I very recently learned that the term “boycott” comes from someone’s actual name: Charles Boycott. Boycott was an English land agent who tried, in 1880, to collect unpayable rents from Irish peasants on behalf of an English aristocrat landlord. When he failed to collect the rents, he tried evicting the tenants. The Irish Land League responded with a campaign to ignore Boycott’s orders and isolate him socially and economically.
They not only ignored his eviction orders and threw manure at his process servers, but refused to deliver his mail or sell him food.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Boycott
It was pretty effective—the British government eventually had to deploy a thousand soldiers (naturally, because the state works for the propertied class and none more than the 19th century British state) at a cost of some £10,000 to harvest £500 worth of crops. Boycott had to be evacuated by the soldiers, who even had to drive him out, as no locals would agree to drive his carriage out of the region.
Imagine being cancelled so hard that your name becomes permanently associated with getting cancelled.
@HeavenlyPossum
I was surprised when I first found out that the history of Charles #Boycott is so little known. I have been met with solid disbelief when telling it. It seems to be standard lore in Ireland. I suppose that he is mentioned in school or something as part of standard curriculum.
Anyway, glad you found out about it and thanks for pointing out that cancel culture has been around for more than 100 years, although maybe deployment reserved for somewhat more justified cases in the past.
