Percy Hynes White and the Danger of Cancel Culture: Part 1 — EXPLAINER

Percy Hynes White from Netflix’s Wednesday confirmed he was falsely accused of sexual crimes but Cancel Culture is still out to destroy him.

Percy Hynes White. Image by Xavier Collin / Image Press Agency / Deposit Photos

Can you imagine being a man accused of rape and sexual assault and then finding out that you don’t know, have never met, and certainly have never even touched the lady who’s accusing you of this heinous crime?

You think you should ignore this, and it’ll all go away. Except it doesn’t. Instead, more and more accusations are thrown your way, many of which have nothing whatsoever to do with this lady’s allegations. And soon, people are hating you for what they think they heard that you possibly probably did but they aren’t completely sure about.

And it’s not just passive hate that these haters carry. It’s a vengeful type of hate that makes them harass your family, your colleagues, and your friends with offensive and horrific phrases that are meant to tear you apart. They also find your socials and ruthlessly make up accounts with disparaging words aimed at your parents and loved ones so that the hurt is now personal to you.

And then there are the death threats and the “kill yourself” posts, along with deliberate distortion of your parents’ attempt to defend you online so that it fits the wicked narrative they are determined to carry about you into the world.

Hate has a funny way of unifying people, who are looking for something, anything, anyone to hate. And at times, this unification can turn into a powerful mob of destruction. Can you imagine if such a terrifying mob has you as their target — all because some stranger decided to falsely accuse you of rape and sexual assault?

This is exactly what happened to Percy Hynes White, the 21-year old Canadian actor of Netflix’s hit show Wednesday, who started facing some serious allegations on January 19th 2023 (UTC/GMT) on the Twitter platform.

Percy Hynes White has finally put out a statement denying these allegations on June 7th 2023 (UTC/GMT). However within that space of 5 months, between January and June this year, White’s sexual assault accusations spread from the Twitterverse into the general Internet Sphere, along with added allegations of misbehaviour that ranged from ‘racism’ to ‘misogyny’ to ‘come on, really?!’.

This has turned White’s case into a multi-layered state of affairs, that upon peeling back, reveals the undeniable crisis of an uncheckable and unwieldy Cancel Culture.

EXPLAINER:

How it all Started? Aries and Jane

On January 19th 2023 (UTC/GMT), someone called Aries (with the previous Twitter handle @Milkievich that she has recently changed to @Nyxslover) wrote a post accusing White of being a sexual predator since he was 15. Aries claimed that he would abuse and manipulate girls into giving him nude photos or into having sex with him. Then from the ages of 17–20, White would throw parties in his basement, where he would get girls drunk and drugged, in order to sleep with them.

Aries continued with exertions that White had assaulted her too, along with her friends which included a girl called Jane. Aries said Jane was underaged at the time, insinuating that White had committed statutory rape.

She ended by saying White has rape allegations, and that he also shared nude photos of girls online.

The defining problem with all of this? White doesn’t even know his accuser, Aries.

According to White’s statement on June 7th (UTC/GMT) he has never met Aries @ Milkievich/Nyxslover. His statement reads in part, “Earlier this year, somebody I’ve never met started a campaign of misinformation about me online. Because of this, my family has been doxxed, and my friends have received death threats.”

Percy Hynes White’s mother, Sherry White, a Canadian television writer-producer, also confirmed in a tweet on June 4th that said, “these false rumours were started by a girl he’s never met”, referring to Aries and her son Percy Hynes White respectively.

Jane, the alleged statutory rape victim of White’s, also released a statement on June 7th via her Instagram account that partially read, “To my knowledge, Aries has never interacted with, or even been in the same room as Percy [White]”.

Jane went on to say that “any idea that I was mistreated, groomed, coerced or otherwise made to feel uncomfortable is false. Percy [White] is my friend, and has only ever made me feel safe.”

