Scrolling through LMM TikTok feels like watching a sociopathic teenager’s highlight reel of his own cyberbullying efforts. And it appears to be happening right now to 40-year-old Hamilton star and writer, Pultizer Prize-winner and MacArthur genius grant recipient, and near-EGOT (he’s just missing the Oscar) Lin-Manuel Miranda, thanks to bloodthirsty teens on the social media platform TikTok. It happened to Jennifer Lawrence, through pretty much no fault of her own it happened to Bill Clinton and Woody Allen, through every fault of their own. Sometimes, and for some vaunted pop culture idols, it can go very wrong. If it prompts us to lend renewed appreciation to late-1990s Kirsten Dunst box office bombs - then so much the better. Think Tonya Harding, Lorena Bobbitt, and Monica Lewinsky, all of whom started out cultural villains at the turn of this century and have now assumed their place in the pantheon of big-haired, postmodern-feminist icons. Oftentimes, this process works in favor of the once-maligned. More often than not, it’s just a natural byproduct of a rapidly moving culture trying to slow down, catch its breath, and take account of where it’s been before it heads back toward where it’s going. The “You’re Wrong About” treatment isn’t necessarily contrarianism, though it can be a result of that impulse nor is it what people these days call “cancellation,” though it can often be a precursor to that.

(There’s even an eponymous podcast devoted to this process.) In every cultural figure or moment’s lifespan, there comes a point where they are subject to what can be summarized as the “You’re Wrong About” treatment, or the concept that even our most deeply held beliefs and cherished orthodoxies are ripe for reappraisal.

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