“Big Brother is watching you.”

The infamous line by George Orwell now correlates to the actions and posts made on ever-growing social media. While not an allusive government figurehead, the idea of a Big Brother in modern society is social media. 

95 million Instagram posts and 300 million Snapchats were made on an average day in 2023. The digital footprint is widening with internet users worldwide climbing to 5.16 billion in 2023. Many teens and young adults frivolously throw personal information onto the internet with zero care. While it is illegal to use cellphone records in legal proceedings, everything posted on social media stays there, even if deleted. Even in the modern age of VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) and anonymous accounts, everything can be dug up. 

Social media abounds with homework answers, travel tips, and now videos that ruin people’s lives. Influencers with millions of followers like YouTuber Jeffree Star have been for past racist acts and physical abuse in the past. These past actions and continued controversy caused Star to lose over 100,000 YouTube subscribers. Star’s down fall proves that when the internet bans together the internet and social media can become a safe place.

This neverending cycle of one’s past and present controversial acts have led to a society plagued by “cancel culture.” Influencers and members of the general public alike are ostracized and boycotted, and it is often entirely justified and factual. Cancel culture has attempted to turn social media into a loving place, with the intent to bring joy but what former loyal fans have done in the name of cancel culture is sickening. In the controversy, fans pick a side and can easily turn hostile. In the Tati Westbrook and James Charles drama, while Westbrook had evidence against Charles’s harassment towards others, both lost subscribers and were bashed by either fan base. Westbrook and Charles took a leave from social media. 

Once a common occurrence for people in the limelight, cancel culture is seeping into everyday life. 

In recent months, TikToker Keith Lee rose to fame by reviewing local restaurants in his hometown of Las Vegas. Growing his following to 10.7 million a positive review can change a restaurant’s existence and skyrocket them to fame, but as recently discovered a negative review can do the opposite.

On Sunday, February 19th Lee posted a typical and honest review of “The Pepper Club,” a local, Asian-fusion brunch spot. But Lee actually missed brunch; therefore he was unable to try the restaurant’s signature Ube French Toast. Wanting to not let his fans down, he ordered available items from the restaurant and gave his honest and thorough opinion. In an age where influencers are constantly trying to please everyone, negative reviews are few and far between.

Lee started his TikTok by stating the service was ordinary and the waitress was less than helpful—service is always a contributing factor in Lee’s ratings. For the first time in a while Lee “hated” the food and gave one item a zero out of 10. Overall the review made the restaurant seem overpriced and merely a showoff.

Lee ended that video and said, “does the foods make me want to go back for brunch?…No.”

The video so far has over 14.6 million views and the response is entirely negative but not towards Keith Lee but the restaurant and its staff. Fans of Lee rushed to his comments and said things such as, “It’s over for the Pepper Club.”

To make it worse, the hate didn’t end with ignorant and uninformed comments on TikTok but with “cult followers” of Lee, who likely never ate at The Pepper Club, calling and harassing the restaurant and leaving horrid reviews on the companies TikTok. The completely innocent video nearly got Lee’s waitress fired. In modern terms, the restaurant was canceled.

Once Lee saw the disgraceful comments, he made a response video on TikTok trying other items from the restaurant. Lee denounced any negativity towards the restaurant and reassured his true fans—ones that did not bash the restaurant—that the waitress’s job was safe, yet the damage was done. 

The abuse of restaurant workers does not end at food reviews. Ignorant and privileged individuals feeling they are entitled to scream and physically attack fast food and any service worker. Customers have thrown food at workers, yelled at them, and even gotten physical, all with the excuse of “the customer is always right.” Now with the rise of social media and these violent encounters being posted entitled individuals, are being held accountable. 

A recent viral video of a woman, Tammy Teanelson, screaming and throwing her food around in a McDonalds went viral and people who viewed the video were furious. Viewers used the power of the internet and reported this woman’s behavior to her job. Teanelson was fired. 

She made a response video and said, “I have the right to let them know that my burger was not made correctly” and called the firing “extremely unfair.”

But what was “unfair” was the abuse of underpaid service workers. A line can be drawn where the internet’s power was used correctly in the case of Teanelson. As for Lee, his fans abused a server and nearly destroyed a restaurant’s reputation.

While the internet is a vast powerhouse, it is the users—or abusers—that can manipulate it. Both content creators and their fans must be held to a moral standard and know that what goes on the internet should be for more than just views. In an age filled with oppression and scandal, the internet can be a source that will quickly spread information, but in a society where almost anything seen on social media is deemed true, it is nearly impossible to draw a concrete line between information and influence. 

It is a social responsibility to ensure the internet remains an honest place. With the number of internet users constantly increasing, it may be harder to differentiate between content that is honest and content that has an ulterior motive. And while content may be out of viewers’ hands, a response isn’t. Viewers must uphold moral standards and not become out-of-control fans. 

Internet users must understand the impact they have on themselves and others if the digital age can ever realize its potential. 

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Editors’ note: All opinions expressed on The Uproar are a reflection solely of the beliefs of the bylined author and not the journalism program at NASH.  We continue to welcome school-appropriate comments and guest articles.