America Attempting to Cancel Diane Sawyer and David Letterman

According to the NY Post, Diane Sawyer is taking a public hit over an interview she did with Britney Spears in 2003. Additionally, Yahoo News says David Letterman is in the crosshairs of Tik-Tok users over a 2013 interview he did with Lindsay Lohan.

Sawyer's interview with Britney resurfaced in a new documentary about Spears called "Freeing Britney Spears" produced by The New York Times. The 2003 interview focuses on Britney's relationship with Justin Timberlake and the veiled message from his song "Cry Me A River".

In the song, Justin implies Britney cheated on him when they were dating. The accompanying music video had a Britney look-a-like in it. The interview came soon after the music video, in it Sawyer said, "You broke his heart. You did something that caused him so much pain, so much suffering. What did you do?" Spears cried during the interview.

A condensed version of Letterman's old Lohan interview has been shared a ton recently on Tik Tok. In 2013, Lohan was battling addiction issues and was in and out of rehab. On the Late Show that night, Letterman asked her "Aren't you supposed to be in rehab right now?" He also questioned: "What are they rehabbing." Lohan looked visibly uncomfortable in her sit-down with Dave.

I watched both interviews today while getting ready to write this. They're not the finest moments from Sawyer or Letterman. I watched both interviews when they came out in 2003 and 2013 respectively and did not bat an eye at either one, no one did.

Society evolves, people change, the culture, our language, the way we treat one another, nothing stays stagnant. We are different than we were in 2013, we are much different than we were in 2003. David Letterman and Diane Sawyer did nothing wrong today and they probably won't do anything wrong tomorrow.

I despise the "cancel culture" we live and work in, it does not serve any greater good. It's a mob mentality, typically perpetuated by those who don't create anything, people who live to tear down others. The irony is these people don't get that they are doing the very thing they claim to stand against, they are bullying.

We should improve our future, not erase our past, that is pointless and no one benefits. Context matters and the context of those videos matter. The most important contextual fact is that those interviews took place in a different era and can't be judged by today's societal guidelines.

It also needs to be said that if we allow this to continue on this way, insisting that all speech be safe speech, we will have no original ideas. There will be no more true artists, trailblazers, comedians and musicians. Life is not about protecting the feelings of every living thing. Life is messy and speech is risky, we can allow for people to say the wrong thing without demanding they turn over their career.