Member-only story
I’ve Been Canceled
A satire
“I’ve been canceled,” I announce to my Twitter followers the morning after the incident. My mentions light up immediately, the notification counter unable to keep pace with the condolences, likes, and retweets rushing in. While the comments start out as an unadulterated stream of sympathy for the ordeal I’ve just endured, the tone quickly shifts after a couple of hours to queries of next moves, potential Notes app apologies (over my dead body), and where to direct all the rage fermenting in the replies.
I assure my loyal fans — the meager several million I have left — that they needn’t wreak havoc on my behalf, and that I will be keeping the identity of the perpetrator a secret out of respect for their privacy and a desire not to have the same revocation done to me done unto them. As Michelle Obama so pithily put it, “When they go low, we go high.” I then proceed to pen a 123-part Twitter thread outlining what transpired in immense detail, just for the edification of my small entourage of supporters.
“I’ve Been Canceled,” I read the headline aloud, slowly this time, while quietly admiring the size of the type splashed across the top of the op-ed section in the New York Times. I take out my ruler to carefully measure the letters against the other titles littering the page, which is how I discover another article’s font is .025% larger than my…
