Photo Credit: Markus Winkler
A new study delves into why fans separate the art from the artist in some instances but not others in the era of widespread social media engagement.
A new Cornell study on so-called “cancel culture” has found that music streaming platforms like Spotify hold tremendous swaying power over whether fans listen to a given artist, while social media boycotts have far less impact. Instead, the clearest declines appeared when streaming platforms reduced visibility by changing playlists or recommendations.
Professor Jura Liaukonyte at the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business and co-authors analyzed several high-profile controversies, including those involving R. Kelly, Morgan Wallen, and Sean “Diddy” Combs.
Published on April 13 in the Journal of Marketing Research, the paper’s co-authors are Daniel Winkler, a former visiting doctoral student at Cornell who is now a post-doctoral researcher at the University of New South Wales; and Nils Wlömert, a professor at the WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
The study, “Separating the Artist from the Art: Social Media Boycotts, Platform Sanctions, and Music Consumption,” found no evidence that public backlash against artist controversies led to sustained declines in streaming demand, as long as DSPs maintained the visibility of those artists’ music. In fact, in several cases, scandal-related attention actually coincided with short-term increases in streams.
“Our findings underscore the growing power of streaming platforms as cultural intermediaries,” said Liaukonyte. “While fans and activists may frame cancellation as a consumer-driven boycott, the economic consequences in our setting hinged on a specific set of editorial and algorithmic decisions by Spotify—highlighting more broadly how much power streaming platforms can wield over an artist’s visibility and income.”
The most stark example in the study is R. Kelly, whose career was plagued by renewed attention to allegations and criminal convictions of child sexual abuse in 2021 and 2022. Social media campaigns such as #MuteRKelly called on companies and listeners alike to stop listening to the R&B singer’s music. Though many assumed that fans weren’t listening to Kelly’s music in protest, the study found that the data told a different story.
The researchers used Twitter to document the scope, duration, and timeline of more than 11 million posts related to R. Kelly and the #MuteRKelly campaign. Notably, Spotify took action in response to the campaign and removed Kelly’s songs from official playlists and curated recommendations in 2018. That coincided with the most sustained drop in R. Kelly streams during the two-year period.
The study found that the broader decline in R. Kelly streams equated to approximately $3.2 to $4.2 million in revenue loss for the artist in the U.S. alone.
“Our research suggests that the drop in R. Kelly’s streams was driven primarily by reduced platform visibility after Spotify removed some of his music from playlists and recommendations. For songs that were not removed from Spotify-curated playlists, we found no evidence of a comparable pullback in intentional listening,” said Liaukonyte. “In other words, consumption dropped not because listener preferences suddenly changed, but because the platform’s discovery tools made it harder for listeners to encounter R. Kelly’s music.”
By contrast, artists like Morgan Wallen, Rammstein, and Diddy saw social media condemnation and widespread press coverage over their respective scandals—but major streaming platforms largely kept the artists’ music in playlists and recommendations. As a result, no sustained drop in streaming demand took place, and in some cases, listening remained flat or even increased over time. That suggests that “moral outrage” without structural changes to visibility does not meaningfully alter listener behavior, at least on streaming services.
Overall, the study argues that public pressure campaigns may influence corporate policies, but rarely change mass listening behavior on their own.
