#MashableCancels Proves Why Media—And Hollywood—Needs to Do Better

By Kenrya Rankin Dec 01, 2016

Looks like lifestyle site Mashable had a “Mission Accomplished” moment. It published an article yesterday (November 30) that posits that the film industry has fixed its longstanding issue of excluding people of color because a few actors have risen to renown. The tweet was deleted this morning (December 1), but it lives on in screenshots:

 

April Reign, the BroadwayBlack.com editor who created the #OscarsSoWhite hashtag campaign in 2015, was not impressed. She rallied the troops.

 

And so it began. People used the hashtag #MashableCancels to both mock the site for assuming that it has the power to declare an end to the fight for people of color to be represented in the media they consume, and send up all the other things Mashable must have the power to cancel.

Mashable has since updated the story with the following note:

An initial version of this story suggested that #OscarsSoWhite was “canceled.” This was incorrect and insensitive, and we’ve since clarified: The acting nominees, the central point of contention over the past two years, could be more diverse than ever before. Even so, it does not solve the ongoing problem of diversity in Hollywood, and we regret suggesting otherwise.

And tweeted an apology:

 

Which Reign promptly responded to:

 

Read a sampling of the tweets that caused Mashable’s moment of introspection: