When you think about the frenzy of cancel culture, you probably picture Twitter storms, public apologies, and careers rattled by a single ill‑chosen tweet. Yet, the reality is that many glaring injustices still roam free, untouched by the digital mobs. Below, we explore the top 10 things that cancel culture somehow missed, ranging from trophy‑hunting in the Arctic to the grim world of puppy mills. Buckle up – it’s a wild ride through the side of society that refuses to be “canceled.”

Why These top 10 things Matter

10 Polar Bear Killings

Imagine a majestic polar bear already battling disappearing sea ice, dwindling prey, and a warming climate. Now picture trophy hunters trekking into the Arctic to shoot them for sport and profit. Fewer than 25,000 polar bears remain in the wild, and the United States listed them as endangered in 2008. Yet, the grim reality persists: hunting continues, and the practice is legal in places you’d never expect.

Surprisingly, the country where this barbaric activity remains permissible isn’t Russia or a remote Siberian outpost – it’s Canada. The nation boasts pristine air, universal health care, and, oddly enough, a legal framework that still allows polar bear killing. The financial lure is huge: a single bear skin can fetch tens of thousands of dollars, turning hunters into wealthy, yet morally bankrupt, individuals.

Freedom of Information releases reveal that from 2007 to 2016, roughly 9,000 polar bears were killed by hunters across the Arctic. Since 1960, more than 50,000 bears have been taken – a number double the current wild population. The statistics paint a stark picture of a species teetering on the brink, yet the hunt endures.

In short, polar bear killings epitomize a grotesque clash between profit and preservation, a cruelty that cancel culture has somehow ignored.

9 Seal Beatings

Canada, famed for its maple syrup and polite citizens, also hosts the world’s largest commercial seal hunt – a brutal, centuries‑old tradition that still thrives today. The primary target is the harp seal, arguably the planet’s cutest marine mammal, yet up to 97% of those killed are pups under three months old.

The hunt takes place on icy floes off the east coast, mainly in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the so‑called “Front” near Newfoundland. Fishermen, seeking extra income, wield wooden clubs, hakapiks (large ice‑pick‑like clubs), and firearms to harvest the seals for their fur and oil.

Approximately 6,000 fishermen participate each season, and the Humane Society estimates that over the past five years, more than one million seals have been clubbed, stabbed, or shot. The practice not only decimates seal populations but also compounds the species’ vulnerability as climate change melts the very ice they depend on.

International outrage has prompted a well‑funded disinformation campaign by the Canadian government, attempting to downplay the cruelty. The question remains: will Canada ever stop turning baby seals into trophies?

8 Sea Turtle Eyeglass Frames

“Comfort and refinement go hand in hand,” proclaims Maison Bonnet, a French luxury eyewear maker. Their marketing touts harmony, craftsmanship, and elegance, yet the company’s flagship product – eyeglass frames made from sea turtle shells – tells a far darker story.

The frames are crafted from the carapace of sea turtles, a practice that, while legal in a few locales, fuels poaching worldwide. Maison Bonnet boasts an illustrious clientele, including former French presidents François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac, but the turtles themselves never get to enjoy that refinement.

Because the trade remains legal in certain regions, illegal poachers target turtles in places like Florida, shipping thousands to Asian markets where a single shell can command up to $10,000. Over the years, this demand has led to the deaths of millions of turtles, all for the sake of frivolous accessories like glasses, combs, guitar picks, and cheap jewelry.

Maison Bonnet insists its process “totally respects the natural cycle of the sea turtles,” yet the reality is a stark contradiction: turtles are slaughtered, their shells harvested, and then turned into luxury items that never needed to exist.

7 Ivory Products

The global outcry against ivory – driven by the desperate plight of elephants – suggests that the trade is confined to under‑developed nations with weak enforcement. In a twist, one of the biggest markets fueling illegal ivory is Japan, a highly developed, law‑abiding country.

In Japan, a traditional seal called a “hanko” is used in place of a signature for everything from banking to contracts. Collectors prize hanko made from ivory, especially those carved from the central, flawless part of an elephant’s tusk. This seemingly innocuous demand creates a lucrative market for poached ivory.

Japanese law technically requires ivory to be registered and proven to be “harvested” before the 1989 ban. In practice, the verification process is lax: sellers often provide no concrete evidence of when or where the tusks were obtained, opening the door for illicit ivory to flow legally into the market.

Thus, a seemingly harmless cultural practice inadvertently sustains a multi‑million‑dollar black market, pushing endangered species ever closer to extinction.

6 Animal Products in Perfume

When you spritz on a favorite fragrance, you might be coating yourself in a blend of botanicals – or, more disturbingly, animal secretions. The perfume industry still relies heavily on ingredients harvested from living creatures.

Take civet, a small, cat‑like animal native to Africa and Asia. Its perineal glands produce a thick, buttery paste that smells foul at full strength but, when diluted, yields a sweet, floral note prized by perfumers. Civets are kept in captivity, their glands repeatedly harvested, often leading to severe suffering.

Another classic note comes from beaver castoreum – the secretion from a beaver’s castor sacs. After the animal is killed, the sacs are smoked or sun‑dried, producing a rich, leathery aroma that has been a staple in high‑end fragrances for decades.

Even the hyrax, a small African mammal resembling a large guinea pig, contributes to perfumery. Its petrified excrement, known as “African stone” or hyraceum, forms over centuries and is ground into a powder used for its musky scent. Unlike civet or beaver, this material does not require the animal’s death, but the process is still ethically murky.

These animal‑derived ingredients have historically flavored iconic scents like Miss Dior and Chanel No. 5, and they continue to be used in many contemporary fragrances, keeping the debate over cruelty alive.

5 Bone China

Bone china, the delicate, translucent porcelain often associated with fine dining, is actually a composite of animal bone ash – typically 30‑50% of the material. The bone ash provides exceptional strength, chip resistance, and a luminous whiteness that pure porcelain lacks.

Developed in early‑19th‑century England, bone china quickly became synonymous with British craftsmanship. Most manufacturers source the bones from cattle, though some also use pig bone, prompting certain Middle Eastern producers to create halal‑certified versions that use only cow bone.

Supporters argue that bone china simply utilizes waste from animals already slaughtered for meat, making it a responsible use of resources. Critics counter that the product is an unnecessary luxury that forces vegetarians and those avoiding animal products to either forgo fine china or compromise their principles.

Adding a grim twist, rare instances of human bone ash have been discovered in some pieces, a macabre reminder that the line between acceptable and abhorrent can be disturbingly thin.

4 Industrial Cattle Production

While a vocal minority pushes for a world without meat, the majority still consumes animal protein. However, the methods behind much of today’s beef and pork supply raise serious ethical and environmental concerns.

American livestock farms are notorious for mass‑administering antibiotics to keep animals alive in cramped, unsanitary conditions. Roughly 13.6 million kilograms of antibiotics are used annually in U.S. livestock – nearly four times the amount prescribed for humans – fueling the rise of antibiotic‑resistant bacteria.

Beyond drug use, the sheer scale of meat consumption is staggering: an estimated six million animals are slaughtered every hour. Over a lifetime, the average American will eat the equivalent of 11 cows, 27 pigs, and a mind‑boggling 2,400 chickens.

The environmental toll is equally alarming. Animal agriculture accounts for about 18% of global greenhouse‑gas emissions, with cattle alone releasing 150 billion gallons of methane each day – a gas 25‑100 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat.

3 Industrial Poultry Production

The United States produces a staggering 44 billion pounds of chicken each year, feeding a nation obsessed with cheap protein. Yet, the industrial methods used to achieve this volume are far from humane.

Chickens are reared in densely packed coops, often without sunlight, where they are force‑fed to accelerate growth. Their rapid development leads to severe health issues: compromised joints, heart, lungs, and legs.

After slaughter, U.S. processors rinse the birds in chlorine to eliminate bacterial contamination – a practice banned in many countries. This has sparked international backlash, with the United Kingdom, among others, protesting the import of U.S. poultry and demanding stricter safety standards.

The combination of cramped living conditions, forced growth, and chemical rinsing makes industrial poultry production a prime candidate for cancel culture’s scrutiny.

2 Fur Farms

For millennia, humans have crafted clothing from animal pelts, but the modern fur industry has taken cruelty to a new level with fur farms. These facilities raise foxes and minks in tiny cages solely to harvest their coats.

Animals are over‑bred to produce oversized pelts, resulting in health problems like obesity‑induced eye conditions where lashes scratch the cornea. The cramped conditions are so severe that a one‑year‑old Arctic fox barely fits inside its wire cage.

Estimates suggest tens of millions of foxes and minks are killed each year on these farms. In a world that has largely outlawed the commercial killing of dogs and cats, the existence of fur farms for fashion’s sake appears especially grotesque.

1 Puppy Mills

The Sato Project, a nonprofit based in Puerto Rico, works tirelessly to rescue stray dogs from the island’s overcrowded streets, saving thousands each year. Their mission highlights a stark contrast to the grim reality of puppy mills across the United States.

There are an estimated 10,000 commercial breeding facilities in the U.S. that prioritize profit over puppy health, cramming dogs into tiny cages, neglecting veterinary care, and breeding for specific looks rather than temperament.

While laws regulate breeders who sell to pet stores or through certain online platforms, black‑market operations remain largely unchecked, allowing these mills to continue unabated.

The only real solution lies in consumer choice: stop demanding designer breeds, adopt shelter dogs, and pressure legislators to enforce stricter standards. Until then, puppy mills will persist as a dark underbelly of the pet industry.

You might think cancel culture is a relatively new invention. Social media, particularly Twitter, seems to be obsessed with trying to get conservative people banished from their fields of work. These social media pile‑ons often have no effect. Some celebrities have successfully manipulated cancel culture for personal gain and used their online notoriety as a way to play the victim.

But cancel culture existed long before the internet was born and “progressives” took the helm. For years, people have used spurn and blacklists to attack those who dare to rock the boat of public opinion. Throughout history, people have been “canceled” because of their gender, the color of their skin, or because they disagreed with the powers that be. Often they faced much worse than an online hate mob or being dropped from Netflix. They were thrown out of their homes, fire‑bombed, even burned at the stake. From historical rewritings to Hollywood blacklists, the trend of cancel culture has a rich and varied past. Here are ten notable examples.

Top 10 Historical Overview

10 Ostracism In Ancient Athens

Some of the earliest known examples of people being canceled date back over two thousand years. In the 5th century B.C., the Ancient Greeks used to practice ostracism, where wrongdoers were sent into exile by popular vote. Cleisthenes – the “father of Athenian democracy” – is widely regarded to have created the punishment.

Every year, the people of Athens would be asked if they wanted to ostracize anyone. If they voted in favor, they would meet in the public agora to hold an election. Under the watchful eye of the council, citizens would etch the name of the person they wanted to be thrown out of the city into a shard of broken pottery. Each fragment was known as ‘ostrakon’ – from which the word ostracism was born.

The shards were collected in an urn and counted. It took at least 6000 total votes for the process to be valid. Athenian officials would then sort the shards into piles, and whoever received the most votes was banished from the city. They were given ten days to prepare themselves and warned that they would be killed if they tried to return. The punishment would last for ten years, after which they would be allowed back into Athens.

Records suggest that around thirteen men were ostracized from Athens between 487 and 416 B.C. Some of those were pardoned and returned to the city before they had served their full decade, like Xanthippus and Aristides who were let back in to help fight the Persians in 479 B.C.

One of the most notable people to be kicked out of Athens was renowned politician Themistocles. It is said that Themistocles’ power went to his head and that he was ostracized to curb his arrogance. As the historian Plutarch explained, ostracism “was not a penalty, but a way of pacifying and alleviating that jealousy which delights to humble the eminent, breathing out its malice into this disfranchisement.”

9 Michael Servetus, The Theologian Burned By Protestants For Heresy

Born in Spain, Michael Servetus was one of the most controversial religious teachers of the 16th century. He was an outspoken critic of the Church who developed his own theories about the Holy Trinity and astrology. But his ideas outraged both Catholics and Protestants and he was forced to publish them in secret.

Like people today who dare to disagree with public opinion, Servetus received a barrage of hate. But the theologian’s fate was far more severe than a digital slap on the wrist or a bike‑lock to the head. When a French inquisitor discovered his letters, Servetus was accused of heresy, forcing him to flee. He escaped Catholic France and ended up in Calvinist Geneva where, in 1553, he was captured and burned at the stake for his non‑protestant ideas.

8 The Hollywood Blacklist

The Hollywood Blacklist was the cancel culture of the 1940s and 50s. During the Second World War, the US had teamed up with the communist Soviet Union to fight the national socialists. But after the war ended, anti‑communist views began to spread across the states. People feared that pro‑Soviets were infiltrating the US media to push global socialism.

It reached such a furor that Hollywood began banning workers who were rumored to have far‑left political views. In 1947, the HUAC started to look into the influence of communism on the film industry. Ten workers who refused to give evidence to the committee were thrown out of their jobs and each served a short jail sentence. The HUAC continued its paranoid investigation through the 50s, blacklisting workers who they suspected of subversion.

But perhaps the HUAC had ulterior motives. In the 1940s, lawyer Wendell Willkie showed that certain US politicians were using communist paranoia as a ploy to target Jews. Although they claimed to be motivated by patriotism, Willkie proved that some investigators seemed to be far more interested in starting an anti‑Semitic witch hunt in Hollywood. My how the worm has turned!

7 Percy Julian, The Black Chemist Scrubbed From History

For years, people tried to erase the legacy of Percy Julian. The Alabama‑born chemist faced multiple setbacks throughout his life due to his skin color. Even though his pioneering work saved numerous people’s lives, Julian is still a relatively unknown figure in US history.

Educated at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, in 1923 he became the first African American to earn a master’s degree in chemistry from Harvard University. However, Harvard refused to let him study for a PhD on racial grounds, so he completed his doctorate in Vienna.

Julian then returned to the US and tried to pursue a career in academia, but again racial prejudice stopped him from progressing. So he moved to the business world where he pioneered new uses for soybean chemicals. One chemical helped produce fire‑retardant foam in fire extinguishers and saved the lives of thousands of soldiers during the Second World War. He also found a way to create artificial hormones. Due to his research, ludicrously expensive drugs suddenly became affordable for millions of people.

Julian’s work meant he could move his family to a better‑off suburb in Illinois, but they were despised by many of their white neighbors. They faced several attacks – including arson and someone firebombing their house – but Julian and his wife refused to move. By the time he died from liver cancer, aged 76, he was a millionaire.

6 Lise Meitner, The Female Nuclear Physicist Pushed Out And Persecuted

Lise Meitner was a pioneer of nuclear physics. She should have made history as one of the first two people to explain the process of nuclear fission. But the Austrian trailblazer was never given the credit that people say she deserved. In 1945, when her collaborator Otto Hahn was awarded the Nobel Prize, Meitner’s contribution was sadly overlooked by the judges.

Besides her gender, it was the threat of the Nazi Party that ultimately led to Meitner being canceled. When Hitler’s regime annexed Austria in 1938, Jewish‑born Meitner left Vienna and moved to Stockholm. There, one historian wrote, she was given “laboratory space but no collaborators, equipment, or technical support, not even her own set of keys.” She had to meet with Hahn in secret to continue their work exploring the behavior of uranium.

5 Ignaz Semmelweis, Hand‑Washing Pioneer Committed To An Asylum

Ignaz Semmelweis should have been a medical hero, but his colleagues’ pride got in the way. The Hungarian doctor was the first person to advocate that people wash their hands.

During the 1840s, Semmelweis decided to explore the unusually high number of women dying from childbed fever. He studied two maternity wards at the General Hospital in Vienna. One ward was run by doctors and medical students; the other was staffed by midwives. Semmelweis quickly discovered that the death rate on the first ward was five times higher than that on the second ward. But, for a long time, he was unable to explain the disparity.

It turned out the key difference was that the doctors were carrying out autopsies. Semmelweis theorized that students were getting tiny pieces of corpses stuck to their hands, which then infected the pregnant women on the ward. Of course, we now understand that disease is spread by germs and not by pieces of dead bodies, but pathogens were barely understood at the time.

On Semmelweis’ orders, medical staff began washing their hands with chlorine and the death rate soon fell. The Hungarian scientist should have become the founding father of modern hygiene. But he did not.

You see, people at the hospital were not impressed by Semmelweis’ discovery. They thought it made them seem guilty of infecting women on the ward. Certain accounts also suggest that Semmelweis was a difficult man to work with. In the end, his colleagues hit back and he was kicked out of the hospital. By 1865, he had been sent to a mental asylum where he was beaten and, in a sad twist of irony, probably died of infection.

4 The Victorians And Their Wild Cancel Culture

Cancel culture in the 1800s was brutal, far worse than the online pile‑ons of today. Respected Victorians spent much of their lives locked in feuds. Some of them put an enormous amount of energy into trying to destroy each other’s reputation. Oscar Wilde often clashed with the Marquess of Queensberry, once publicly smearing him as a “foul thing” who “assailed” the world of academia.

Thomas Edison’s supporters wanted to cancel his rival George Westinghouse. They tried to make sure that his reputation would always be associated with the murder of animals. They used Westinghouse’s invention of alternating current to kill dogs, horses, even an elephant, hoping they could smear the entrepreneur.

But perhaps the worst was paleontologist Richard Owen. Owen had a long‑standing rivalry with fellow dinosaur expert Gideon Mantell. When Mantell took his own life in 1852, Owen somehow got hold of his spine. He had it pickled and displayed it at the Royal College of Surgeons in London.

3 Galileo Galilei, Dared To Disagree With The Church

Galileo Galilei is an eminent figure in scientific history. Although he started out studying medicine, he soon changed fields and became an expert in maths and physics. Throughout his life, he looked into the speed of falling objects, mechanics, and pendulums.

But, apart from his iconic mention in Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, Galilei is probably best remembered for his contribution to astronomy. In 1609, he created a telescope and began studying the Solar System. The Italian professor was one of the first people to suggest that the Earth orbited around the Sun.

Unfortunately, not being content to simply publish his additions to the already well‑established Church‑accepted Copernican theory, Galileo declared it proved the Church and Bible wrong. Galilei was convicted of heresy and died under house arrest in his villa near Florence.

2 Cultural Imperialism, The Canceling Of Entire Cultures

Most of the time, when people talk about cancel culture, they are referring to something that might have an impact on one person or a handful of people. But, as several historians have pointed out, there are numerous examples of entire cultures being canceled.

European colonizers were notorious for destroying the cultures of the countries they took over. When Britain colonized India, they erased much of the existing heritage and imprinted their cultural dominance. The British colonizers often claimed that they were “civilizing” the natives. The same rhetoric was used by German officials who set about to “Prussify” the Slavic people of Eastern Europe. It was also mirrored by the European empires in their treatment of Native Americans.

1 Alan Turing, The Computer Scientists Persecuted For Being A Homosexual

Born in London, Alan Turing is remembered as one of the fathers of modern computing. His work at Bletchley Park played a pivotal role in Britain’s victory during the Second World War. As part of the Government Code and Cypher School, he used statistics and logic to decode secret Nazi messages sent using the Enigma machines. Historians say that his ground‑breaking work saved more military lives than anyone else in the history of warfare.

But Turing had a deep secret. He was gay at a time when homosexuality was outlawed. Under Britain’s oppressive sexuality laws, the great mathematician was sentenced to a year of estrogen injections. British intelligence started to grow suspicious of his work, solely because he was gay. He died of potassium cyanide poisoning in 1954. An inquest found that he had administered the poison himself.

1 German Book Burnings

Myth: The National Socialists (Nazis) burned books. Truth: it was university students and it occurred on exactly two occasions in 1933. Effectively the German Students Union which supported the principles of national Socialism organised protests against the Institute of Sex Research which was studying transgenderism and even performing transexual operations (the famous Lily Elbe was a victim of one of their early surgeries in fact). The students destroyed all of the literature of the group and other “un‑German” materials in a public book burning.

Today’s book burnings are mostly (though not always, as the feminists burning anti‑feminist books in the above picture illustrates) digital cancellations of “un‑progressives” but the perpetrators and principles remain the same. Young angry extremist students of our time may be more discreet, but the outcome is not.

It is somewhat ironic that the institute and its leader, Magnus Hirschfeld, were supporters of cultural Marxism, the theories and principles of which are now firmly entrenched in and form the backbone of much of the education in our universities—the source of cancel culture.

Interestingly book burnings had also happened 120 years earlier in the 1817 German celebrations in Wartburg for the 300th anniversary of protestant Martin Luther’s posting of his anti‑Catholic “95 theses” in the 16th century.