Ethical steps one should take before canceling someone out of their life via social media. How canceling can adversely affect an Empath.

This article was written after reading a LinkedIn Article written by Shay Rowbottom. Removing someone from our internet existence should be something we take seriously if we want to be an ethical person. Here is a list of ideas to consider before canceling someone out of one's life. If a person genuinely feels afraid and that is why they are canceling someone, then these rules may not apply to them.

Before canceling someone consider the following...

• If one is in the middle of a heated discussion, either private or online, and is about to cancel the other person, first ask a question and wait for the answer before deciding to cancel them. 

I personally have been on the receiving end of discussions where the other person is either completely focused on themselves, refuses to acknowledge something they did, or has misunderstood something I wrote and is getting angrier with each comment they make. At this point, the connection has already been canceled, they just want to make sure they get the last word in before actually canceling.

If one is wants to be ethical before canceling someone, just ask them a question. This gives the canceler a chance to listen before canceling. Most cancels revolve around someone who has gotten so upset all they plan on doing is being angry, accusing, not listening, and then canceling. But, is this something an ethical person would do? An ethical person, no matter how angry they are, would ask a question as a way to switch from being the aggressor to being the listener. This technique only works if a person cares about being an ethical person before canceling someone.

• Limit how many times you swipe past another human being's picture as a form of rejection. The Cancel Culture may have started with the social media dating sites that allowed people to swipe past dozens of images of people they were not interested in within literally one minute.

Imagine for a moment that you have a flat screen in front of you with a picture of a prospective dating partner. Now imagine that same person was also seated next to you as you swipe their image into oblivion. How would you feel if someone swiped you away while you sat next them, and watched? 

Of course, life is short and many of us don't want to wait, we want to want what we want, when we want it. Being ethical many times involves being patient. Going back 40 or 50 or 75 or 100 years ago Love was based on first contact and a fear that there might not be a second meeting. The yearning and pining that was created could lead to love baking into one's soul and  flourishing before these two souls met for a second or third time! Love in 2020 may be more based on lists we have of what we want and when we want the list satisfied. 

Neither scenario up above is necessarily ideal when it comes to choosing our friends and dating partners, and that becomes the irony. It is as if the love / friendship criteria pendulum has swung from one extreme 40 to 100 years ago to the opposite extreme in 2020.

• Do you use the laugh emoji to ridicule other points of view on Facebook? Why? Using the laugh emoji for sincere comments is cancel culture on full display. Ironically, it may be that all the people who are on smart phones just get tired of texting and would rather just use the laugh emoji as a way of saying I disagree with you AND you are not worthy of a wordy reply. How often have you flipped the bird at someone in a public place right in their face? Probably not that often, if  at all. The laughing emoji is the Cancel Culture's way of flipping the bird, and it may not even be a big deal to the canceler because the person they are flipping off is not there in the same room with them. The depiction of people as Snowflakes by the older generation is probably equivalent to someone nowadays using the laughing emoji in place of an actual word laced response to respond to the older generation. 

• Has texting adversely affected our brains in the age of Cancel Culture?  When I write on an actual desktop, I am reciting each word as I type. I am usually able to run the words together so I am sounding out the actual sentence. Texting requires a focus on each character instead of the word. Suddenly the texter is in danger of thinking in a monotone, roboticized method as they sound out each letter they are typing. Slowing down the brain's thought process may actually spin down the cognitive emotion we are using as we text our thought's and feelings! Sounding out each letter when texting can suddenly feel like we are talking to ourselves rather than talking to someone else. 

However, some texters are almost as fast as those who use an actual keyboard. But isn't that like riding a 10 speed bicycle in a lower gear so we end up spinning the pedals at such a high rate we are more focused on how fast we are spinning the pedals than what it is we were suppose to be doing?

So besides trying to be more ethical when it comes to canceling, the person who has been canceled needs to self assess why and how they feel the way they feel upon being canceled.

The Mathematical reality is we can only have so many close associates, friends, relatives, or significant others who we can interact with on a daily or weekly basis. And for some, just being able to juggle those closer connections is really what matters, the rest is like being at a carnival shooting gallery where a person just tries to shoot as many of the passing objects as they can, and then it's on to the next "game". 

If one is canceled by another person maybe it is best to analyze if they were canceled by someone they haven't actually met or had not planned on meeting. A person who has been canceled should reassess if they were placing too much importance on staying connected to someone they may never meet and they should also assess why they care so much about being canceled. 

Canceling probably hurts empaths the most. The more an Empath learns about someone, the more information they have acquired in the event the Empath discovers a way they can help the other person and that person's goals. Suddenly the Empath is canceled and they realize they can no longer ever help the person who canceled them should the Empath ever learn something that would have helped the other person. To an Empath, this can really sting. Empaths can more easily store other people's adventures and when they are suddenly closed off from that person's world, it can hurt.

