To me it means when someone commits a moral, social or criminal offence, and is ostracized socially, professionally, etc.

Many times it is deserved, sometimes it is not.

It is a real thing and not just a right wing talking point.

I would say withdrawing support or not associating with a person or group is not cancelling, its just a normal every day thing. In no way are you cancelling anyone. It is hyperbole.

That is a real thing that has actually happened to real people.

How would you define being canceled?

The people calling them out or the ones who did the actions leading to that outcome? I work for a large corp, if I go on camera giving views that make the company look bad and they fire me whose fault is it? Am I being canceled or am I being fired for making the company look bad? What if I said racism is good (not something I in any way believe in) and it comes out that I work for say, Boeing. Would Boeing be right in firing me or not?

especially when you consider comments or actions that are very far in the past that the person in question has apologised for sincerely and viewed in the context of the rest of their beliefs and behaviour. For example,

- Al Franken being hounded out of the Senate on the basis of unsubstantiated groping accusations and a joke photo of him honking a sleeping woman's breasts
- Justin Trudeau wearing blackface when he was in high school 25 years ago
- Joy Reid almost being drummed out of her MSNBC job for 10+ year old blog posts speculating on whether politicians were gay or not

To your example, is it reasonable for your company to be trolling through your 2005 Facebook posts essentially looking for excuses to fire you, especially where our understanding of issues has since moved on and something that may have been broadly acceptable decades ago isn't anymore? That's the equivalent of what prominent public figures face and it means otherwise decent people don't bother going into politics.

It seems you think that I think being cancelled is universally a bad thing.

I don’t, not when it is the appropriate consequence for one’s current/recent behaviour, as you described above.

What people are actually doing is simply turning away from people they feel are odious. When enough people find your behavior odious, your odious behavior might result in the loss of a job and friends. Is there something new about that?

social norms or expectations is nothing new.

Seems that when those who don't have power are "cancelled" for not "staying in their place" there is very little "backlash."

"Cancel culture" seems to have only became a "thing" as social norms shifted and more of us took the American values of liberty and freedom to love who we love and live how we choose seriously and objected to those those who sought to cancel us.

Sometimes I wonder if it always comes down to projection.

I dont like what dump is doing so I dont support him. Its not cancel culture, Its just me using my right to not support or support someone. Calling it cancel culture is a derisive term that takes away your right and equates it to a smear on you for what you do and dont support. It's stupid and using that language reinforces that your right to support or not support isnt supported by said right but a cultural fad.

And it is on both sides. Cons think it is a real thing and they fear it.

The chronically online youth who talk about it are usually pretty sad to find out it’s meaningless. Example: JK Rowling, even with her odious views, is still a millionaire and people are still paying her.

Canceling is a circle jerk and cons crying on it is also a circle jerk.

Textbook case.

If you take a political stance within the job you do then I dont think it is cancel culture regardless if I agree with the stance or not. Lets flip it, what if a NFL player said that Democrats were bad for this county during a game. Would you think it was cancel culture if their was a major outcry and they were fired?. What if a Democratic politician said that racism was good? Would you think it was cancel culture if the support for them was withdrawn? If cancel culture is just withdrawing support from a group or person because of their political stances they take then voting for the president is cancel culture. They are trying to define you saying and using your power to say someone or something is a bad thing for us is a social problem. Not a real thing that has existed for a long, long, time. It is a meme.

So there is a role in society in collectively promoting the morality, integrity and dignity of its members. One of the main tools it has to do this is by excluding (or otherwise imposing a social penalty on) people who refuse to conform to whatever is considered acceptable conduct in that society. People who fall afoul of this might call it "cancel culture" but it's just a way of denigrating and dismissing what is actually an essential function of civilisation.

So yes, I believe the mechanism that "cancel culture" is describing does exist but not in the sense that MAGAs mean when they usually use it.

I do also think that people can go overboard and misuse it (for example, where they decide that they are enforcing the correct morality and norms on someone but those are not in fact widely socially accepted and/or rationally defensible). But I think this is pretty rare compared with people who just get butthurt over being asked to behave like a decent person and then whine about it being "cancel culture" as a softer easier alternative to admitting they were wrong or making any effort to improve their behaviour.

find it surprising.

Count me in. Proud member of the cancel culture.

Calling it as such provides them the justification to blame American culture rather than their own inept failures.

It's tempting to blame our failures on other people, and the wight wing did just that, branded it, and now use it as another Cry of Oppression they keep in their pockets to pull out when convenience or self-validation is needed.

like bigotry and racism etc., yes it is or WAS a real thing---

and now the right has its own 'cancel culture'-- trying to cancel and reverse
DEI and whatever else they don't like-- and doing their best to PROMOTE racism and bigotry...