This Dude's Nuts

Cancel Culture is something of a societal oddity. Arguments can be made that what some people perceive of Cancel Culture is actually people reaping what they’ve sown, and others will claim that it’s a calamitous result of giving people too much power over others’ lives. One man’s journey into the fraught world of post-cancelation is stranger than most. For starters, he wasn’t canceled by an online mob. No, Clive Carson’s cancellation came from a local Big D supermarket he frequented weekly.

“I didn't understand what happened until it was over,” Clive said, describing the day his life was turned upside down by a manager who’d decided he’d had enough of the twenty-nine year old customer. “One minute I was shopping, and then I was asked to leave. I argued for the sake of my freedoms, but the manager wouldn’t let me stay in the store no matter what I said. I still remember the stares of the other shoppers when I finally relented and left, never to return.”

“It’s a shame what they did to Clive,” Owen Webber, host of a podcast that has ten listeners, including Webber’s brother, mother, and his coworker Steve. “To cancel him out of nowhere like that is unconscionable. I wouldn’t be surprised if people lashed out against Big D and its cancelation policies!”

“I was told I’d have some time to talk about some other issues,” Webber continued as we tried to wrap up his interview. “I was promised I could speak about the dangers of vaccines. I’ve done my own research, and I’ve concluded that—”

We reached out to Big D manager Marion Lopez to ask her why she would cancel a man without reason. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she replied. “We canceled him? What’s that even mean? Was his Big D card expired or something? We could have fixed that at our service desk.”

“She knows what she did,” Clive responded when we told him of Marion’s flippant remarks regarding his cancellation. “She made a big show of it and everything. I bet her fish-eating friends loved hearing about it.”

We did not ask Clive to elaborate on what he meant by “fish-eating friends”, but we’ve concluded it’s quite offensive. 

Clive did not take his cancellation well. After a short period of angry reflection, he took to X, formerly Twitter, and posted about his experience to none other than the site's owner Elon Musk, who responded, “Concerning.”

“I was stoked to get him to take the time to answer me!” Clive gushed. “I went on to ask him if he could buy the Big D supermarket chain to have them reinstitute freedom of speech but he never got back to me.”

We attempted to reach out to Elon Musk via X, formerly Twitter, to ask if he considered Clive’s suggestion of buying Big D. He never responded, but his followers replied incessantly using language and slurs that would make my racist grandmother blush, God rest her bigoted soul.

Without help from America’s most notorious billionaire, it would seem that Clive’s cancellation would have to remain in place. “It’s an unfair system,” Clive said. “I didn’t do anything wrong, but the perception of what I did defines how these people see me. You can’t trust anything anymore. One day you’re shopping somewhere you’ve shopped a thousand times, and then you’re banned for life, canceled by the people you thought you could trust.”

“Let this be a lesson to all of your readers,” Clive concluded. “If this could happen to me, it could happen to you, and you won’t even see it coming.”

Powerful words from a man whose voice can no longer be heard.

“Oh, I remember that guy now,” Big D Manager Marion Lopez said after we showed her a picture of Clive. “He was wearing a pair of sweatpants with a big hole ripped in the crotch. His testicles were exposed for God’s sake! We asked that he return after he covered himself, but he threw a tantrum. He accused me of having a ‘woke mind virus’ and stormed out. Are you really doing a story on this assho—”

Clive Carson may be canceled, but his memory will continue to serve as a warning to those of us who remain uncanceled. Our time may come soon. When it does, will we weather the storm with the same dignity as Clive?

“I’m just a man,” Clive said, wiping a tear from his cheek. “That’s all I’ve ever been, nothing more. Thank you for listening to my story.” As he stood up to leave the interview, his testicles slipped through a hole in his pants. We asked him not to return.