In almost every case, the best defense against this is to be a genuinely good person. Treat everyone with kindness and you will get surprising amount of support.

If no one has said it, try talking to a therapist. Not only is rejection unavoidable, but it seems you might have anxiety or some sort of fixation on rejection. Totally normal to talk something like this out with a professional

Like many imaginary worries (something that could, but hasn’t happened) the answer to how do I avoid this 100% isn’t just, “you can’t” but rather, “you shouldn’t”.

Imagine the similar question, “how do I make sure that there is zero chance of being harmed in a terror attack?” While the consequences are dire, the chances are very low, and the costs of avoiding it completely are far to high.

And this scales with the level of risk and consequences:

• do wear a seatbelt, don’t avoid all vehicles
• do check travel safety warnings, don’t avoid all travel
• do stay off social media while on booze and ambian, don’t lock yourself in a windowless cabin with no electricity

Ultimately, it’s (getting cancelled, rejected en mass, etc.) a new and very visable fear in the 21st century, but like a long list of worries, spending time trying to solve something that hasn’t and likely won’t happen, is a waste of our limited years here. Be a good(ish) person, live your life and IF rejection happens, do your best to deal with it as it comes.

It means you aren’t suited to run a public facing business. There’s nothing wrong with that, but speaking as someone with a lot of social anxiety baggage there are things I’m equipped to do well and things that I’m not. I shouldn’t let that stop me from opening a business if I really want to, but if I simply don’t want to deal with the social rejection elements I have to accept that I’m better off letting someone else run that side of a business.

As for the non-business elements of your question, all you can really do is conduct yourself in a way that you don’t believe you’ll find yourself regretting later. If you say something in a public place, especially online, consider it part of the public record. It can and will come back to bite you later. Assume your [morally positive family member here] is always watching.

In a democratic society, there is no way to entirely “proof” yourself from consequences of your own antisocial actions like if you sexually assault people or something like that.

I think the answer to what you’re really asking is

• do not be in an industry where you are customer-facing or public-facing,

• and do not seek a public platform.

That will shield you from arbitrary and exaggerated mob type/snowballing behaviour, such as the Justine Sacco incident (in which a woman lost her job over an ironic joke about AIDS which fell victim to Poe’s Law).

Well, my first strategy has apparently been to sell all my belongings, immigrate to the developing world, lose every dime to my name.

A wiser person might have focused on doing a less harrowing (but still difficult) thing. If we can excel at something difficult, perhaps the world can forgive our mediocrity in other matters, and if it doesn’t… well, at least we have something useful to focus on. For me, that thing is engineering.

I do own and operate a business. Owning the business means I get to invent my own job (which mostly amounts to ‘mercenary science hermit’). I’m reasonably good at it, and have the correct legal paperwork to continue doing it, so it’s hard to displace me – I can just go find more customers. If that fails, maybe the problem is me :D

All that being said, I do use a variety of figurative cudgels on people who forcibly inconvenience me with their opinions (although almost entirely offline). Some of these tools are emotional, some are financial or legal, and many are technological in nature. I do this to defend my freedom to think freely about subjects that interest me, which sometimes people feel entitled to encroach on.

Mostly this pertains to ‘people who don’t want to pay me for work’, or ‘Asian superstitions’, because I am nowhere near North America. The current political situation over there is puzzling and fascinating to me, although I am sad to see it causes so much harm. Maybe come visit Asia someday for a vacation from it?

Oh also I mostly avoid social media, especially for political stuff. I sign on primarily to answer questions travelers have about Vietnam, and help hobbyists choose components for electronic circuits (although Lemmy is not super active in these regards yet). I approach it as training to learn to be more patient with people, and in this sense it has been a rewarding activity.

Anyway, those are some of the habits I’ve cultivated to try and make peace with the modern world. Hopefully some are useful to you as well.

I generally recommend never using social media under your real name. And every business communication (where you need to use your real name) should only consist of bland and necessary stuff. A business, whether as big as Disney or just you, offering a thing from a website or food truck, simply does not need (and imo should not have and not pretend as if it had) values and political views.

The podcast blocked and reported often revolves around your question (or more around the drama after it happened), sometimes they also interview people who had it happened to them, or wrote books about it.

I cannot remember a specific episode now, there are so many. In one, a family-owned(?) bakery lost everything cuz they were falsely accused of racism.

Probably the most interesting and famous case that underlines that simply being a “genuinely good person” is not enough, is the one of Justine Sacco; the woman who tweeted “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” and then lost her job etc., almost got her whole life destroyed (she fine today).

While it may not be hilarious to everyone and kinda on the tasteless side, shitposting and making jokes should not destroy your life, so never do it under your real name!

There is no rejection proof because nothing is guaranteed in life. To be able to 100% guarantee something means to be perfect at something. Nobody is perfect at anything, perfection is only associated with godhood because it is realistically unobtainable.

How can a person “rejection-proof” their life?

Stop living it.

How could one set up their life such that it would be impossible for people like that to rob one of their livelihood? How could one make it impossible for others to shun or ostracize them?

You could probably go into the woods and live alone for a while. Pollution would reach you eventually, but as long as you’re good at hunting, butchering, and cooking meat, you could last until your garden starts producing. If you have money now, you probably want to spend it on a cabin and a whole lot of non-perishable food and a wood-burning stove and as much buy-it-for-life cookwear as you can get. Your mattress will eventually break, but oh well.

If this answer sounds ridiculous, I want you to take that to heart. Your question is just as ridiculous. If you’re going to be a part of society, society might reject you. Just be as decent a person as you can be and hope people appreciate you.

Don’t.

If you’re worried about being cancelled, the only thing you have to worry about is not being a cunt to people.

Decent people don’t get cancelled just because some Karen had a bad day, at most they’ll get some fairly minor Twitter bullshit that dies out fairly quickly, or there will be some unhinged motherfucker in your inbox that no one wants to back (feel free to call the cops on those).

What truly damns the people that get cancelled are their own actions, not some Karen with an overinflated sense of self importance. Their attempts to cancel people usually backfire because they think they have a cult of personality behind them, when what they really have are a bunch of people just getting entertained.

If you say something that gets misconstrued, explain yourself politely, understanding how this mixup could have happened. Those that are reasonable will back off, and those that still keep going just look unreasonable and not someone you’d want to back.

Serious question for you OP and I ask it in a spirit of… possible solidarity? Anyway: I tend to word things clumsily, flub delicate social situations, and just generally put my foot in my mouth at the worst possible time. It’s worse in high pressure situations. Are you like this too, and if so, do you worry a lot about unintentionally sabotaging your livelihood or relationships?

Have those examples even happened? I’m still not sure what cancellation involves and how long you need to be in that state before it counts as cancellation.

The internet told me Louis CK was cancelled, but he won a Grammy last year. Kevin Spacey has been cast in movies this year. JK Rowling is still publishing books.

How could one make it impossible for others to shun or ostracize them?

When you figure it out you can sell it to Elon Musk for billions.

How could one set up their life such that it would be impossible for people like that to rob one of their livelihood?

You can’t. As long as you live and breathe, no matter how bad your life is, there’s always some jerk looking to make it even worse. It’s one of my many reasons to not have children.

You can’t. Furthermore, the consequences of “people pleasing” and “conflict avoidance” can do far more damage than the occasional bad rep. In fact, if you’re consistent about setting and enforcing reasonable boundaries, you’ll ultimately gain more respect in the long run.