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Gabriela de Santa Rosa Thorpe

Cancel Culture Comebacks: How Celebrities and Influencers Strategically Recover from Public Backlash

Biography

Gabriela de Santa Rosa Thorpe is completing a Bachelor of Arts in Professional Communication at Toronto Metropolitan University, with a minor in Public Relations. She has a strong interest in strategic storytelling, digital culture, and how communication shapes public narratives across industries. Her capstone project, which analyses how public figures and brands navigate cancel culture to rebuild trust, emerged from that very interest – combining her passion for media strategy and crisis communication with a curiosity for how narratives are built and sustained. With hands-on experience in PR, documentary production, and social media management, Gabriela approaches every project with creativity, attention to detail, and a drive to understand how and why communication strategies succeed.

Details of Project

Public backlash in the digital age doesn’t always mark the end of an influencer or celebrity’s career. This research explores how high-profile individuals strategically recover from cancel culture through long-term communication efforts. While much of the existing literature focuses on immediate apologies or short-term fallout, this study aims to identify what actually works over time to rebuild reputation, regain visibility, and reconnect with an audience. By examining eight case studies across influencers and celebrities, the research identifies key themes such as platform shifts, narrative redirection, entrepreneurial reinvention, and strategic silence. A mixed-method approach was used, combining thematic analysis with quantitative metrics like engagement rates and media visibility. This project contributes to ongoing conversations in crisis communication, social media strategy, and digital storytelling, highlighting how recovery in the public eye often depends less on forgiveness, and more on reinvention.

Lightning talk

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