The latest victim of cancel culture is Lindsay Ellis, who has more than a million YouTube followers but is deleting her social media accounts, following accusations of racism.
The original controversy around Ellis tied back to a tweet published all the way back in March that compared the animated film ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’ to the anime series ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender,’ with critics claiming the comparison between the two Asian-themed stories was an overgeneralization and possibly anti-Asian.
“Also watched Raya and the Last Dragon and I think we need to come up with a name for this genre that is basically Avatar: the Last Airbender reduxes. It's like half of all YA fantasy published in the last few years anyway,” Ellis tweeted at the time, kicking off a storm of controversy that apparently has not ceased. Ellis even deleted her Twitter for a time.
In a separate tweet trying to explain her point, Ellis tweeted that she “could see” where “if you squint I was implying all Asian-inspired properties are the same.” She went on to claim that the “basic framework” of ‘Avatar’ is “becoming popular in fantasy fiction outside of Asian-inspired stuff.”
She later addressed being ‘canceled’ where she accused her critics of having “ascribed” her with an “intentionality which wasn’t there.” She also recommended that others not tweet in the morning.
In a Patreon post available to subscribers, Ellis said she is tired of the endless barrage of criticism over the incident.
“I know now that being in the public eye at all is a losing game,” she wrote, according to The Sun. She called her celebrity status “hollow and brittle” and said the last year “taught” her “how eminently expendable” she is.
Ellis said the latest video she was working on will never be finished now. She is also a bestselling author, having released a sci-fi novel last year.
Though Ellis has received her share of criticism, many rushed to her defense on social media following her announcement, blaming cancel culture and the “toxic space” it has made, though some accused Ellis of the same woke criticisms of others in the past too.