Hence it can be concluded that White never raped Jane, and neither could he have assaulted Aries as he’s never met her.

Non-Victims Galore

When Aries released her tweets in January of 2023, where she accused White of assault and rape, some other ladies jumped onto Aries’ bandwagon, and threw their accusations into the ring, implying that they too were White’s victims of assault.

They weren’t.

We contacted Aries, Karis, Desiree and Kayla, all of whom didn’t respond.

Below is a brief summary about their stance in this case:

1. Karis

Karis provided a screen shot of a partial conversation she had with White that in part read, “I felt like you made me think we were actually together but to you it didn’t mean anything. Those are the main things that really really hurt me” to which White admitted that he played with her feelings, that he’d never do something like that now, and apologised to her.

Nothing in her dialogue with White said anything about an assault.

2. Desiree

Desiree made posts saying that Percy Hynes White, “let me get raped in his basement”. She also provided a screen shot of a conversation she had with White where she named a person called R, whom she said raped her and she wanted White’s help in getting R to admit to this. White then replied that it was a delicate situation and he needed to hear all sides.

Nothing in her conversation with White proves he had anything to do with her alleged rape by R.

On May 28th, mom S.White answered some questions on Twitter about R. She clarified that he was a tenant in an apartment that was situated in her basement. Her son Percy Hynes White was not even living in that house when the supposed rape happened. S.White also said that R was never convicted or charged, and might not even have been reported to the police.

She also had this to say in a tweet regarding Desiree: “She certainly lied. She claimed to also have been a victim of Percy [White]. She made it seem like Percy [White] was present when this alleged [rape] incident happened when in fact it was when he no longer lived in that house. She weighed in to purposefully get him canceled [sic], out of spite.”

Desiree vacillated between claims of being a victim of White’s and not being one, finally landing on proclaiming that despite being a victim of White’s friend R, she held White as responsible for her rape by being “an enabler and manipulator” because he didn’t believe her over R.

It’s vital we keep in mind that in the event of he-said-she-said situations, a third party such as White is not obligated to automatically believe the lady is a victim, just because of her gender.

3. Kayla

Kayla is friends with Karis and Desiree. She entered the conversation in an attempt to back up her friends’ false accusations of rape/assault. In her screen shot of her message to White, she told him to contact her so they could discuss how to proceed. White never replied.

In addition to the 3 bandwagon hitchers above, an array of ‘witnesses’ came forth with names such as Jo, Daisey and SFM-Josh amongst others, who claimed that they knew girls who were manipulated and abused by White. Jo also claimed that she knew someone who tried to take him to court years earlier when he was in the American TV show The Gifted (2017/18) but nothing was done about it.

However no specific names of ‘victims’ were ever mentioned, and the actual supposed ‘victims’ never came forward to verify these claims that White had actually raped/assaulted them.

In essence, everyone mentioned above were conveniently talking about nameless and faceless people who were supposedly victims of Percy Hynes White’s (eg. “my girlfriend’s ex”, “my classmates” etc), but no direct victim ever showed up to actually claim this position.

It is worthwhile to note that there were two different entertainment reporters (one being from Rolling Stone mag) who tried contacting a couple of the above mentioned accusers, but subsequently nothing appeared in the media.

We also contacted Jo, Daisey and Josh, along with Aries, Karis, Desiree and Kayla, but never got any response from any of them.

Libel as Crime in Canada

Incidentally, some countries view defamation as tort or a civil matter but Canada is one of those countries that has malicious libel as a criminal activity, with an attached prison sentence of up to 5 years. And the world right now isn’t so accepting of women who lie about rape and sexual assault as more and more of such astonishing cases come to the forefront.

In the event the accusers above are challenged to a defamation police investigation or law suit, they will have to produce these ‘victims’ they claim to know.

In a recent exchange Desiree had with a White-fan recently, Desiree wrote, “I’m a victim of Percy’s [White’s] friends. Not of Percy [White]. But I will hold him accountable for what hundreds of girls are telling me.”

