Getting Canceled: a Step-by-Step Guide

Afternoon Admirals,

For this week’s Monday campfire, the captains have agreed to admit a time in which they stumbled. A time in which hundreds to thousands of followers were lost, emotions ran high, and lessons were learned - the hard way.

So cozy up and let’s pass it off to Captain Hullur to deliver.

Ding! A notification pops up – you have a new email. Click.

Subject line: Robinhood X Tejas Hullur: Collaboration Opportunity.

Eyes widened. Shock.

“Robinhood”, I whisper to myself, “like the brokerage app? Like the green one that everyone trades stocks on?” Holy shit, that’s a legit brand.

And they offered a butt load of money, what could have gone wrong?

I knew the risks back summer of 2021 - Robinhood was getting a whole lotta shit for what they did earlier that year. Without boring you with financial talk – basically, they did something controversial that made a lot of people lose money. But six months passed and at the end of the day - I genuinely believed (and still do!) that they are a net positive for society. And it was a butt load of money.

Fast forward to an hour before I clicked “post” on the brand deal. I get an email from Robinhood…

“Due to compliance concerns, you need to turn off comments.” Woah.

Even though the comments were turned off on that post, I heard loud and clear what my fans had to say on a post prior.

“Really man, Robinhood?”

“Sell out”

“I thought you were a real one but ur just like the rest. Unfollowed”

It hurt. Felt like all that I built for months was in ruins. It’s funny because in hindsight all creators hear this, “don’t work with a brand that will make you lose integrity with your audience”. But in the moment, I thought I was covered by the fact it was a large well-known brand and… it was a butt load of money.

Would I take this all back? 100%. I actually haven’t taken a brand deal since but when I do, the integrity with my audience is my number one priority.

I made it out… but many do not.

All right, this one's a sticky one. I'll mention the lesson I learned before we tuck in:

Do. Your. Research.

Back in the early days of @dodford, I made a video called The History of Editing. A video that, you might guess, is about the history of editing. Which is also where you'd be wrong.

You see, the world of filmmaking we all know and love today wouldn't be the same without one key, unforgettable element: women.

In fact, the editor was initially a woman's role - the early decades of cinema were pioneered by excellent female editors such as Dede Allen, Anne V. Coates, and Thelma Schoonmaker. So - of course, they'd be included in the "history of editing", right?

A pretty major oversight on my end.

My research for the video, in honesty - spanned five or six articles and a couple of wiki pages. But perhaps it was some form of unconscious bias that obscured this vital piece of information from my vision. Something I’ve since amended.

So when the "misogynist" comments trickled in, I didn't know what to think. Besides maybe - "Hey, Danny. Do more than 10 minutes of research before announcing something as fact to thousands of people."

Lesson learned: don't exclude an entire demographic from something they most definitely should be a part of. That’s bigotry.

There’s always a line between something that’s funny, and something that’s offensive. Like most, I found out how thin that line was the hard way. Here’s what happened.

Deep into the “go-hard-or-go-home/self-help” phase of my content, I posted this video, after being inspired by another creator with a similar format. A simple one-shot piece of content, “calling out” the audience after taking a photo of them through the screen (flash and all). Simple, yet effective, because it worked. 100k views in a couple of hours, tons of shares, and comments rolling in by the hundreds.

And boy, did they roll in.

I had closed TikTok for a few hours with the comfort that I was rocketing towards internet fame. But, upon opening it back up, I noticed something peculiar about my comments: Everyone… hated me?

One person accused me of being an “ableist,”- something I hadn’t heard about before that moment - another berating me for my insensitivity towards people who have trouble focusing. Yes, it got a lot of traction, but at the expense of people’s insecurities towards their own self-image. Not a great look.

It was at this moment I realized that you can never truly predict how what you say or what you do will affect people. In my head, this was a harmless, funny idea, but online, I offended enough people to be considered somewhat of a villain. They were calling me out for interpretations of the video I hadn’t yet considered.

The lesson here is this: everything you say and do is always up for interpretation, and your audience is under no obligation to understand you to the fullest extent - although they should at least try.

I learned this the hard way so that you don’t have to.

Which one of us should’ve remained canceled? Don’t worry - we won’t be offended ;) Thanks for reading! As always, leave any questions or comments down below. Like always, we’ll respond to every single one!