Pop star Dua Lipa has taken aim at the prevalence of “cancel culture”, insisting everyone should be allowed to make mistakes.
The New Rules singer wishes social media users would spread more kindness instead of attacking those who make one wrong move in public.
She told Attitude: “I think there is so much judgment and meanness… Cancel culture is so dangerous and toxic. Being funny is the greatest currency, even if it’s at the expense of somebody else.
“That tends to happen a lot with social media. Being funny and getting likes and retweets seems to be more important than actually caring about who is going to be on the other side of it and how they feel.
“There should be a communal understanding that people make mistakes, and we should learn from each other’s mistakes and we should try to teach each other.”
Dua recalls feeling insecure early on in her rise to fame as she feared being mocked online.
“For a short period of time it messed with my mental health,” she shared. “I’d go out on stage and if somebody was filming me, in my head… I was like, ‘They’re going to film it so they can laugh at me.'”
However, Dua believes that there has been an improvement thanks to the BeKind movement – which was launched after bullied U.K. presenter Caroline Flack’s suicide in February (2020).
She explained: “Some people are thinking about it a little bit more before they say things. I think people are trying to be more accepting and understanding, but at the same time, the Internet is a (weird) place, because you can hide behind a screen and you can say whatever you want.”
