tuesday while speaking at the Obama Foundation Summit in Chicago. “The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws.”
Obama’s pointed warning that social media enables “woke” people to be “as judgmental as possible” went viral on Wednesday, drawing praise from both the left and right. By early Thursday, clips of Obama shared on Twitter had been viewed millions of times as many stressed that all social media users needed to hear his message.
“He is right on all counts,” 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang tweeted, while his opponent congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard wrote” “We all need a little more aloha spirit – being respectful & caring for one another.”
“Good for Obama,” wrote conservative pundit Ann Coulter, adding in parentheses that her comment was “Not sarcastic!”
On Tuesday, Obama was roughly 50 minutes into a discussion with young leaders about their activism when he mentioned that he had started to notice a worrisome trend “among young people, particularly on college campuses”.