I'm sure it was unintentional, but your comment here is where the thread went haywire. Maybe it would be helpful to explain why.

The discussion about disgraced-public-figure memorabilia was certainly offtopic, but it was offtopic in a whimsical and unpredictable way. That's ok on HN because it's interesting. What's not interesting, and is the bad kind of offtopicness, is turning the thread into a generic argument about some inflammatory thing that has already had countless flamewars. If you review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, you'll see that we have several rules that are intended to act as flame retardant against this kind of thing:

"Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

"Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead."

The high-indignation, high-repetition flamewar topics are like black holes that suck in threads that swerve too close to them. Since they're so repetitive (and generally so nasty), they're definitely not what HN is for, so we should all try to steer clear of them.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

Not to put words in OP’s mouth, but I think they were using “cancel” descriptively, not pejoratively. I don’t think there was a suggestion he didn’t deserve to be cancelled, just that he was.

It's my fault for not being more clear with my language.

But I actually meant "literally" cancelled. The Lego set was planned to come out with an actual REBOOT of the Cosby Show, which was cancelled in the traditional meaning of the word, like the TV did not go to air.

https://tvseriesfinale.com/tv-show/nbc-kills-new-bill-cosby-....

> Not to put words in OP’s mouth, but I think they were using “cancel” descriptively, not pejoratively.

If that was the intent, it was a pretty big mistake to use “before he got cancelled” instead of “before the show got cancelled”. The former construct in modern usage is pretty exclusively used for pejorative references to actions attributed to “cancel culture”.

“Canceling” means removal of support and denouncement of a public figure, justified or not. In Bill Cosby’s case, it was absolutely justified, as he himself admitted to his wrongdoings. What issue do you have with that term being used to describe what happened?

I can only speak for myself but I can't say I've ever seen anyone talk about someone having been "canceled" unless they objected to the person losing their stature or were making a joke.

Cancelling is what happens to TV shows when they stop airing or being produced.

That was the meaning before “cancel culture” and was the intent of the parent.

I didn’t at all read it the way you did, maybe I’m older than you and I’ve seen more shows cancelled. (Firefly, for a famous enough example)

Have you missed the entire #MeToo movement? Because people were cheering themselves on for (justifiably) canceling Harvey Weinstein using that exact same word to refer to the actions taken against him.

Well, now you have.

He admits nothing of the sort in your link. Maybe read the link you offered others.

No doubt users flagged it because of the name-calling and snark. You shouldn't be posting like that here.