Cancel Culture at Coachella

Jenna Lawrence | Managing Editor

“Large Crowd Enjoying Music and Festival Activities” by monkeybusiness, Licensed by Envato

Coachella 2026 has had a couple of interesting moments, to say the least, and it all leads back to cancel culture. 

Sabrina Carpenter’s performance should have gone as usual, but when she reacted to an audience member’s celebratory Arabic chant, she faced online backlash. She called it yodeling and “weird,” further saying she didn’t like it.

Immediately, this situation spread to social media, and even my TikTok for-you page is full of discourse about it. Many commentators are accusing her of cultural insensitivity, while others are defending her on the grounds that she was just confused in a loud and chaotic environment. There’s no real way to know whether or not she meant it; although, she did issue an apology, saying that she couldn’t hear the person clearly and that she now accepts “all cheers and yodels.” After her apology, some still believe that she only said that because it was what she was ‘supposed’ to do. Either way, she knows better now than to assume. 

But getting back to cancel culture - at its core, it is about rapid public judgment. A moment is captured, taken out of context, and then spread online for everyone to critique. The difference between that, though, and what happened with Carpenter is that her situation had context. It wasn’t taken out of context, which doesn’t make her case any better. From her apology, there seem to be factors that we, as viewers and not participants at Coachella, were unaware of - maybe she really couldn’t hear or see well and was confused. At the very least, though, it seems like ignorance is often the target of cancellation, and it doesn’t always make room for growth and forgiveness. In no way am I trying to make excuses for what Carpenter said, because it is wrong to make rude comments towards different cultures. However, if she was confused, we just have to hope it doesn’t happen again.

Another moment that sparked some controversy was Justin Bieber’s set. I saw a few posts about how underwhelming it was, and how, compared to other artists, mainly female ones, his set lacked effort and thought. Others also said real Beliebers would have no issue with how chill his set was, and that it was actually perfect considering what he has been through and what has been coming to light recently regarding his childhood rise to fame. Zara Larsson even commented on it, saying that it gave “let’s smoke and watch YouTube.” While she wasn’t even really saying anything negative about his set, she faced more backlash than he did for that singular comment, with people trying to cancel her for coming for artists who are ‘bigger’ than she is, which was honestly uncalled for (the lengths people go to try to cancel Larsson is its own separate article). This suggests that cancel culture is affected by gender and expectations of how people with different statuses should behave. 

Coachella 2026 proves that cancel culture isn’t as simple as saying or doing something wrong and dealing with the consequences. It’s a quick dissent into judgment without considering that humans aren’t perfect. It has turned into something that forces accountability, but often times doesn’t even accept it when it’s given.