One thing will forever ring true in my mind: fandom, popularity and celebrity are fickle concepts. Were I ever to become thrust into fame or major spotlight, I would like to believe I would be able to retain this knowledge and correctly handle any attention thrown my way.

Were I ever to become famous or famous-adjacent (like, an InstaBaddie or a WAG), I would like to believe that my presentation of likability comes from a genuine place. Not an affect developed to appeal to people whose proximity to the real me is only tertiary. To people whose only relation to me is based upon what I present; what they see and don't actually know. A relationship built upon objectification at worst and superficial disingenuity at best. I would like to think any idea of being relatable is merely coincidence, not performative and siphoned from me for dollars.

Most of all, I hope people understand that I - no, we - are all evolutionary beings.

Now, I don't typically believe people change - not saying the ability to do so doesn't exist within every individual - but I am more inclined to believe people evolve.

The only problem is, such is typically completed outside of the prying eyes of the watching public.

It's weird, much like puberty, for some, personal growth just begins one day and continues whether you like it or not.

The little differences that happen in private and are only discernible, again, to yourself and those who know you.

Then comes the internet, making things a lot trickier.

I am a milennial, meaning I watched the back of my desktop flatten and morph from my corner desk into a portable laptop. I saw the floppy disk turn into the USB drive and was quick to trade in my EnV Touch for an iPhone. I have literally grown up alongside the internet (formerly known as the Internet - shout out to AP Style, another thing that is constantly evolving).

I watched private and public citizens jump onto all media and pour out their every thought, sans filter or regulation, and lavishly interacted with it because doing so created an inexplicable bond so unlike the friendships I had in the real world.

There is no greater linking force than the internet - and that is still kind of a good thing.

We have all poured some aspect of ourselves into the World Wide Web. Whether that was done on a micro or macro level, we all possess some form of a digital footprint. In today's #Cancellation culture, even I have found myself sweating about just what my fetal digital identity looks like to someone who doesn't actually know me. How the former way in which I expressed myself online may be used against me.

And that's a funny thing, really, because I've realized whether or not one is a public figure or a private citizen, on the internet we are all accessible and able to be #Cancelled.


One of the most puzzling things I've felt about #Cancelled is the way in which it has been dispensed, to whom it has been dispensed and for what reason it has been dispensed. I often find myself thinking, "Well, what was the purpose of this? What is the underlying motive?" whenever a movement to cancel someone erupts behind something they said or did five or more years in the past. Not saying I don't understand why it happens, but depending upon the issue, I find myself feeling guilty for thinking, "It's not that deep."

To somebody, somewhere, whether it be 10 years, seven years, five minutes in the past, it is that deep, and centering myself isn't the most ideal way of observing how people respond to hurt.

Whether that be in one minute, one day, one month or one year, I have become a better person and I am still working on being an even better person.

How quickly we forget perfection is unrealistic, evolution is inevitable and people are fickle.

I will never cape for an awful person, nor will I ever cape for a person whose digital or real identity brings or propagates unjust harm towards innocent peoples. Those people are #Cancelled for all eternity.

Even if I am the only one on the army.

There is just a slight irony in #Cancelled, and the manner in which the very same tools you use can be used against you. The people who find glee in shouting out your youthful, minor discretions* from mountaintops believe themselves invulnerable - move smarter on both sides.

I was not always the same person. Not saying I was ever a violently awful person, I possess far too much empathy to ever relish in dispensing misery, but I have changed.

Simone five years ago is not the same Simone today.

To quote Tisha Campbell-Martin, "it's the journey."