If you feel really powerless, "cancel culture" can feel empowering bc it gives you the socially accepted green light to hurt someone else, especially someone you perceive as having more power and visibility than you.

But that was also the same motivation behind gamergate.

— abolish the presidency (@girlziplocked) September 26, 2019

Cancel culture is the misapplication of little power to a problem insoluble with the means at hand, but it’s the only means many people have. I have some sympathy, but not much, because it harms the discourse, mostly, and causes a venal sort of bloodlust which never results in anything good or noble.