It might not be easy to produce hundreds of victims in court or the police station, when not even one has been named and identified.

Blast from the Past: More (Questionable) Accusations

Amongst the questionable evidence White’s haters and cancellers brought onto social media to prove he deserves to be taken off his show, is a video clip that was meant to show White as racist. White is seen on his phone camera, saying some lines from a script, that includes a racial epithet. However, the clip was clearly made by White in his trailer, while he was rehearsing lines from the TV show Them, where he played a racist antagonist.

More dubious evidence include a random video taken off social media, that doesn’t belong to White and doesn’t even show him in the video itself, that his haters claim is proof of his wild ‘assault’ parties.

Likewise a snapshot of White being arrested was falsely and presumptuously attributed to his sex parties. His mother S.White confirmed he was arrested as a teenager for graffiti, because he wrote on the step of a pizza parlour. He was let go, with no charges laid.

She also said he did have parties, however they were not of the nature described by his cancellers.

White’s haters also scoured his deleted Twitter account (handle: @Impercenator) along with his current Instagram account (handle: @Percy), and proceeded to post screen shots of where White liked or commented about certain images/posts which the cancellers decided were ‘racist’, ‘nazi affirming’, ‘homophobic’, ‘misogynistic’ and ‘paedophilic’ in nature. The posts, photos and images, which were not directly written/posted by White, are in fact open to a multitude of interpretation. And most reasonable people will not see anything wrong with them.

Although, one of White’s self-written tweets does appear to be at the very least slightly blasphemous. And other tweets he wrote seem troubling and capricious, where he refers to women degradingly as ‘bitches’ and ‘hoes’, but then counters that with posts defending women and our rights. A query to White’s reps about this went unanswered.

Child Porn as Possible Revenge

Two sets of photos showing White in the nude were conveniently leaked on Instagram, and the link was sent to some Twitter fans of White’s. One set was shot when he was 13 years old and the other set when he was 17 years old.

His mother S.White made her first post on Twitter regarding this on May 6th, where she explicitly explained that the photos of White at 17 were ones he had shared privately in a group chat, and the shots of her son at 13 were when he was catfished and those images were brought to S.White’s attention by the police because the photos were discovered in a case of child pornography.

S.White tweeted, “[The photos] were removed by the police and have resurfaced in these recent months and despite numerous reports and complaints twitter has not removed them, so I’m going to have to get the police involved in order to remove them.”. It is not known if the police was involved this time.

Aries, Karis, Desiree and Kayla disappeared from Twitter overnight with S.White’s mention of the police. (Karis and Aries have since returned to Twitter.)

Fallout 1 — Comic Con Liverpool

White stopped posting on his Instagram account, and deleted his previous Twitter account, very shortly after the accusations began in January.

Netflix has renewed Wednesday for a second season, however they have remained silent on the White matter. Furthermore the streamer has not released a confirmed cast list for season 2, which is rumoured to start production at the end of 2023.

For the last few months since January, White has remained quiet and under the radar.

Then, Comic Con Liverpool added White to its guest list on May 17th, and within hours, hateful and denigrating comments appeared under the announcement, both on Twitter and Facebook.

The organisers, Monopoly Events, were forced to suspend ticket sales for White’s appearance, promising to resume sales once his statement was made. White’s statement was released on June 7th, however his ticket sales still remained suspended.

The organiser was asked why ticket sales were stopped, and they replied via email that, “It is due to current controversies he [White] faces”. When queried further as to what’s the current status on his ticket sales, they said “We are still awaiting a decision regarding this, however, if he [White] no longer attends then you [ticket buyers] will be fully refunded automatically.” They also said to keep an eye on their socials for updates about White’s attendance.

Then on 17th July, the organisers responded over messaging services that White will no longer be a part of their event.

