wokelash

Noun

wokelash (plural wokelashes)

1. A backlash against media, speech, etc. deemed inconsistent with social justice principles, or viewed as perpetuating unwoke or reactionary ideas.
   • A “wokelash”, I called it, a backlash designed to denounce Friends’s ageing values. I was scathing about this wokelash at first: all those youngsters raising their voices in condemnation, so confident that the things they thought and said, felt and believed wouldn't seem preposterously outdated 25...2019 September 12, Polly Vernon, “I watched it at 22. I'm still watching it: Friends is the most-streamed show on Netflix, its jokes shared by today's teens”, in The Times, London, page 2
   • His unguarded remarks about the state of comedy inspired a huge wokelash.2019 October 4, Kyle Smith, “The Mob vs. Joker’s Director”, in National Review
2. A backlash against or mass rejection of wokeness, or of media, policies, etc. deemed woke or politically correct.
   • There is a solid demographic of people who are fed up with what they see as increasingly rigid progressive ideals who feel clamped by the modern liberal consensus. […] Liberal ideals are being subjected to a wokelash, and telling people what they should and shouldn’t culturally consume is not going...2020 January 31, Catriona Stewart, “TV awards illustrate backlash against woke cultural snobs”, in The Herald, Glasgow, page 21
   • Some centrist Democrats today say “woke” politics have gone too far and provoked the “wokelash” (causing Democrats to lose elections in 2021).2021 November 30, Ibram X. Kendi, “TV awards illustrate backlash against woke cultural snobs”, in The Atlantic