Alessandro Machi can be found on LinkedIn 

Alessandro's Video and Writing Credits include; 

2001 Los Angeles Emmy,

over 25 IMDB credits for work done in his studio, 

Ranked top 25 out of 20,000 Lifetime Tongal Ideationists. 

Created Video Advocating making Home Businesses Legal in Los Angeles.

1985 Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Internship Scholarship Winner.

How the NBA, Nike, and Spike Lee accidentally created their own Brand of Prejudice.

Nike and Spike Lee first said it, "It's gotta be the shoes", an iconic and ironic slogan if ever one was created. On the one foot, the saying implied that basketball players were successful because of the shoes they wore, on the other foot the saying was meant as an ironic, grass is always greener  metaphor regarding what makes the professional NBA player successful versus what really makes the professional NBA player successful, the hard work they put in for years.

But what type of message did NBA basketball shoes selling for hundreds and now thousands of dollars actually deliver to teenagers in poor economic communities? Apparently the part about hard work sort of got lost in translation. The Spike Lee commercial delivered the "It's gotta be the shoes" double entendre message to teenagers so successfully it distorted the teenager's reality and left out the part about hard work.

The slogan "It's gotta be the shoes" did harm to poor communities in the following ways.

• Made poor kids feel unimportant if they could not afford a pair of NBA star shoes.
• Made some parents or parent feel inadequate if they could not afford to buy their kid or kids a pair of NBA star shoes.
• Made some parents prioritize buying a pair of NBA star shoes over everyday essentials.
• Made poor kids believe in instant legitimacy by wearing Nike NBA star shoes.
• Made showing off NBA star shoes a way to be respected.
• Created unearned narcissistic tendencies through a constant, visual connection between one's perceived own worth and the NBA star shoes they were wearing on their feet.
• Created a belief among some that if one person could wear NBA star shoes and gain instant street cred without having done anything of note, then stealing NBA star shoes from someone who gained instant street cred was just as legitimate, maybe even more legitimate since stealing NBA star shoes actually took some guts and effort.
• How many crimes were committed either to steal an NBA Star shoe or to use stolen fenced goods to have the money to buy an NBA star shoe. Who was called when these crimes were committed, the Police?
• How much Police enforcement has been required to break up counterfeit and price gouging of NBA star shoes?
• How many poor community cliques were developed in which those with NBA star shoes discriminated against those who did not have any? 
• Wearing NBA star shoes taught kids in poor communities how to be prejudiced against those who could not  afford the shoes.

The NBA could have priced their star shoes at regular prices, or just above regular prices, but that would not promote the star quality of the athletes the shoes were representing, and therein lies the real problem. 

There is no way to both create a NBA star shoe brand for a player and offer the shoes at regular or near regular prices. Yet, creating a theoretically better shoe and glitzing it up and then raising the price anywhere from 4 to 25 times the price of a "regular" tennis shoe is probably the only route a "star" player can take if they want to be seen as a legitimate celebrity and somebody worth respecting.

The above economic pricing strategy created many potentially negative societal impacts for teens in poor economic communities. Meanwhile the Police face similar inevitable situations on a daily basis and the same league that never acknowledged the inner community prejudice their own NBA star shoes created have instead chosen to focus all of their energy blaming the very group that helped them achieve their own economic success in the shoe game, Police enforcement whenever shoe thefts or shoe counterfeiting occurred.

Not giving the Police any modicum of slack in 2020 has to make us question the NBA and their own marketing tactics that have led the NBA towards teaching kids that they don't have to earn their own swag, they just can buy it, legally or otherwise.

Fair warning, VHS, 8mm video, hi-8mm video and super-vhs tapesn have over time become fragile and no one can be responsible for any loss or damage that could occur during the retransfer to digital process. However, if your Home video has already been transferred to DVD you already have a back up. The other thing to consider, if your videotape gets damaged during playback, it also means the VHS, SVHS playback machine has been damaged by the Home video tape. Outside unknown forces such as how the VHS videotape has been stored for the past 20 to 30 years will always be the cause or a contributing cause of an accident happening and the transfer house should not be held accountable. This is also why most transfer places want to simply put a VHS video on play and instantly make a recording without making additional adjustments, they know the home videos are fragile.

Contact Alessandro Machi at, vhs at AlessandroMachi.com if you want to book a VHS, SVHS to Digital Transfer session in his amazing VHS, SVHS Transfer to Digital Studio. 

Alessandro's Studio and Writing Credits include; 

2001 Los Angeles Emmy,

over 20 IMDB credits for work done in his studio, 

Ranked top 25 out of 20,000 Lifetime Tongal Ideationists. 

1985 Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Internship Scholarship Winner