Percy Hynes White at the World Premiere Of Netflix’s ‘Wednesday’ Season 1 held at the Hollywood American Legion Post 43 at Hollywood Legion Theater on November 16, 2022 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, United States. (Photo by Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Deposit Photos)

The Jenna Ortega Fanbase Theory

Adding to this mix, is a theory that White’s Wednesday co-star Jenna Ortega’s fanbase isn’t happy with White and Ortega’s close friendship off camera, and would rather Ortega have a relationship, romantic or otherwise, with her other Wednesday costar Emma Myers who plays Enid in the show. The alleged sexual accusations against White provided the perfect avenue for Ortega’s fanbase to publicly hate on White even more, and many jumped at this opportunity.

Testing this theory, I sampled random comments from the Comic Con Liverpool’s Twitter account, under the post announcing White’s appearance. There were 2 posts, across which I sampled. One post was the announcement itself, and the other post read as follows: “We were given multiple reassurances before making this announcement. To our knowledge the actor [White] has not been removed from Wednesday.”

Both posts garnered slightly more than 1000 direct comments altogether. I sampled 80 of these comments to both posts, in order to get an understanding of who these people were who hated on White.

Out of the 80 samples, my findings showed:

35 (43.75%) were indeed Ortega/Myers fans who either had #CancelPercy as their hashtags or whose twitter timeline were filled with anti-White posts.

16 (20%) were what seemed like people who heard about White’s accusations and believed he was guilty, but weren’t necessarily fans of Ortega/Myers/Wednesday.

29 (36.25%) were fans of White who were not only excited about his appearance, but who also defended him against the 63.75% negative commenters.

However, when I sampled 30 out of the little over 1000 people who had quoted-and-retweeted the announcements with their own comments, an action that is referred to within Twitterverse as ‘QRT’, I found rather different statistics:

21 (70%) were people who knew of White’s accusations and believed he was guilty, but weren’t ardent Ortega/Myers/Wednesday fans.

5 (16.67%) were Ortega/Myers fans, whose timeline were filled with anti-White posts.

4 (13.33%) were fans of White defending him.

Therefore as wild a theory as it is, the sampling statistics prove that a large part of White’s cancellers and haters are indeed Ortega/Myers fans who have a deep disdain for him.

However, an even larger part of those anti-White people might be just ones who’ve heard about his allegations and believe he’s guilty, with little to no interest in Ortega/Myers/Wednesday.

Either way, White’s hate campaign and/or shaky reputation seems to have gotten him off this Comic Con event in Liverpool, and that’s very unfortunate.

Fallout 2 — The Emmy nominations

On July 13th (UTC/GMT), Netflix’s Wednesday along with Ortega were nominated for the upcoming Emmy Awards. In a few hours, on Netflix-Wednesday’s Instagram account, about 1500 comments proliferated under the post announcing the show’s remarkable 12 nominations.

A sampling of the first 100 comments showed that 51 comments carried the #CancelPercy tag or were against White. These comments were liked by the most number of people and therefore appeared at the top.

White was not tagged to that Instagram post, but the rest of the major cast were tagged initially by the Streamer.

Reputation and Public Image

It’s been more than a month since White’s statement in June, and his haters and cancellers haven’t given up taunting Netflix/Wednesday’s Producers to fire him, and making their presence known anywhere with which the actor is associated. The influx of disapproving comments on the recent Wednesday Emmy-nomination post and Comic Con Liverpool’s announcements are examples of how the hate for White is still abundant.

With Wednesday’s international success on the Netflix platform, White’s accusations have been heard all around the world, thanks to the internet that carried and ran with the original misinformation and gossip. Also his 5 months of silence didn’t help matters. It is safe to say that White’s public image and reputation have taken a beating and the optics surrounding him aren’t peachy.

Were there missteps in how Percy Hynes White and his reps handled the false accusations? Are there experts and solutions that White and his family can turn to now? Click here for Part 2 to find out more.